muse on holiday

are these silent fingers waiting
     for louder songs?
more somber, sullen, searing, or soaring notes?

does the earth spin too quietly
to overcome the volume of Lovers?

is Lover the louder profession
quieting once raucous hands
that would scrawl sentence murals
even in their sleep?

the insomnia is gone.
the sleep makes its sound.
the words are fewer
     and farther between.





wb

the dead of winter

this leaf is rotten and arcane

last year's model
yields yellow
then lets go

a slow motion tumble
to be tomorrow's martyr

delicate ribs and
green flesh, bled to red,
decay
for the benefit of branches
with room to grow
and energy to turn a new leaf




wb

and yet, i love the sound of church bells

i am arrogant:

  enough to repeat my
  sunday school questions
  because
  "because"
  has never achieved satiety
  in my belly

  in hidden ways
  since
  arrogance is always insecurity's sorcery

i hide this
in a cedar chest
unfold it
for the wrong kind of company
though
it's not large enough
to blanket myself
and this mess around me
into something so right

only a perfect creator could be blamed

i do suppose
it's possible
but the probability,
given the evidence leaning against me,
says:
 statistically unlikely
      maybe,
            nothing more than the

accidental art of gravity

after all,
  someone suggested to me
    that

gravity is love

and
that made too much sense
not to be
at least partially true
and
if i am nothing
      greater than

the accidental art of love

            that's enough for me



wb