Our Ghosts…

There are ghosts in this town.
They flutter about through our ears,
whispering their lives to our eyes.
Buildings, born under another sun,
creak and wilt in the new dawn.
Soldiers of history march against the time,
catching hints and clues of the secrets.
There are ghosts in this town.

Ford’s Landing…

Looking out over the valley
America stretches her arms with a yawn.
Complacent trailers lay down in ordered rows,
and beyond million dollar homes dot rich land.
A buffer of strawberry crops levees the flow from either side.
Trailers bend their creaking frames to pick
the red, sugared, jewels,
so that the ocean front property may feed.
Faded, cracked lawn chairs and pristine verandas
gaze over never-ending seas.
The varnished redwood decks
and tarnished aluminum siding
both lost in
Our Land of Opportunity.

Anything…

I’ve got this time in my mind
when she wasn’t next to me
and I wasn’t next to her
and the only thing connecting us was an open line on the phone
which was as faint as the beep…beep…beep of her heart.
And I was just trying to think of anything.
Anything that I could tell her to keep her on that line.Like how I always appreciated the way she’d joke and jab at my friends and I
but take arms against any who’d do the same.
Or that I still remember our secrets that she kept.
And I was grasping at anything,
pacing the hall — phone held tight and not letting go.

Not letting go the whisper in my voice that reached for
any straws,
anything I could grab
anything I could tell her.
To keep her on the line.

The interruptions from my mother,
asking me if I was done,
stacked like lead weights on my chest.
Telling her over and over and over again
to put the phone back by my Nana’s ear.

So she could stay on the line.

Because I was not done.
I was not done and I sure as hell wasn’t ready.

There were more things to say,
more things to do so I would have more things to say.

No! I am not done!

I know I can think of something else to say if you just
give me the time.

I’ll read you the newspaper
or the back of this cereal box
or the fine print on that “Do Not Remove” tag that’s on every god damn pillow in the universe
until I have something to say to you.

Because if I stop talking…
Then I’ll have to tell you in these lines.

Scars…

To anyone who has been scarred in their life.

From day one, the boy is scarred.
A misplaced scalpel in the operating room,
Leaves a nick upn the cheek.

A pebble thrown in anger,
Hitting the small pink line.
A toddler’s scar is widened.

A child tripped on the playground.
Trickles of red from the scar.
The scar deepens.

The words of rehection,
Thrown into a teenage face.
Scar stains a cheek red.

College denials, laid off, depression.
Each probe deep within the
Vulnerable, expanding flesh.

Her lips, blushing red,
Meet scarred flesh.
And for one moment,
The scar curls up dead.

Ashtrays…

Maligned graves never covered.
The lifeless, discarded.
Some brown, some white
pointless now that they don’t hold the fire.

Haiku…

Four lovers: two wed,
two gone. McKinley’s roses
watch. How many more?

Jack and Johnny…

Whiskey
Hot and wood-y
Flaming spirits pouring
Head shakes, forcing it down
Swallowed