This Is a Poem I Wrote, If You Wanted To Know What Was New With Me.

let me explain
what I mean when I say
that I feel these days like I have found my voice,
or a voice that could be
mine, for now.

the way in which these things are said
gives me great comfort
a feeling of well-being
because something is wrong
inside my brain
that causes me to feel this way.

I have images still,
and know about the crumpled flyer
for the happy hour special
with the chewing gun wadded inside its folds
resting between two rails
on the gutter
grate
in the lamp-light that hums
loud enough to hear from one block away

it is impossible
that I have forgotten
the sound of the water as it moves under the rocks
and over the rocks
past low hanging trees
bowing down to dip their branches in
and cool their trunks

all of this remains,
but it is like
a tightly wound box now
and it is harder to find space
for such large pieces

From the Weapons Department of My Heart

I am writing a completely new poem now
and it is unlike any that you have read
for a number of reasons including
but not limited to the fact that
upon reading this poem you have fallen
hopelessly in love with me.

Apparently it was all a question
of intention, the force of willpower
and my poem is stretched like a skin
across the drum-head, and you
getting close enough to read it
are surprised when I burst through.

Having taken up in both hands now
every sweet thing I would have told you
since the moment that we met,
I have loaded this poem like a cannon,
and surely when the fuse reaches the
emotions it will explode outwards
and leave a hole in your chest,
with the light shining through
where your heart used to be.

A Relatively Short Poem About a Long Distance

what is this new softness, as fingertips search
for the seam between then and here.

Dense and wooded, the distance between us, farther than
the most distant mountain I can see from my rooftop.

I cannot imagine how we have arrived here, me
who can imagine anything, and you, of whom I’ve dreamed.

Can you hope for an opening of the earth, like a sinkhole
that closes itself, bringing your house next to mine?

Then of course we would be neighbors, and you would be
the girl next door, and I? Silly boy, frozen in my yard.