Archer

All the world was slanting

Slanting hard for gold

Confident, diagonal,

But I have arched

Of all the things I could have done

I arched

They were targeting the sun

Made it at least up to the moon

But I found just another hole in the ground

Because I arched

My throat was parched

The night was dark

I could bear to stretch no more

Forgive me while you gravitate

Toward what is glittering and scintillating  

Another mirage to me

Who finds only craters here

Where I have arched

The Moving Mountain

I’ve been standing on the moving mountain

Trying to look out to the sea

Watching these clouds all swell up and remain

Watching them gather round me

I’ve been standing on the moving mountain

Gazing out at the miracle shore

So far in the distance, but this mountain keeps moving

Along with all that I’ve ever fought for

            One day I’ll go down in the valley

            I’ll find people who pray just like me

            But I’m here all alone at the top of the mountain

            There is no other place I can be

I’ve been standing on the moving mountain

Watching kingdoms and governments fall

Waiting for someone to sweep me from sadness

While keeping an eye on it all

            One day I’ll go down in the valley

            I’ll find people who pray just like me

            But I’m here all alone at the top of the mountain

            There is no other place I can be

Shoot

The shooting at the school is now a package

Wreaths, memorials, and captions

24-hour entertainment, reality TV

Oscar in waiting

Just in time for Christmas

With talking anchormen

The gun or TV industry

Which is sicker

I cannot decide

Do You Follow

I follow my eyes

And my eyes lead me nowhere

A vast expanse of gray and disease

I have seen hundreds or thousands of these

Like clouds always moving without soul, without cause

Alighting wherever they please

I long for the softness of something still and not aimless

Something holding what I have released

It comes in the shadows, it flees between breaths,

Between whispers of rivers and leaves

School This Morning

I went to school this morning

Ushered in by angels

Placed my hand over my heart

Saluted while a river was running

Question word reverberating 

No hands upon the clock

There were no bibles only storybooks

No weeping only smiles

Love like a blanket covered these hills

Green and rolling out my life

Will thrills on every page

And monsters rainbow colored

A river swiftly running

And no hands upon the clock

Amid the sands of time

Something hooked and horrid took hold

Someone running

Someone running out

Darkness came, a jackal

A jackal lucid in the night

A smile from a cage of tombs

A river swiftly running

Someone running out of blood

Someone turning off a light

I went to school this morning

Beautiful things turned into tar

A star fell into the vortex

A river running out

I went to school this morning

And all history gushed out

Smile

Dogs do not smile

At pictures of other dogs

Nor plants at images of plants

We in the sea

See something sublime and infantile

In the passing of fish

That show teeth like ours

As we swim continuously toward

Irrelevance 

City of Ghosts

The church bell rings hollow and loud

Across the city streets

A gust of wind comes up to hug

Anyone it meets

            Once there was a love for me,

            A love for me, almost

            All swallowed up in time for me,

            Here in the city of ghosts

I knew the avenues by name

The signs swing in gaslight

Holmes and Watson cast their shadows

Deep into the night

            Once there was a love for me,

            A love for me, almost

            All swallowed up in time for me,

            Here in the city of ghosts

Trees and spires pierce the sky

Underneath the crescent moon

Specters climbing to the stars

Will find each other soon

            Once there was a love for me,

            A love for me, almost

            All swallowed up in time for me,

            Here in the city of ghosts