Again and again (ghazal version)

As light as hammocks we rock, you near me, stranger

The bones drinking skin like water, you fear me, stranger

Again and again we breathe hard ragged air not the same

You watch the overheard sweetness sear me, stranger

Little girl, skirted man, bearded strummer, dreamer on canvas,

You are legion, your wings and your wild patterns steer me, stranger

As simple as steps on a mopped wooden floor in the night

As old as the secrets that mock and jeer me, stranger

These words my smoke rings your night dreams tomorrow the signal

It stabs a weird rightness when somehow you hear me, stranger

again and again it is almost

again and again it is almost

again and again it is wanting

again and again it is hope

again and again it is dancing as light as hammocks, deep as couches, hungry as groaning old pianos

your colors are not my colors your mouth not my mouth your language not mine we just sound the same look the same waltz the same stranger

the beat I missed is where? oh there in my oh, bones

I eat your cake you eat my rat poison and it is equally sweet

I drink your skin you drink my mojo and they are equally monstrous

I crave your knowledge you crave my cluelessness stranger stranger stranger

again and again old umbrellas lost

again and again blankets, swamps

again and again refuge, thunder, shouting in the desert

your decades are not my decades your dreamscape is not my pillowland your stories are ash to my flame roots to my wings whisper to my deaf deaf ear and there we were missing the go-round missing the locusts and honey missing the trumpet call how, how could we miss that when all the world is deafened?

again and again it is almost

again and again it is hope

again and again it is breath as ragged as unswept shards, singing as tuneless as love can seize, brain fever deep as wounded memory

again and again it is overheard stories, strangers are plural and speaking strange truths

again and again it is this life, that fierce maroon ache, those people, those people, those mountains of what? grabbing it with all the fists and shaking the what?

again and again it is no, yes, how, please, now, never, drink it, dance it, speak it, shout

born alive

given toes, words, milk, stories

millions of hours to navigate earth by earth

again and again it is sweetness in vinegar, life in these thorns, shouting through days

so long as we can

stranger

Ouch / Better

Words

Hit hard

Hovering in air

Brain's magic made music

Ouch

Silence

Blankets slow

Cannot touch this

But we drink it

Better

Feet / Hands

Feet

Like Mommy's

Resting high, crosskissed

After the day's pilgrimages

Dancenomore

Hands

My own

Curious to speak

Tongue-tied tangles they smooth

Everflit

Busy / Quiet

Busy / Quiet

Laptop

Brings world

Everywhere we go

Fingers quick info flying

Busy

Hammock

Rests soul

Where we breathe

Feet high gentle rock

Quiet

Lune (Millions of blues)

Lune (Millions of Blues)

You looked over our heads

So many blues

The sky behind the trees

I listened to the quiet

So many blues

The sighs behind my generations

You saw, you showed me

So many blues

Each one smudging the next

I dreamt an old song

So many blues

Worried notes climbing the hours

You said, look at that.

Millions of blues

We looked. Night was coming