Not Knowing

You are reasonably beautiful.
That I intend as a warning.
I'm deceptive as water and sun.
Behind MEN AT WORK signs
I dig myself into a...hole
where dying desires still lurk
like yawning reasonless hopes.
It's safe to die not knowing.

In the Snow

In the spring why
must we die?
I think
we were made
out of snow.
Moments preserved
in every flake
of every mold.

Memories melt.
Insensitive sun.
In the slush
sinking....Who's who
in the ocean?
I'm palpable me
A frozen smile
in the snow.

Centillion Ways to Die

Hospital, hospice, laid in bed,
On freezing streets, in fancy rooms.
In timeless spaces, sunless skies,
Cubicles, prison cells...and tombs. 
In front of judges, parents, kids,
Audience—friend or strange—their eyes
Still staring from behind the lids
That speak the feelings left unsaid. 
With prayers, with grating cries, with sighs.
Unseen, unknown; unloved, unwed....
By force or will, with guns.  In wombs
Of girls whose souls have parted too.
Kisses on cheeks and pale foreheads,
Holding of hands, and swallowed tears,
With lonely aches and greedy fears.
Mystery, grief...then peace one year,
as pain searches, with wings unspread,
for warm and kind suffering peers
to help release the inner dead.

Safe in the Face of Visions of the Wild

May you one day be born and live and die 
inside a cherished flesh and soul and mind,   
in loving places too, in loving times,
while safely facing wildest of the sights;  
for life's a grand adventure, too the sun,
the seeing eyeball of the pirate who 
adorned in azure, swings his sword of lights 
at times with loudest of the roars
that daily spies your unarmed morning bed 
and yet you sail waves of drama unharmed.