at my fingertips

the world
is at my fingertips
these nerve laden digits
feel the tiniest prick
or smooth surface
on a table top
the tips that in a minute
grow numb
when it's cold

there are days
when fingers wiggle
seeking out the world
and others when
my figertips get tired
and want to run
far away; live alone
maybe in a cave
do the basics
clean under the nail
push back cuticle
trace a groove
in the cold stone floor

easy place to hide

i am standing
behind a skinny tree
out here in the open
my body pokes out
tree too small
to hide me

i read the news
from around the globe
while sitting at a screen
adjusting my posture
blinking and squinting
at the same story

killed
---school
-------boy
----guns
dead

i hide in headlines
sticking out from behind
wonder if i can be seen
but not caring
sometimes i want to be found
and pick
an easy place to hide

easy place to hide- edit

i am standing
behind a skinny tree
only thing on the horizon
my body pokes out
exposed and in the open

i read the news
from around the globe
seeing the same story
adjusting my posture
sitting at the screen
blinking and squinting

killing spree
schoolboy
dead

i hide in headlines
skicking out from behind
wonder if i can be see
but not caring
sometimes i want to be found
and pick
an easy place to hide

a name to fear

phobias
are some latin word
or maybe greek
translated to mean
a fear of x

when i take a moment
to think about the feeling
of standing near of cliff,
finding a scorpion in my boot,
ants covering my flesh,
there is a sensation
but i wouldn't call it fear

fear is a driving force
a fight or flight
or collapse
knowing you can run
as far as it takes
break through anything
lash out unwittingly
or that ashen face hollowness
a statue retreat, gone

fear is the things we don't talk about
a love violated by dirty hands
in the dark somewhere screaming

is running down the street powerless
airplanes streaking and the sounds
of things falling, booms loud enough
to assume that someone died
any second you might be next

fear is power taken away
nothing left to replace it

i am willing to presume
that fear is little felt
among any with the time
to read this
wonder
would that be
agoraphobia or hypophobia

ambuscade

i shuffled in
like usual
closed the stall door
pulled down my pants
felt the chill
on my bum
and heard something funny

there was the quiet pausing
of phone conversation
from the only other stall
in the restroom

my hell in a handbasket
old man cranky
kicked in my thoughts
i stopped and listened
to insignificant mutterings
thought about jokes
i could play by making
load and echoing noises

i just sat smiling
doing my business
pondering technology
and excretion
another first
here on the crapper

new love poem

its hard to write a new love poem
but here's another
just like all the rest
we're at this tiny beach
she and i

can't remember
if its sunny, but it's way too cold
to swim
what i'm doing is
sifting through sand
finding little pebbles
smaller and smaller
with each one
i put it in the palm
and point
saying, what about this one

she nods, or something
and then i flick the tiny stone
the size of lentil, a grapenut, a flax seed,
and then a large grain of sand
we lose it as it zooms
in a small fantastic arc
human eyes with limits
she and i look out across water

before it breaks the surface
there is silence
when we both hold our breath

the stone slips into water
like a tiny blip on our radar
we see it's minute splash
here's the thing we were guessing
each broke our silence
with the tiniest sound

i turned to her with a smile
she shrugged and i sifted another
couln't wait for our silence
once more

secrets of seperate lives

it must have been
sometime in the middle of the night
stuck somewhere inbetween
hours of the talking
that can be done in the middle of the night
and probably passonate kisses
where whether eyes were open
or closed you saw the same thing
your love, up close, loving you too

it must have been
a little aprehensive
because no one's ever asked
like that, to know what i'm thinking

and so i told my love
how my mind translates
the world around me
how it slips away
to find a memory
in the thunder cloud
of nervous impulses

i told her about
leap-frog thoughts
and little details
like guessing the time
it takes for my arm
to fall asleep under her head

how thoughts can nosedive
and tailspin
submerge and disappear
sink down and divebomb
places like my heart chamber
and stomach wall
my finger tips
and spinal column

i told her things i thought about
as my eyes wandered her body
like they were lost and thirsty
in the grandest desert
tracing the lines of gentle dunes
the ripples and curves
sloping rises, falls
running her clavicle like it was an esker
conversely she's my fluid
her movements like the flowing of water
shoulder, smooth as stone shaped by stream

and she listened with the care
of a blind man
taking steps over unfamiliar ground
listened to details striped by darkness
runons and poetic fragments
the secrets of seperate lives

her eyes blinked in almost silence
saying their blue grey thank you
her lips pressed close on my forehead
she's the only one i share this with

it must have been
something about her
for my mind to open like this