Paperwork

My besieged dove, 

oh that a thousand

origami hands 

would turn your paper flood 

into a fleet of ships 

and sail you to me.

B.F.M.

Cheers

Pedaling, pedaling

up a steeple grade, 

a crowd of lupine 

waves me on. 

Churning, churning 

against the wind, 

while a mustard field 

cheers "go-go-go."

B.F.M.

Molotov

I know fondness, desire, coupling, 

jealousy, abandonment, fear, 

a blundered icy cocktail 

with a warm and fuzzy back burn.

B.F.M.

Lute

Cavern dripping stalactites 
pooling aquamarine and black. 

Here, the pen dips into ink pots. 

Here, the wind plucks water reeds 

like a lute vexes skin, bone and chromosome.

B.F.M.

Obtaining

On the last night,

three crickets will chirp, 

and that other world...

will turn its shirt right side in.

B.F.M.

phd.fail.ed

I tried to be someone extraordinary: Jerry West. Then tried to be Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg rolled into one. Dreamed of being Robert Plant, David Bowie or David Byrne. I tried my hand at graphic and web design, then business. Fail.ed.

Being too temperamental, I was never voted most likely to succeed. Tried to be loved, but never learned how. Tried marriage, failed twice, but today sitting in my peach colored box I successfully envied the riders of the Tour de France.

B.F.M.

Pacemaker

Death came, yet 

the leaf clings

hoping tomorrow

will return.

B.F.M.

Relationship 4

Accelerating while
stepping on the brakes.

B.F.M.

Affections Come then Go

Yesterday I climbed to the top branch of the everlasting oak. Today’s sorrow the branch breaks and I come tumbling down thwacked about by each branch I triumphed yesterday.

B.F.M.

The Real and The Imagined You

The Real and The Imagined You

She, Him, Them, It

Doubt: An anchor that drags across their sandy bottom towards a shoreline cliff.

B.F.M.

Catch & Release

The flawed tics of a clock are perfect in measure, like cold creek water slipping through cupped hands.

I once had a perfect moment: a train heard miles away, tiny sparrows chirping, no dumbbells squishing my brain. Then like a slap to my head, I looked up and saw a 747 landing with its 747 anxious passages waiting to get off. 

It's the same way love turns into a dagger or yesterday's beauty veers tragic locked in a cage plucking out its own feathers.

B.F.M.

Rearranging Rooms

I watched two robins discuss the placement of a particular piece of blue yarn.

He thought it better inside than out. She thought it better lost than found.

B.F.M.

Casting Runes

What will I become 
after Autumn's last 
leaf falls?

B.F.M.

Falling Ash

I was doing nothing,suddenly
Pompeii ash everywhere.

My heart, my lungs covered and coated 
I'm unable to breathe.

B.F.M.

Crow's Song

Her sorrows racked across 
her shoulders heavy and barbed,

from his leaving and his leaving and his leaving and his leaving and his leaving...

like a crow's repeated caw stuck in a belly
burdened with stones.

B.F.M.

Craning

I worry about the crane

flying north towards 

winter's edge

the same way I worry 

about my C average self,

right half the time.

B.F.M.

I row & row

A little rower 

in his chipped blued rowboat

pushing and pulling words 

into 

and 

out of 

a barren sea’s 

slapping waves.

B.F.M.

Rough Edges

Even the barrel cactus
with its wicked hooked spines
blooms to give nectar.

B.F.M.

Mirror Mirror

Out of the horror – the mirror darkly –
no Phoenix, nor Lazarus will rise,
instead
slithering shadows 
that should crawl not walk.

B.F.M.