Track 1

Forward, The Only Way to Go

Rusty white with a big blue stripe,

the old pickup, a pick-me-up

in the shape of a flatbed truck.

He drives fast with the music blasting,

windows cranked down because the AC never works,

or maybe just to share his music with the world.

His voice pours out the window to the beat of a drum

as the pounding music rocks and swells

and brings the old radio back to life.

It’s an adrenaline rush, that old white truck,

and the driver inside. Four wheels, one heart,

flying on a song down the old dirt road.

With the blood of a cousin, the heart

of a friend, a protector, a brother, a guardian.

Wings hidden beneath thick skin, or rusty white paint.

The heart of freedom, a crazy heart.

A heart with no direction, a truck with no map.

Windows open, open heart.

In the Snow - prismacolor pencil and whiteout on paper

The Details

Church buildings and dropped bibles and water fountains, small talk about Jesus and Kit-Kats and you stuttered over each simple word. Such a rush, between joking and fear and excitement and fear. Knots in your stomach, hope to Heaven that things happen, terrified that they won’t. Fear you can’t help but be happy in spite of, because of. You wind up on a couch with a warm arm encircling you stiff as a board because you’re so afraid of messing up you can barely dare to breathe because oh God he’s touching you and it’s just so unbelievable but then suddenly, you relax, because it feels right. Perhaps that was when I loved you, your leg against mine, sock soft against bare toes. Shared secret under the table, innocent.

Autumn

This time of year the rain turns cold.

Amber leaves rustle, threatening to fall.

Before long everything smells of golden brown.

The leaves are most striking right before they die.

They dance in the wind, wild horses with no reins,

As vibrant as a painting from the hands of Van Gogh.

The plunge starts when the will to live minus gravity equals zero.

At last the drop. A gust of wind. Finally, ground.

Once again at rest. Beauty: their last request.

Give it back, the lost color, the lost time.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood.

God, will the cycle ever end?

Gas Prices Skyrocket

He bluffed, “It’s the cheapest you’ll find a vintage sports car.”

She huffed, “It looks rather new for a vintage sports car.”

Love for the ages: soft, steady, slow, and sweet, or a

flame: fast, beautiful, and deadly, like a vintage sports car.

Pulling off her shirt she felt revealed, reviled, repulsive,

telling herself it’s not trashy if you do it in a vintage sports car.

Cherry red, blood red, red wood. Scattered under moonlight.

On the accident report they called it a vintage sports car.

Heaven forbid honesty! Hide your feelings, your secrets,

undercover. Like in the driveway, a vintage sports car.

Status symbols: a Rolex watch, a million bucks, a

yacht in the bay. Trade your wife for a vintage sports car.

The past thrown away, left to rot and not be remembered.

Left to decompose in a junkyard next to a vintage sports car.

Lost, lonely, loveless? Ditch the club, forget online dating.

One thing that can never leave you: A vintage sports car.

To escape your problems you must run far away.

My suggestion? Zero to sixty in a vintage sports car.

A gold-digging robbery! Get away with his money, his heart,

a license plate reading RAY-RAY on a vintage sports car.

To The Once Ingénue

The giver of blood and love is fragile

as it beats faint within the fold of your

broken breast. The giant’s grass of the forest

sways gently in the wind, unaware of your

selfish weight crushing the earth below.

You used to dance with grace as light as a breeze

among the blossoms of spring, but now you

have been stripped and knocked down, lying

heavy in the cold dirt of disenchanted

winter. You bury yourself in the decay of your

innocence as the rain of remorse now pours down

your cheeks. The one who did this to you feels no

regret. You let him take the silver trinkets

from your pain-streaked body and he

hung them from the bedpost that he might

admire those trophies of his conquest.

You have given up that blissful ignorance that you

once held so dear. Now you must stand alone and

face the world, for he is not there to lift you.

There is no changing what has been done.

Closure

Upon this wall I sit and watch the tide

roll in and out, affection for the sand

as indecisive as your touch. Your hand

grazes mine. Is it true we really tried?

Perhaps I missed it when you tried to hide.

Your touch lingers, and I feel it demand

a part of me that no longer can stand.

Was this love just far too long denied?

But there was something here, and it still is

alive somewhere inside our broken hearts.

This poem is far too sentimental,

And yet I feel somewhere, somehow that this

needs to be said, before we fall apart

and crash into the waves that we feel call.

Loitering

Smoke curls from the ashen tip

of a long-lit cigarette on a moonless night

The streetlamp light arcs through the rain

tiny diamonds disappearing to dust

He breathes out death, lungs burning

one more light will make it okay,

further from the end, another hour

for the pain to fade a little.

Smoke disappears like the rain in the

navy air, and yet the cool ice of her eyes

is all the more vivid in his empty mind.

Sunset Over Atlantic

The tan line on my ring finger has faded,

just another reminder of the time we’ve lost

since that day at the beach when my ring

washed away with the tide. We couldn’t afford

to replace it. Maybe I should have taken that as

a sign.