Beauty

A geometric plane
Hill, rock, tree, blade
Working on memory
It purveys me
Large, looming
I'm unaware
It's looking at me
Preying on me
Drawing me in
Distracting me
Keeping me from work
And pulling me to play

Inevitable Spring

It had been a long winter
Now it was breaking,
Spring-breathing
With the sounds of bird-song
And daffodil scent on the air
Melting piles of snow
Slowly reducing to grass and mud.
An inevitable feeling of spring
Is upon us.

Dripping Identity

Words, words and more words
Dripping down out of an unfiltered sky
Composed of everything I was and am and think I will be

Large puddles forming on these city blocks
Nonabsorbent, they turn me away
To wash hope and dream into gutter

There are no trees here to nourish,
No grasses or wild flowers to reach root down
Or petal upward to receive a reviving drop

Just one large, subsuming lake
Diluting me, polluting a one-time purity
Washing me out to sea.

On Chicago

Oh Chicago
City of bright lights
Big Shoulders
Irascible drivers
Impossible parking
You have been many faces to me
You were there when I stood
Facing the icy wind, and cried
Remember when we stood at the shores of your lake
And spoke of the deaths of our fathers
And I threw my green hopes into its depths.

You've bitten me with your bitter winds
You've watched me grow and age
From the inside out
Crumbling as I go
Against your sidewalks and skyscrapers

Leaving traces of myself everywhere
While you, invading my memories
Plant yourself firmly within
With a hundred summer concerts
Patio dinners, final exams
Snowstorms, floods, Sunday services
The music of your soul,
The background to my life in its messy meandering paths
Singing me from life to death and back.

Ghosts

Today
I walk down the aisle
With the little ghosts of things forgotten. Pearing at me behind my back.
They snort, giggle, chide me.
"Maybe I will be the one!"
Or maybe me, a purple, oozing one points out,
To bring your disappointment and despair.