the tin soldier is broken
his paint worn off

where his face was, there is only a memory
trapped in a bump

i tell you, he is not me
but i am a liar.

i toss him in the trash
when you frown

the crab apple drops
rolls almost no where
the sweet smell of death

twilight  & tall grass
against the rock
two boys sitting

in an old camper
a boy and a girl
discuss grownups

around the willow in circles
and other odd shapes
kids playing tag

one jar
two boys
ten thousand fireflies

So, I have been giving this some thought lately. I don’t mean it facetiously. How does one write the perfect poem?

What is the perfect poem?

Who decides what a poem is?

Who decides what perfect is?

Does that matter?

Here’s what I’ve got:

• There is such a thing as a perfect poem, but it’s super-duper ultra secret and I can’t tell you what it is.

and

• The first step in writing the perfect poem – or the perfect anything for that matter – is to have an incredibly brilliant, startling, completely true and utterly amazing  thought.

Barring that kind of thought, the perfection of your poem is pretty limited, so you should give up on perfect and just aim for amazing or brilliant.

Anyone have more insight on this? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

a man is a monkey
is a monkey is a man
is a god is a grape

question is the vision
vision is the answer
is the god a grape?

a man is a man
a monkey is a monkey
what is the question
of God?

I dream of distance,
of miles, of feet, of inches

the long stares down short roads
the short steps that accumulate on the sides of mountains

the winged leaps that do not land
but float to the absent place where clouds waste away

I dream of eternity,
of timelessness, of hours, of seconds, of now

the perfect watch
that sees the perfect heart
the hands that count
away the clock

the cloven feet that step along the path less chosen
horned and woolly, blind and vacuous – up the slope

I dream of space,
of lightyears, of novas and nebulae

the endless nothing between the microns
the long slip that becomes a wish of dust

the gill-less dive that leaves me unbreathing
into the abyss.

In a mess of mortar and brick
trowel and point, bucket and brush,
we lay down a level
until it is all square as it can be.

After hours of hose,
thick wires scouring red clay,
we agree: this is clean.

Dry hands crack. The cracks bleed.
Skin becomes pink and tender,
and  discrete tears puddle
just to prove the point
was not perfect.

Everyone smiles, everyone rejoices,
in this new place, that was shattered
and broken and edgeless.

I would marvel too, but I know
the impropriety of the foundation.

I smile too and wait for it to crumble.

Do you think your tongue so sugared dear
that all are enrapt by the sweetness of your words?
You are not the candy, alas, I fear
you think such things without the truth you are absurd.

Do you think your eyes are chocolate-bitter
that they speak to the little boys you’ve snared?
You are not the candy,  nor the apple fritter
just another hapless fool that love has dared

to push the limits of propriety.
Do you think that you are so pure as sweet?
Even in the whirlwind variety
of your foolish youth, such love is incomplete.

Sugared lips, and candied hips and a crushed walnut
do not true love create
Set back your dreams and girlish schemes
before it is too late.

Oh, My cousin, if I could steal away your every hurt
and let your heart beat more easily,
I would. But this is love.
Love must be felt, endured, grown and lost.

Look at a coin, imagine that it were to flip
and disappear
because it had only one side.

Love is that coin.

My Cousin, if I could tell you some truth
about healing, that would save you this suffering
I would. But this is love.
and the wounds will become more love
if you let them.

Imagine the words, “never again”
hanging on the hilt of a sword over  your heart
every time you speak them, the sword swings lower.

How hard is it to tell the sword,
“Again, swing, again. I love you?”

My Cousin, if I could show you where your true love waits
I would. Oh, yes, I would. But
this is love.
Only patience and kindness and honesty can show you that path.

Imagine a lighthouse, on rocky island,
and the light is fueled by passion and hope and dreams
lost love dims this light and all those ships that come towards you
risk the rocks. Now it is the deepest night
your light is dim, rest. Tomorrow, walk the beach,
watch the sunrise, watch the gulls fight over crabs,
read some poetry and sing sad songs until your heart overflows
and you laugh.

When the night comes again, your love will be saved.
your love will be found.

My cousin, every heart breaks
a thousand ways, a thousand times,
it is no small thing to dream again
of love.

But every love becomes us, more truly and
more truly still. Every passion, every word, every prayer to God,
defines our love, and in every love  we grow more true.

The greatest lie is about the stinger:
They do. Damn, they do, and it hurts when they do.
But first, they fly with a happy buzz.
They swoop and swim through the air.
They hide in the nectary spots,
leap forth again into the sunlight
and sing the song of wings and wisps
of clouds.

The truth is about the gold and the black,
the colors of sunlight and shadow
that define them. In the darkness they do not
exist. In the light, they are the joy of a passive
passing through a pasture, or along a garden’s edge.

In the twilight, gold is not gold, and black is not black
and they are the perhaps that might be there, unknown.

The question that hangs between the truth and the lie
is not a bumblebee or sunshine or darkness. It is the simple why
of love. The aching perfection of a moment of sunshine
before that cloud can become a shadow. Before the darkness
can be imagined there amongst those flowers and that color
and that implied threat of stinging pain.

Alleluia Bumblebee, God hears your prayers loudest of all.