This blog, Leaning into the Afternoons, is now (finally) moved to it’s new home at:

I have yet to decide how much of the content here I will be taking over there, but I’ll be keeping this domain so there’s no rush. Come over and see the new digs, like LitA on Facebook, and chime in via comments.

So I’m still working out the design, but Leaning into the Afternoons will be moving to intotheafternoons.com as of Monday, October 1st. It will have my writing but a whole helluva lot more!! Everything will be focused on poetry…but the poetry of words, music, life, death, etc. I’ll be opening it up to a bit wider audience, too, and making it more interactive (not to mention being updated at least twice a week if not more). The design is enough of a slog that I’ll skip a grand announcement here. Anyway, coming soon!!

Finally!! It took a lot longer than I planned, but something new is coming soon! Still ‘Leanng Into the Afternoons’, but a new domain, new approach, and new neat stuff. I also plan for it to be more open – to a broader audience and to interactive feedback. Go-live date will be announced here and on FB.

For years
This is as close as I’ve been to the ocean
Staring out my high-rise window
Into a ghostly and featureless mist
That consumes these erstwhile monuments
Sighing, I recall the power of planes
Of trains
Of change

Let the night sleep in
I’ll pray that it engulfs us all

This city seethes
With busyness and glass
(and some hope)
Buildings sting and echo
Smothered by a hot embrace
Leave me above it all
Or dash my soul against my will

I miss the winter birds
Black eyes with sparks
Of cold grace
Playful defiance
With cries that pierce the cold
Shrill and comforting

Boldly perched on highest reaches
Hardy and austere
Alone and together all at once
Bluer and blacker
Ember-singed hearts
Crying in voices with no reply

Come, winter, and stir my pen
With mercury for the veins
Flight for weightless fingers
New words vital to imagination
Cutting the quick
Close to bone

Bring love, too
Wild and innocent
Broken and peaceful
Bristling with anticipation
A grin for my late-night face
A quiver for my bow-and-arrow soul

So let the night sleep in
I’ll pray that it engulfs us all

What would you say if you knew what I was thinking?
Maybe you do, but you know not to dig too deep.
What if I knew what you needed for sure?
I’ve seen in your eyes, you need more. Much more.

And I could be happy and you could be miserable
I’ll grab a metaphor out of the air
The Cuyahoga River on fire

What can you say the impossible happens.
What can you settle for? What can you live without?
I remember the night I first darkened your door
And I swore that I loved you, my heart was pure.

You could be happy and I could be miserable
I’ll grab a metaphor out of the air
The Cuyahoga River on fire

My open window, a dream in the dark.
My fingers, your face
A spark, a trace

I could be happy and you could be miserable
I’ll grab a metaphor out of the air
The Cuyahoga River on fire

I know enough about the history of Cleveland, Ohio
Disasters that have happened there

Like the Cuyahoga River on fire…

I hear the tenor saxaphone. It is playing the life span of a swift piece of driftwood in a stream gliding past slippery rocks worn smooth by melting mountain snows. This icy music is purifying the blood in my veins which courses softly with the brushed snare of her heart’s smoky possibilities.

I hear the warmth of the upright piano descending chromatically like the sigh of a bare leg dangling off the side of a tousled bed.

I hear the vibraphone and it is syrupy sweet and dizzy with spilled perfume. I hear mallets pummeling the soft skin along a woman’s spine. She’s lying on her stomach now, tilting a glass of white wine occasionally into her absent-minded lips, her legs bent upward at the knees, swaying like slender wild flowers in a breeze, her feet playing with each other. Fondling. Minds of their own.

The muted trumpet tosses us a melody thorny into the subconscious like a long-stemmed Margo rose – pricking distant memories which could be painful if pressed for detail, leaving bloody fingerprints. We pull off the petals a few at a time and toss them into the warm bathwater of the upright bass solo that bows foamy over our feet.

Now the saxophone is back, angry and bored with the boundaries of this world.

It is all over the place, a needling child trying to get her hands in the pockets of a candy god. It is the sound of someone wrestling out of a straightjacket, while running along the edge of ocean cliffs. A bird beating her wings against the roof of her cage, determined to fly or die – and fuck all else!

Ah, now this is more like it, she whispers, sitting back and crossing her legs. She’s fully clothed, but she just doesn’t care anymore about behaving the way a lady supposedly should. She’s freer than that. More spontaneous and child-like. Her head rolls back and her eyes close. She’s beyond me now, her spirit set loose to heights and vast reaches of which I can’t imagine. All behind those shuttered, oceanic eyes.

When she walks out into the night in the wee hours of the morning, there is a new air about her. She’s pulling on my arm as if every dark alley is calling her name. Though she is wild and boundless now, we somehow still orbit each other – my hi-hat marking the metre that assures she will not fall.

Roots and wings, love. Always roots and wings.

The saddest songs are the happiest
The hardest truths are the easiest
Put us both to the test
And tell me if you still need me
I will swallow these words
And see if I still believe

The biggest lies are the little ones
The most memorable eyes are the distant ones
Angel or demon
You know they can share one bed
I think I’ve lain awake so long
I’ve got them both inside my head

Is this what we’ll remember about dying?
Moments and moments like wisps in the trees
Slipping through my soul in vain
You were mostly an angel
Many times demon
The rest was hard to explain

These cramped weekend dives may be poisonous
Meaningless chatter is contagious
Within or without
I still walk these places alone
Whoever brought me here
Is gonna have to take me home

Is this what we’ll remember about dying?
Swallowing moments like the good doctor said
Trying to numb all the pain
You were mostly an angel
Many times demon
The rest was hard to explain

Except for the girl dancing slowly
Folded in the arms
Of her gentle boy
Her eyes closed in precious determination.

As if she could trap this moment
Behind lacquered lashes
Match time somehow
To the slow sarabande that fills her world.

So I am watching the joy on her face
You have never seen such pure peace, delight
Because if you had,
Your eyes would be closed, too.

I knew a girl once with braids and a black dress
I saw her climb out of her window
Run to the oak tree (scared sacred with moonlight)
I saw her dance with the light on her shoulders
She had a secret
Held closed,
Behind laquered lashes.

And thanks to her,
This broken world was mended
For one fleet night before it ended.

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