Sound from the recording studio

Trumpet music spills

into this strange winter

heat and into the street

as I smoke a cigarette

and watch the smoke rise

and dance with the breeze

into the naked trees, catching

it like a dream catcher

dangling outside

a trading post in the desert

somewhere on I-40

all the way home.

Raleigh, NC

2-22-2012

Son of the West

I’m still getting used
to the the customs
of the Land. Today,

I was pleasantly
mistaken for a
Rhett, pleasantly.

Raleigh, NC
2-19-2012

Redux

Two, a couple, two-pointer in a college basket-ball game -- two chimneys

on the brick Catholic Diocese, Two blues musicians, playing

guitar and harmonica (and is that the Holy Ghost!?), praise be to everything

good. In my neighborhood, two scuff marks on beige columns

and two pretty girls, who live next door and two

brown leaves left on the tree (winter be

damned!), lingering bravely above a telephone wire, which is connected

to a pole and the rest of the world too, and two, on and on

and on.

Raleigh, NC

2-18-2012

A Brand New Day

As the sun rises I eat

Cheerios by the window,

and next door the neighbor arrives

home from the night shift, working

as a nurse at the hospital

in the neonatal ward.

Raleigh, NC

2-6-2012

Seven months gone, by and by

Orienting myself was the most important

first step -- the only first step -- before

I started kicking the beige column on my front

porch, watching a black scuff mark

grow

grow

grow like the smoke

from my cigarette as the fire

burns

burns

burns, all these things will

disappear into the North Carolina

night with the ghosts who dance among

the wine and spirits of yesteryear.

Raleigh, NC

1-29-2012

Winter

White paint covers

the graffiti

that used to

be on each wall of the men's restroom

at the coffeehouse where I studied

law and such.

A cold wind blows

down these empty

streets and through leaf-less trees in this town --

my town, alone and missing some-

one so much.

Big blue Texas sky, sun rise in the east, day break

Maybe I can drive you crazy

all the way

from Amarillo to Mexico

and then back, me singing bluegrass

songs and driving the old 1992 Black Bronco

and you kissing my ear --