Gravel Trails

I wish I could repeat
what I just heard.
Not a word, but
a meaningful glance.

I wish I could dance
into your mind, only to
settle in and find
a melody and chords
to sing to.

I wish I could show
you what I see in each day.
To be terribly lost
in strange daydreams.

I wish I could explain
exactly why
anything is at all.
I can only walk
gravel trails.

Synethesia

A painter drags his brush across the canvas just like
a conductor waves his baton just like
a dancer moves across the stage just like
a magician casts a spell:

With a deliberate movement, you are drawn into another world,
you are seductively pulled into a sonic landscape, and
you can almost hear what's on the other side of the painting.

It's almost too good to be true, because almost as soon as it began,
the performance is over,
and you are drawn out of the marvelous.

But when you leave, you just might feel something quite odd.
As you leave, you just might look around and see
that the sky is a different shade of blue than you remembered,
and that shade of blue looks how a clarinet sounds
and that clarinet sounds like a dancer moves
and that dancer moves like a brush across a canvas that spans the world,

A painting of delight and dissonance,
of harmony and chaos,
of improvisation and contrast,
of grace and violence
and movement and shadow
and energy and life
and creation and perfect imperfection.

The world is a beautiful mess of color and sound,
a painting of synesthesia.

Haven

hundreds of boats drift out to sea
music echoes from a mile away
and the shore reeks of lakewater and gasoline

her hand in mine, her wind-dried hair a beacon
through the horde of faceless beach goers 

the sun reflects a thousand times on the rippling surface
of the cold, murky lake
we wade in, up to our necks 

eventually, the festival ended, 
and all that remains is a faded Polaroid
and the waves, endlessly 
crashing on the shore.

a deer crossed my path

the trees stand transfixed
and leave long shadows;
standing and watching
breathlessly at the screen
as I quietly shuffle down the aisle.

one night,
out of the image,
a deer crossed my path,
illuminated for a moment
before leaving the frame.

its silhouette remained
in the dark,
just off the path.
I quietly pressed forward,
and we walked together
in silent reverie.

Painted Hills

rain washes away
flows down into the sewers
as people walk by

I wish to dissolve 
and painlessly disappear
no trace left behind

the sound of mountains
and colors melt together
lonely in the storm

wind and rain and thunder
another layer of paint
washed away in time

inky veins and golden eyes
watch the painted hills run dry

where you can find me

You can find me darting
from word to word 
on the pages of your 
favorite book
humming along
to your favorite song
in the footprint I left
in the space between. 

You can find me if you simply 
step out in to the marvelous,

and just take a look around
from a point of view where
you can see how everything
fits together
exactly how it should
in a perfectly chaotic way
with plenty of space between.

And though things are left unfinished
they are not left unchanged.