As Close as Your Toothbrush

When you let anything get as close as your toothbrush,

It can fill up your ears from the bass to hairbrush,

and so it was with my ears and your words,

Whether they did me no favors or worse.

I drank this sweet honey of silver siren's song.

In the decadent ease, I just floated along

My feet pointing downstream, best for warding off rocks,

For the jolt of collision might my mind unlock.

The Sound of Two Angels Falling a Little Further

I'd ask if you wanted to get out of here,

But which of us has anyplace else to go?

I think I would have left sooner, and alone,

But I don't have anyone else to be.

I wish you wouldn't have offered a drink,

But I know you don't have anything,

and all I can offer is to let you share

My moment of despair.

Epoch-a-Lips

Thoughts of you settle upon me

Lightly, slowly, unnoticed until I am buried.

It was realization, not you, that rocked me in earthquake,

Though I would still call you geologic.

The new gray hairs in my beard are proof

Of how long it took me to get over you,

Of all the time I waited for the comet-strike.

So ends Pre-Graying Period of my life

When I would end the world for your kiss,

My epoch-a-lips.

Fool Me Once

I know just what it is like to be the new hand,

To fall not just for, but all over the old trick, to land

In a pool of derision, which asks “how could you fall?”

But what matter's the trick's age? I was younger than them all!

I remember this clearly, though it were long ago,

But you and I are here now, and that trick I now know.

You Don't Understand

“You don't understand,”

You say before you go.

You don't know what I know.

You don't remember the times

I said the same thing;

I scratched similar stings.

You are just now meeting molehills

I mounted many years ago.

I know new winds will blow.

You do not know how right you are.

I know too much to understand.

Second Impressions

They say you never get a second chance,

To make a first impression.

In lieu of that,

The world and I should make a confession:

I could lift some small straw of the burden

(There are seven billion of us, heavy with judgment.);

I could make the world a kinder place

(Without the contortion of forcing

A smile onto my face);

I could be a better man

If only I gave more first chances

To make a second impression.

Fill In The Blank

Some questions have no answers.

(If the barber shaves every man in town

Who does not shave himself,

Who shaves the barber?)

Some questions need no answers.

(If the barber shaves every man in town

Who does not shave himself,

Who shaves the barber?)

Some people, in a rush for answers

Rashly rush to ridiculous judgments,

Only later learning that they know better.

In their fevered frenzy, they are unwell,

But still they would play Jeopardy against Time itself.