After the New Year
The crystal earths descent
Over heads at Times Square
And Sydney.

Play on Coltrane
Wail on sarah
The night is out
And even the stars are
Jealous of you

Do not write to me
With the dark blue ink anymore

Stones and people start out soft,
but harden quick ,

learn to have lots of layers
packed like index cards,

some of them onyx,
or rubies sequestered deep.

Chasing the sunrise

Portland to Denver

connecting to Branson, Missouri

on an airbus A319

the coffee on the first leg of the flight

is bitter and strong but not enough of either

to make the two hours’ sleep from last night seem like enough

By dusk we were just somewhere
outside of Philly. Frankie swallowed
the first of the uppers and I lost

count of junction signs trying to pinpoint
colors in twilight’s arbitrary scheme.
I thought the Day’s bristles surely bore the warmth

Your songs
never got sadder,
how can that
be?

So at the bottom line Johnny Cash
made me leave the truck and I found my self
a job in a book-store