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Out on a milky ocean, fuzzy gray with streaks of silver
and here and there a thread of blue or white like sunlight in aged hair
I saw bodies drowning.

Unable to cling to their scraps and wrecks,
descending in slow fading trails into the dark mystery,
(these fuse-tail duds, sparking bright and sizzling to dull and smoky ends before the powder stops, or curls of blue-black ink rising from blown candles)
these smoke people rising downward all around me
and I saw that I was like them:

All these guts of fireflies,
waiting on a tyrant child’s thumb and forefinger
to crush us into moments of bloody wonder
before we fade into smears of irrelevant gore on the asphalt.

But my raft is sturdy, and I cannot see the bottom
And although I am tired of this fog, and
although I shut my eyes against this fog, and although
I think I will always be with this fog,
I can carry a small light.

I am no twisting smoke, winding into unlit fathoms,
am not a gliding seabird on migration to the sun,
but here in the mist I may yet scrape to landing
on the pebbles and rough rocks of some wild shore.

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For What I’m Worth

You might feel full and heavy in the pocket but remember,
You’re a big fat wallet full of Ones
Stripper cash or tip money or the crumbs of a few decent bills,
Not worth the bank trip
Just enough for a half-tank of gas or a Seven-Eleven Snack,
On the way to your shitty job
That you take because your ship just hasn’t sailed in yet,
While the bills keep coming
Energy water phone rent and they can’t even give you garbage for free,
But you recycle every day
Turning cans and bottles into dollars and cents or shoes for third-world orphans,
Or whatever they do with it
The world’s full of curtains and you can’t go looking behind each and every one,
Let the Wizard be a Wizard
Sometimes all it takes is a little faith smoke and mirrors to get you home,
Sometimes you walk for miles
It’s the harder longer colder nights where you gestate the best of your thoughts,
And forget them later
Like all the faces and names of friends you’ve forgotten since you were a kid,
You wonder where they went
You never stay to see what happens when a slow-growing thing blooms and rises,
No time to be too fond
All the little treasures you built up over the years and the littler few you carried with you,
Seashells go back to the Sea
Waves work both ways and every time you crawl up on some new shore the tide pulls you back,
Rubber Band Independence
Stretched between your thumb and finger ready to snap out and sting the world,
Never leaving a mark
You never find a foundation never build yourself something to last never save for the winter
Live Fast and Broke
Always feeling full but you run out fast and it’s none of it worth too much,
Like a big fat wallet full of Ones