Used Knees

used knees are bruised knees
knees with indentations from praying
or praising
---submissive either way
used knees, maybe not two knees
with stripes down each side
a sign of swallowed pride or
a sign of pride
---either way dismissive
used knees
wide knees
thin knees
strong knees
knees with scars
knees with shards
freshly scraped knees
   children yell
these stabilizers
bone joining notches of activity
these back-and-forth-ivory
these left-left-rights
these thrones for kids
these chairs of discipline
these crawl able crutches
these crackable junctions
these fragile fortitudes
these knees
these knees
theses knees
and never once not used
used knees are your knees
dads knees
ma's knees
baby jackie's,
johns knees
teenage comicon knees
WW2 and 'Nam knees
computer softwares tom's knees
lovers, sluts, and doms knees
mountain climbing robs knees
fat, wide, and globed knees
your knees my knees
used knees
wise knees
carry you where ever you go

grey glow

I woke up this morning
7am to a grey glow and cold
I believed

My choices had changed in my sleep

I was near 1000 miles gone from where
I closed my eyes
where I had traversed the day before
snow would grace

I could drive to my heart
and tour the scenes I imagine in my
head

But really, it's just 7am
and the grey glow isn't
just from fresh fall

my choices made firm
so dreams are fantasy's

and fantasy is always
never supposed to be

my reach is my life

Milwaukee

Milwaukee promises poetry
closer than tendon to bone:
it offers up floorboards, inches
upon inches of soft cedar
calling for my ghosts to settle deep,
asking me to send dust
spinning through the slats of yellowed light
leaking through paper blinds
left open, on the off-chance
I catch sight of your shadow.

What I know of Milwaukee
I could fit in two cupped hands –
three weeks worth, maybe,
or one side of a record –
just enough to lead my mind to wanderlust,
away from any task I take my hands to,
enough to sink like an isotope,
like music notes and age-old books
inside my skin. Milwaukee
did not exist before your voice
and it lingers, unexplained.

But I could revel in the unfamiliarity
of every lost step, rediscover
these clumsy limbs, slip between bricks
and hug the mortar close,
letting spring drip over the eave.
I could stop throwing the loss of you
against every surface, stop
pinning this rowdy grief
to walks and to sage green houses,
to cat dander and certain songs, to poems
and champagne and thick tangles
of starlings at liftoff,
a landlocked imitation of those startled gulls
we chased into flight.

It’s Milwaukee winter that lures me:
the front page of a book yet unwed to ink,
white walls without connotation.
I want the wolf shore,
the hard grey, the miles frozen deep
with static. I want to pause,
feel the blackness of my eyelids,
weight of my own lungs, and not see
that scorched sun that sunk the pier, not feel
the wind laden with grace, not laugh
at the glass-crowned waves
that swallowed us whole.

Time Comin'

The world doesn't rush past,
when you feel like that
it's because
your amoral tendencies
are getting the best of your legacy.

Time doesn't past
you move through
And when it slows down
that's just you

creating your own timeline
your own time

years become irrelevant
months are tomes too large to pay mind to
days are the opportunities you miss when looking into
the eyes of someone you can't help but love

you become a god

creator of your destiny-maybe someone else's
moulding space to what you need
knowing all you can
publisher of purpose

If you give all that up, don't worry about time
it will come for you.