I can feel it pulling me, the deepness of tide
tugging at my tires,
	Time and distance falling away with each
passing mile ticking away before me
	(sink back into the sea) I drive
to the water
Ends of the earth and the middle of everywhere,
to stand before this gaping grayness
	this yawning eternity.
I stretch out my lungs,
wrap my ribs around the coastline and try to
hold it all in,
pulling it away with me.   

You lick the heat of the fight from your lips.
It sears the sharp cold of your mind,
Eyes glint like 
Sparks, fire-crackers in winter air.

Frigid tendons tug your flaming muscles in
Wild-controlled kicks, blocks, stances:

Your sport and art emerge
Across the steel-edged floor.
Exhale and end with a bow.

I am not
Immediate. I try to be everywhere 
even when I’m not sure where that is.

I attempt manipulation
sometimes, but only 
out of the kindness of my
heart. 
I don’t need to understand it
all, as long as I can either
predict it or
prevent it. 

I have grown quite adept at dodging the
truth, ducking out of its path as it swings
past my head. What I make up 
sounds better
anyway. 

I know it’s a fine line between reality
and reflection, between living my
own life and dying
someone else’s. 

But I always knew this by
observation alone.
I must not have believed it.

Chicken little the sky is falling –
once I
hit a brick wall. Or rather, it 
toppled
on me. 
I thought I could
hold my own -
an amateur’s mistake.

at times it feels like desire is a somehow separate entity.
it wanders the mind, claws unsheathed, unashamed
ripping roundness into illusions of nobility.

ears up, it detects every inkling it can twist into a twinge
and shapes thought into flame until explosion becomes inevitable.
Desire contorts memory and logic, defies all sense and science
shifts hope into need and beyond the conscious grasp.

with the flick of a whisker it overturns whole moralities,
creating in its keeper a replica of its focused being

until desire becomes all there is and ever was.

I drive the unwritten map of my hometown
naming streetcorners and strip malls
swapping east and west for good and bad
hangouts and cop stops on the avenue

naming streetcorners and strip malls
bikers come like conquerors brandishing Harleys
hangouts and cop stops on the avenue
turning to a sea of metal and noise

bikers come like conquerors brandishing Harleys
drawing lines and claiming lots
turning to a sea of metal and noise
they own this town at night

drawing lines and claming lots
the geography shifts with every new gang
they own this town at night
all grinning, glaring, leather and steel

the geography shifts with every new gang
weaving up the road close between cars
all grinning, glaring, leather and steel
bikes like lions, pacing the edge

weaving up the road close between cars
engines breathing down my neck
bikes like lions, pacing the edge
I wonder how many invisible lines I cross

engines breathing down my neck
as I’m headed for the next town 
I wonder how many invisible lines I cross
wonder if these lines apply to me

as I’m headed for the next town 
swapping east and west for good and bad
wonder if these lines apply to me
I drive the unwritten map of my hometown.