We Wore Our Hair Long

 

You don't have to push back so hard. We wore our hair long.

We wanted the animals to trust us in their wild open spaces.

Everything will come undone. We wore our hair long because we wanted to

 

Be able to find our way home in the dark moonlight. It'll be

All right. We wore our hair long because we walked among your tethered

 

Horses and they seemed to think it was the right thing to

Do. You can't take these cosmic things too lightly. We wore our

Hair long because there was no future left. And because the bullshit night

 

Was beginning to pile up and over our heads like an avalanche

Of thick grey clouds. They offered us nothing, nothing in return for our broken

Hearts. This is the world, they said. We wore our hair long

 

In spite of robot armies with falling bombs tattooed on their metal

Encased brains. You don't have to push. We wore our hair long

Because we were so in love. It's as simple as that. We were

 

Able to see all free creatures breathing in every blade of grass. We

Wore our hair long to magnify their tears. You don't have to

 

Push us so hard. We wanted the animals to not be afraid

To let us touch them in our dreams. We wore our hair long to show

The ancient dragons that we still respected them. Put your arms around

 

Me now. We were deeply in love. We wore our hair long as

Long as we were together. After that, the poems came on us like rain.

Bonus poems:

Curious Long

 

We're here, too.  It's telling this strange

familiar music buzzing

with immediacy in our

instant dreaming heads, too. I don't

ever want you to suddenly

grow anything that you haven't

already thought of. You're better

 

off standing there in your own tight

fitting freedoms than stepping out

into someone else's prison

yard. It's only a friendly knock

on the open air window you

think is probably another

lonely landscape wanting some of

 

your unique attention again.

That's fair, but sad. Only this time

when you put your beautiful hand

up to put your curious long

fingers cautiously through that map's

eager space they'll go through all the

way into nothing more than what

 

you are feeling about the earth

as a real body any way.

You're the only person I think

who could do this kind of simple

love ritual for me without

feeling bad about it after

and that's why I celebrate you.  

The Boy in the Woods Looking At His Hands

 

This is serious. It feels like walking down a river. It feels like

Breaking on a bunch of tree-branches, like pulling a kite out of the

Burning sky. What are we supposed to be learning? This is really painful

 

Stuff, like waking up in the middle of the ocean. I wouldn't make

Anything like this up. It's as if all the world's breathing has formed

 

Into one magnolia scented mouth of whispering teeth and is repeating over and

Over again, hold on, hold on to your shirtsleeves, ‘cause you ain't seen

nothin' yet. Everything is a lie that doesn't say your name to me

 

In some way, shape or form. This is crazy. You're not even here,

Yet I can't find where you end. If I search for stars they

Start at the end of your eyelashes and go all the way up

 

To your flashing eyes like arrows. If I pass into fields of flowers

All say to listen to your hair, no matter how far away the

Strands of fair music. This is dumb. This is impossible. This is fake.

 

I want out of here. But I am so inside this that there

is only the doorway always entering the room where you smile and wait.

 

 

All the Happening Things

 

are happening here. You

will meet them face to face

eventually and

 

probably over good

coffee and yummy cake.

 

Confusion is only

what happens when you don't

know what to choose. Choose the

 

loved ones that feel like you're

running away with your

 

best friend. All the plans you

make will change into the

real whole life you're doing

 

any way. Don't be so

hard on yourself. You know

what you promised you when. 

Don't Watch So Much TV 

 

We're still alive. I mean the real beautiful us inside.

They think we put on the tight fitting smothering spacesuits

As we were ordered to and just floated away from

Everything we loved. They think we caught the final sprayed

Bullet in the stunned forehead like good little soldiers of

The universal village should. They see active stillness as having

 

No motion in the real world of all consuming fires.

As soon as you say that there's always some big

Creepy guy munching on his latest hero sandwich who stands

Up, wiping the wet crumbs from his wallpapered hands, and

Says you're not even there in his mind's haircut because

 

You haven't been invented yet. There's always some smoking gun

Sucking guy in the stands who sees you as a

Sneaky uninvited weed trying to get to his poor innocent

Flowers to turn them wild on his watch. There's always

Some guy talking to your friends behind your back, spilling

His crude made up oil on your free bird. Always

 

Some rotten half man who likes to remind everybody of

How many frightening things are scratching around the jungle line,

In case you've forgotten any of them. Some guy who

Smiles as he kills. A guy who wants to sell

You something he knows is a lie. We're still here.   

 

We're still alive. Those sticky faced guys haven't stopped the

Eternal trains from arriving. They can build all the barbed

Fences they want. The careless rain's not digging a useless

Tunnel in the caved-in sky for them and their kind,

It doesn't need to. The dance isn't over. New dancers

Are feeling their own urges each and every day. We're

 

Here. Listen. We'll always love you. That's the truth, but

It doesn't mean they can't hurt you. It means we

Won't. So there you go. The rest is up to

You. I can't write your poems for you. You can.

We wouldn't want to catch their sounds any other way.