like a fly
trapped
between two window panes
sometimes a heartbeat

just

ticks.

arbitrary
postulating meaning
fumble, sigh.
the mechanics of
release
with arcade clatter,
hydraulic emoting

on some
big screen

glare

I hold forth a candle
a soft-focus lie of
aspiration

I want to love
my own ad campaign
and its promise of

a beat that
gulps with
throaty muscle
tender respect
and the gasping
vulgarity
of dare-I-say…

heresy

© Tom Watters  4/2/07

2800 miles
brings a closeness
that 135 miles cannot

roughshod in the
palm of these sheets
grasping at concepts
while listless and
threadbare
listening to the sacred geometry
acting out on the ground below

truth laps at the shores of the Atlantic
proud, yet naïve
just, yet uncalibrated
she will send to me
her fairest daughter
that I will not long
for her gentle name

a reminder of
the good that exists inside
and that which once
welled inside of me

that the weapon is
always drawn before it is
laid to rest
safe of its target
free at last
from its arrogant pleading

I close my eyes
and swallow
this morning night
that is but a memory
to the future

© Tom Watters  3/29/07

conscience
is sometimes
delivered by
legs that
require you to
think of math

systems of erasure
her cleft underneath
seamless shrouds
edgeless planes
that Euclid could
never have conceived

she dreams
the stern shores of
Scotland
talks of it in her sleep state
of cali-georgia
peaches
indeed.

I hear balalaikas
ringing my phone,
distant bouzoukis
in the complex arms
of another
difficult calculation

Ockham’s razor
applies itself
in the softest
understanding
her hand whispers
the simplest

an earlier blade
smoothed a path
I speak in tongues
or at least
in an accent
perhaps speyside

for memory
and for art.

© Tom Watters  3/21/07

before its proud
wristwatch award ceremony,
an inward sigh resigned
today—or was it even
this weak

this burden of mirth
traveled to a different
host city
leaving behind
a bar
and various churches

I opened my palm
for a glimpse at what
was held so dear
below my heartline

my eyes met
the powdery imprint
of a gypsy moth’s wing
samsonite beige
and
fashionless

felt wind
in the holes left behind
dull and hollow
a television test pattern
the volume
fluctuating slightly
to no earthly rhythm

newsprint yellowed
a crust forms
on my lower lashes
sentimental value
becomes an oxymoron
keepsakes become
the music of clutter

I hear
gunshot taiko drums
in the dead reverberation
of new falling snow
cold dry
cracking

statues topple
off the edges of
gilt-lily pedestals
and bears see
that they are not
gazelles
nor cheetahs

they are bears

© Tom Watters  3/16/07