January’s drought
starves the creative impulse,
leaving us to mourn.

following the lines
drawn by lunar poetry;
no rhyme, no reason.

It’s magic because it’s the first tube of Burt’s Bees I’ve had long enough for the label to fade — and the first tube of Burt’s Bees I’ve neither lost nor laundered within two weeks of purchase.

1. Carl Perkins’ Cadillac - Drive-by Tuckers (The Dirty South)
2. #34 - Dave Matthews Band (Under the Table and Dreaming)
3. The Hustle - Marah (If You Didn’t Laugh You’d Cry)
4. Sickbeds - The Frames (The Roads Outgrown)
5. Prove - Fuel (Something Like Human)
6. Man on the Moon - R.E.M. (Automatic for the People)
7. The Valley of Malls - Fountains of Wayne (Utopia Parkway)
8. When Your Mind’s Made up - The Frames (The Cost)
9. Ruby Tuesday - Over the Rhine (Amateur Shortwave Radio)
10. Half Mast - Bill Mallonee (Go and Ask Her)

other lists:

…

1. If I Am a Stranger - Ryan Adams & the Cardinals (Cold Roses)
2. Blue Sky - Allman Brothers Band (A Decade of Hits 1969-1979)
3. Peaceful Easy Feeling - Eagles (Their Greatest Hits)
4. Anything at All - Over the Rhine (Ohio)
5. Rent Day Blues - The Frames (Dance the Devil)
6. Interstate - The Refreshments (Fizzy Fuzzy Big and Buzzy)
7. Something So Right - Paul Simon (The Paul Simon Anthology)
8. Stronger than Mine - Tonic (Sugar)
9. DND - Semisonic (Feeling Strangely Fine)
10. Marigolds - Glen Phillips (Mr. Lemons)

Anyone else?

• A Rubber Door

Last night in bed,
staring into the darkness,
seeing my life flash before me -
a barrage of color, sound, sensation
I hardly recognize today -
the squandered moments rushed back,
markers of each intersection
where my course was set
Then there were others with no signs,
just subtle warnings
of what lay ahead.

And I was the driver,
listening to the music
and tapping rhythm on your thigh,
cresting a hill on the expressway,
seeing the disabled car
half an instant too late.

How is it we so easily
dismiss the peculiarity of the moment,
as if any other
could have taken its place?

Perhaps it’s because
we want to believe,
(as you often said)
every moment,
each opportunity,
is self-orchestrated;
like the universe
is a willing mistress
waiting for our call.

But just before the break of day
as you lay with me,
resting peacefully,
silk hair on my arm,
soft breath on my neck,
I was someplace else,
wondering what I’d done
to have found myself
in a moment like that one.

we stumbled and fell
like ants drunk on pesticide
we unleashed ourselves.