Coffee Can, Man

The coffee man can
’cause he mixes it with love,
makes the world taste good.

We Are Blank Stares and Walls Full of Past and Present

Expression of mind,
flows through pen over paper.
Thought is laid with ink.

I/We are/am at home with
lined paper; blank it beckons.
Precise, honest, raw.

A first draft or a
letter or postcard; a note.
We are what we share.

And the thoughts of those
who came before us, change us.
And we change the air.

Creation is a
messy endeavor. Often,
it’s its own reward.

Tell me about the
third one. He’s there and gone. They
seem unaffected.

Tell me about the
third one. He looks a puppet.
Controlled by they, we.

Tell me about the
third one. He is rigid and
stark, expressionless.

His mouth moves not and
his eyes don’t dart, nor lips purse.
His brow raised, slightly.

His breath seems shallow,
put on. He breathes with shoulders;
[: rising and falling :]

Here is a man full
of pride: his I am. A man
steeped in deaf regret.

Regret made in years
of disrespect and neglect.

Neglect, falls like l

ves.

Tell, give, take, race, bide;
ahead of, behind, good, bad;
one, first, last, this, next:

It is and is and is and
goes and goes and goes and goes

COLLABORATION by Amy Dunlap and Alex Burgoyne

Hot, not as red, just
above warm. In my belly
and my toes and nose.

A little bit uneven.
A little bit intriguing.

Hot, er than orange.
In my eyes and my head and
in my heart. Engulfs.

Glows.
Knows.

Wincing the night away.
I get knocked down, sun gets me
up again, again.

Her hair and my teeth.
My tack and her tea.