Generic Landscape Views

a grand piano

this is a secret alphabet
created the last time i visited my great-grandmother
      before she died.

a hint of cyrillic, no trace of roman
devised by the sunlight shining through slanted blinds
creating a striped pattern on my tannish carpet,
      while i sat on my day bed with a tall glass of milk.

and the last house in the south of the state,
               before i left,
my mattress on the floor with tropical sheets below windows
and this corner of the room like a cello...

i can never quite explain what my life
                               {has meant to me

the ruminative nature of a grand piano
which never appeared anywhere but my mind
and the door through which the santa anna wind
                                                                                              blows
leaving it's kindred spirit behind;

{Yes} the truth is, betrayal is clarity pure
the red-rimmed eyes and mouth demure
oh! the allure
of a quotation so apt and obscure,
& still they're unsure.
a four year old child designed
the fingertips that come from this scar on my leg
that i know i know where it came from (yet i can't recall at this time)
i'm the best speller you're ever gonna meet but sometimes i
mean wear and i write where and i gotta wonder
where my mind went.

probably wandered away. it never scampers. occasionally skips but mostly,
      it meanders. with a pensive expression and this olive-colored sweater
the kind that exposes your every fear and calls out to strangers; maybe they
      would reach out. brush their fingertips down your back and come close, for a

--a whisper in your ear. the kind that creates and devises and designs
and i just, i can never (quite) explain what my life has meant to me.