BRIDGE: A Profile

Scales of tarmac,

riddled with fabrication.

Look! Listen!

Color explodes at a turn,

spindly emerald arms

grasp the industrial monument.

A New York Conversation.

Conical personality,

arched with pride.

A web of followers,

thirsty suspending wires,

justifying its foundation.

It is better than you.

Swagger than you.

Connecting hipsters

and businessmen,

Callous tourists

from Scandinavia stop and stare.

The first! The best!

Ashamed siblings gasp from afar,

a jaunty character,

a knowledgeable past.

It does not fall

no matter how many elephants

walk across it.

BRIDGE: GAP

A bridge between two worlds

above regretful waters

ideas that didn’t make it

friends who left me

swept under the bridge.

A bird

one wing white,

the other black

one religion, one god

interpreted differently.

A bridge, the agreement

looms overhead.

One side,

a red hot passionate place

an era of appreciative nods was over

whoops and cheers were the new best thing.

The only kings that reign

rule with a guitar

and don’t care about crowns…

Five thoughts away

over passionate purple flagstones

a realm of culture ends.

A new road painted

by the left side of my brain…

Here it can add up.

A cherry blossom adorns a mahogany windowsill,

overlooking cerulean skies and turquoise oceans.

Both sides of the equations, equal.

Hospitals filled with cheers, no stillborns.

A bridge hangs above both.

A constant in both worlds.

Each side builds their half,

we were confused

when the ends did not meet–

some knew they wouldn’t.

Enter at your risk.

Try not to get wrapped up

in the spider webs.

Try not to drown

in the pools of abandoned construction equipment.

A ghost project.

A retired idea.

The dove laments–

No Hope. No Hope.

Then you decide to jump

the gap, the irregularity

where the project was thrown away.

I need to.

I leap the gap in my bridge everyday.

BRIDGE: Burning

By the light of the burning bridge

a new one is made

Two people

can part ways

over a coffee

an unsaid connection was broken between them

As they tiptoe apart

disappointed  into the summer sun

they see the rest of the world for the first time

it’s been a long winter.

A lover’s bridge burns spectacularly

a dramatic, yet melancholy explosion

it ends quickly, the night enveloped in darkness once more .

Two friends

a passionate argument,

a disagreement, too strong a tension

for the bonds of friendship to uphold.

Disgusted letdowns.

Growing up and out of this,

growing pains and stretch marks

until something snaps.

A friend’s bridge glows an electric blue

and makes no sound as it falls,

dying visions of elementary school,

bus buddies forever…

Disappointment lightly dusts the river

where the bridge once stood.

Sometimes a bridge has to burn

unnecessarily…

Nothing went wrong.

Every minute with you

was full of understanding and horror movies.

marine biologists together

living on opposite sides

of the seas.

I will stand on a beach

in San Francisco  

And know that on the other side of this big river,

you are reading books in French

and playing soccer.

I will stand on a beach

and I will feel the cool ash

of our burned bridge,

between my toes.