Foot Drop

I'm down I'm down I'm down I'm down

A flood of salt and a weight and a board across your chest

Reception and receiving

Doors, dowels, drive shafts, and dancing

Shattered Saturdays

Trances

Tried and true and truancy

Pride and proof then fluency

Flatter not, flaunt not

First forgotten, last won

Any number of things will trace an arc

But where will you be standing?

Location:Glen Allen Dr,Baltimore,United States

The World We Live In

Hovercraft vs. overland

Re-tread vs. retreat

Old growth vs. barbershop

Fantasy vs. fantastic

Philanthropic vs. fill in the blank

Music vs. amusing

Attraction vs. reaction

Wait times vs. weight limits

All in vs. all in the family

Calling vs. living

Location:Dulaney Valley Rd,Towson,United States

All Day All Day

I see you Metro preacher

And you twenty years ago doppelgänger; I've never wondered if you're dead

And robot friends and fellow travelers and all the things we leave out

I see you piles and piles

I see you too long list

I see you blood pressure and daylight and day-long training sessions

I see you grand-daddy of distractions

I see you anxiety and despair

I see you fresh Fall fashions

Humidity before that, decay after that, delays shot through

What're you gonna do with a major American city when nobody agrees on major anymore?

Whaddya say in the face of the faceless?

Faceful? Fateful? Faithful?

Sometimes a straight line is just a straight line

And you still have place to be

I'm Not Quite Sure Where You're Going with This

Burned is burned is burned is not better

Butter, bedsheets, beef, beverages

Bouillon is as bouillon does along with all the words you've misread in your life

Spectrums everywhere you look will bump you out of that rut

Lane, silo, crutch, and so on

What do you want to eat?

What do you want to care about?

32 flavors of the Uncertainty Principle

Eat and care; need and want; hope and dream; paint and draw; truck and drive; pull and push, of course and so and so and pain and pained

Sometimes the grass grows up and what you going to do with it?

Do you see the sun?

Can You Tell Me Something

Fallen water
One spell, two spell
Frankly, mightily, swimmingly

Forgotten lines
Friendly fire on a Tuesday
Given over to giving in

A circle that's a special square
Better pinned here than pinned anywhere
Look here, look real close

When the sun's coming up
And the street sweepers are done with their sweeping
And all the tickets have found new homes

Patience Is a Spell that Might Not Look Like This

Placement über television with outright rigged decision systems together, online, growing, ether-tethered, hitting every register.

String them out. String them along. Paint them into corners. Build houses. Build houses of cards.

Attorney general. White privilege. Pride and Prejudice. Free like freestyle vs. free like freedom.

Fee-based services. Settle for nothing vs. settle for less. More is more is more is more. Time is time is time is time.

Every time something good happens, you end up with new ways to say Survivor's Guilt.

Location:N Smallwood St,Baltimore,United States

The Recovery Is a Spell

The Jump Off
The Get Up
The Get Down
Jump in

It's not that you fall down
It's not that you fall down
It's not that you fall down
It's that you pick it back up

Everything is inconsistent and jittery
Everything inside out
Everything closing down

Close your eyes
Breathe
Repeat

#Persist

Stay hungry
Stay present
Stay curious
Stay vigilant

Keep moving
Keep eating
Keep breathing
Keep ready

Stay interested
Stay open
Stay forgiving
Stay awake

Keep talking
Keep fighting
Keep loving
Keep living

Stay human
Stay human

Location:Glen Allen Dr,Baltimore,United States

I Live in Baltimore, Now

I live in Baltimore now
With the squirrels and the bunnies
The deer and the woodpeckers
The dogwoods and dogs
Foxes, raccoons, butterflies, and birds

I'm living in Baltimore
With the folks planting annuals out in front of the Presbyterian Church down the street
And the people bringing in the shopping carts from the parking lots
And the ones making deliveries night and day
People getting by, people not getting by, people figuring it out

I live in Baltimore around houses
And apartments and new construction
Buildings buttressed with wooden joints
Buildings falling apart and falling down
Condos, restaurants, and hotels
Universities and high schools and parking lots and more

I live in Baltimore where it rains
And the sun shines and rises and sets
And the moon is full on the regular
And the clouds are amazing with the ocean right there

---

After being here 13 years, yesterday was the first time I got ugh about my living in Baltimore and The Wire coming fast upon one another in conversation. Don't get me wrong, I love The Wire. I'll talk about the great trajectory of cop shows from Car 54 to Hill Street Blues to NYPD Blue to The Wire. I'll talk about the good guys being the bad guys and the bad guys being the good guys and everyone just living. I'll talk about it being the best TV ever made at its time or damn near it.

But then this morning I was tooling around the neighborhood and saw all the green and the wildlife around me -- sure my current neighborhood is pretty suburban for being inside city limits but whatever.

I'm not high-horsing it here. It's just Baltimore is like everywhere and Baltimore is everywhere. Just better. ;)

Location:Glen Allen Dr,Baltimore,United States

Size Medium T-Shirts in the 90s

There's a lot of things you can do in one-hundred and twenty seconds

Even more things you can get started

Minds changed, damns broken, feathers and camels, etc.

This is what I care about
And so it this

It's Friday and the weather turned out great by the time I was home

It might all break

Second comes second best

Sunsets, subsets, sentinels

Why not?

One bit's not more

Count the cracks

Location:Glen Allen Dr,Baltimore,United States

The Scathing and the Scathed

Collapsed just right
The blind history of fish
Lightning bugs and final offers
Foundering, forgotten, or focused
Forged in mistakes and half truths
You say farmer where I see no hope at all

Let the sun set, I am already home

To begin with
To see through
To settle like it's sold
Newfoundland

Location:Glen Allen Dr,Baltimore,United States

Don't Be Ashamed, We All Get Caught Up in the Spell from Time to Time

The latest vs. the last and that's why context matters

All the misses overlapping and we're shooting the beach scene

There is no Pulitzer for cue cards

Friendship, magic, boardwalk fries, the kind of cold you feel when you've been in the sun too long

Never, you say, whipping your scarf around your neck and draining the last of your beer

We should'a got the convertible

Location:Connecticut Ave NW,Washington,United States

Formerly, Formally, Flattery

Sometimes it all comes down to people, places, things and I get that

You can paint the outside of a house
Walls meet
Pavement spreads out in every direction

We've know pattern wants to get fucked as long as we've known the world loves a pattern

Out in front, lagging behind
Turned up, turned out
Tuned in, end of day

Sidewalk cracks at the end of a long day
The cafés filling up and then emptying

The way you take note before heading home

Location:US-50 E,Hyattsville,United States

We Have a New Champion

Double up vs. double down
Challenge and challenger and the Seychelles
Sea shore memories
More more more memories
Your arm around my shoulders
Knocking into a table
Sliding through the front door
When the wind picks up
Rain or snow or fallen leaves
There's the sun
There's another wall
There's a guy changing a flat tire

Signal theories
Color guard
Canopy
Out

Location:Little Creek Ter,Ashburn,United States

When They Ask if You're Ready to Go

FTR I don't know what to tell you
But I'm trying and I'm surviving and I know that sounds stupid
But you stand on a ledge and I stand on a ledge and here we are
The thoughts, the actions, a whole buncha emojis, rules and regulations as in terms and conditions as in what's expected

It's Sunday and I'm far from home but not for long

And everything gets boiled down from a distance

All the various trucks become one trick

All the moments become one day

All the places at the mercy of satellite platforms and perspective and interpretation

Then cookies, then videogames, then walks among columns and there and there and there

Follow me anywhere, I'm full of red wine and favors

I'll do what I can, the sun is angling, and and and the music

Location:International Pkwy,Portland,United States

The Work as in the Getting

Certain leg-covers and coverage
Illegal means of catching illegal fish
Only one of us can be the fastest
And no one is the best

The bar splits into three
And you'll make a choice
The road splits into two
And domestic assault remains a problem

All the things you can do with potatoes
And two pigs and weather patterns
Gather up the numbers and crunch them
The sun shining down on what's left

The countdown to the shooting
The last chord ringing in the air

Location:Baylanding Ln,Boothbay Harbor,United States

In the Vicinity of the Moose Lottery

You can save all your life
It's a celebration
People come and go
Divet vs. rivulet vs. sunset
Less than the whole but still something
Seasons change, said everybody
Big on bigger
Streets that matter
Lost wallets and scarves
Pocket change when that was a thing
Employment, employment, employment

A kerchunk you can believe in
Until a wall you can't ignore

The thing about facts
Air temperature, pressure, patterns
Leave a comment in the box then get back on your bike up outta here

Location:Congress St,Portland,United States

They You We Watch Where This Which Is Going

What's obvious and what's doing
Never fails, never flaunting

Always moving always weather
When you fly or flee or flail or fire

This mother, that mother
That open field, this sense of purpose

A path is implied, so you walk it
A day is desired, so you live it

A siren attacks a wall or a shout attacks a cliff side or maybe dells and valley and peaks and all that

The picture is a pedal
The purpose is some wires

They build a tower and they smash it

Location:Franklin Pl,Lanham,United States

The Things You Add Up, the Sun when It Sets

That that that which
When when where after when
With forever with with now

The Ways and Means Committee
Things come to mind
Days go by and you're standing there and I'm sitting here and all around us the flowers

I could feel the air hit my eyes when I got off the train this morning
I'm always trying to tell you what I mean
I have days and you have days
Car batteries are a thing
Just like Sunday and Threat Levels and Barbara Streisand

We can put thing in rows or boxes or matrices
I really don't care
What's gonna work for you?

What makes what scenes what fellows

I'd pay just as much for my phone if it was just the map and that's it

Location:Garden City Dr,Hyattsville,United States

Even in This, We Are Wonder

Just one hand
A pen cap and other artifacts
Cradles, kitchens, nations
A line of lights and another in paint
A third of people
A fifth of gin
This monkey, that steering wheel
Biomass vs. ballast, take your pick

Stand here
Eyes up, but used up
Tie a string to it and call it a day
Let it all run out
Watch the ocean become the sky become the sand become the sea
Or something like that

You're the box and the prize and the mouth and the peanuts
And this is the dream where we forgive you

Location:Massachusetts Ave NE,Washington,United States

Sideways Through Forgotten Slips

You can only see the four legs of the water tower from where you're sitting, and they're painted at angles

The Earth doesn't turn under you -- we're all turning together

You were born to platforms and parking lots

A reservoir? Don't be scared

You'll always find something bigger and something smaller
Something better and something worse

Every moment a center
Every moment an edge

You can build a wall of becauses and you still won't have gotten anywhere

All the thing you'll want
All the things you'll run across your teeth

Location:Washington Blvd N,Laurel,United States

It's All Folk Music Ever After

Because you work with what's in front of you

Because it's all journalism
It's all dictation
It's all in your head
It's all reception

Because it's all perspective

Because you're a kid that drew the city corner or down the boulevard

Because rulers and then compasses and then protractors
Stencils and how-tos and how's today?

What's the first mistake you remember?

And the first time you tried something on only to realize that wasn't you?

Because the delete key is always at the ready

Because auto-correct is your friend most the time so much so you don't even notice it

And the sirens breaks down
The warnings wear out

The sun hangs in the sky and advertises a warmer day on the other side
But the wind is whipping
The lambs are somewhere
And there's your reflection

Location:Rokeby Rd,Baltimore,United States

Absent the Tools

Low and latter days
Later ladders lift you up

The turn, the last push, much more

Sunshine, emails sent, shush

Your finger traces the edge
The wrong number but the right town

What they mean when they say "hometown"
Stacks and stacks of advantages

That place on the hill where you see it all
That time of day you love most

All the things that come to you and here they come

Location:Dryden Dr,Baltimore,United States

What Your Remember When You Remember

Darkened windows all the way around
An oversized orange shopping bag

Knitting time together and away
Carts, cards, cardamom, carried away

Clouds in ribbons
Minutes or moments, doesn't matter

What's young is young again
And moving left
And checking the mail
And making all kinds of promises

Gravel does what gravels gonna do
When the rain comes down

Location:US-50 E,Hyattsville,United States

Action, Scales, Hues, Returns

How Brits say garage
Your first Nintendo
Frozen garbage
Pace and pacing
Bullets that glow
Intended outcomes
Rainbow sherbet
The Volkswagen Bug and the Bus, too
When the sky doesn't even look real
Tiny tiny films
What comes after what
The way a train slows
Fish in a river
High notes
Noontime napping
Nail files and more

Location:Range Rd,Odenton,United States

Travel Ritual Poem #3

When in doubt
When looking out a window

As one put upon to put it on the altar
As anger, as bloodshed, as long as you're asking

What voices and interruptions and meaning it when it matters
What averages, what wandering, what wonder

And they beg pardon or indifference
And then silenced at the border.

Every day finds its end
Every echo finds a cliff

Conserve your energy, the clouds are gathering

Location:H St NE,Washington,United States

Something Like Swimming Lessons from the Last Person that Should Be Giving Them

There is an Angry God
But that doesn't make it your Angry God

There are days in every week
There are sayings and doors and all manner of vestibules

There are diamonds balanced just so
And rocks that will guide you home

There are helpful birds and hateful birds and bitter birds
Dead deer carcasses on the side of the road

Highways everywhere
The sun, the rain, everything green

Today and today and today and today

Get a grip on anything and tell us you are here
I am here
I am here

Location:N Capitol St NW,Washington,United States

Found Desk Poem 4/3/17 (Opening Day, Camden Yards)

Thanks to Ryan Walker

We did what we had to to make the sound we needed

We climbed the sunshine
We forgot our names

All things much open outward and upward or die
Stack up the day where you can see it

Everything is the first here
Everything is dipped in the moment
Everything is in the book and by the book

Like what you heard about Inuit, we should have 40 different words to take us from want to need as the sun sets on bedroom communities across the land

Somewhere someone is praying for something

Say goodbye to the things that brought us together

I Don't Want to Waste It

what's the matter what matters it doesn't matter
to who to his is great greater sounds

the world warped and warded

on as in onward in as in inward inland inlet integers and then the magic parts

set the pins up
sign in vs. sign on
certain cities and certainty

celebrate and celebrations
certain cinders

because one thought won't line up with another
and the sun still sets

Location:Nottingham Rd,Baltimore,United States

Look Closely Looking Too Close

All the sounds in all the places
Meet up with what's what or
Walk into a bar or what have you vs.
Even though even while

The things you burn when you're cold
The things you take with you when you take
The things the things the things most of all

That which when something
That core that if if when withdrawn
That that which when which do you see see

Oh say
Oh say it ain't so

It's spring and even the puddles are drowning

Look to all the excuses laid out to the horizon
I say coast, you say potato

Let's go get ice cream
It ain't gonna get any better than this

Location:Jefferson Ave,Towson,United States