We Live Such Different Lives (Relatively)

My brother meditates for eight hours
a day. He is removed
from sound but he hears
deeper than words of mouths
deeper than a mountain
waterfall’s roar.

I can’t imagine sitting
for so long, my legs fall asleep
faster than my mind.
I need to have conversations
between people in a bar
and to hear bleeding chords
of a guitarist who has yet
to find his voice.

My brother sleeps for eight hours
a night. I ask him how
and tell him he’s missing out
on this roller coaster life
and he grins. He asks me, if

I am so attached to the noise
of traffic that I've forgotten why
I began driving. But
I write my best songs
when I don’t know
where I’m going.

To Be Read Out Loud

Funny how we form words with our mouths talk out loud in the air use tongues leap and dance on the roof and floor lungs push breath out heads break down spit them out hear them fly waves of air tide of words moon is high and so are you funny how we learn to form words there open the door and clouds of letters block the sun (only shines in silence) and the beach of your lips funny how words learn to form about a world not one but yours comes from mom and on and on and don a set of word s clothes or grass skin grasping to know why it’s funny to form how words learn in a poem about itself you can hear chatter like an old man alone and happy puts on mukluks on a summer day funny how we form words with our mouths open and bounce around like frog s in a sewage tunnel with sticky legs trying to spit out but just sounding funny.

Traffic

An endless whooshing.
Had you been born blind
you would not think of cars
dopplering down the street but
harrumphing wind
in packs, softly tearing the air
in a hurry.