Moving

Just wanted to let everyone know that I'm migrating over to my new website. You can find me at http://www.onepagebehind.com

Just head on over to the Drawing Board section for more poetry and writings. Also feel free to check out the blog, pictures, and all sorts of other cool stuff.

Hope you enjoy,

Kevin Ross

Love! Downtown

On cold nights
back alleys, street corners,
pubs, and greasy spoons
hold the life
of a dying city.
Beautiful blond hair,
smoke rings,
coffee stained books
preserving history
on soiled pages.
Guys with egos,
girls in push up bra's
all putting out lies
on dirty mattresses.
How to stay warm.
Little apartments,
cardboard boxes,
Hotel Missouri,
someones arms.
All an attempt
to mix life with love
if only for a moment,
just to feel what
they're missing.
Maybe I should try
stepping out of my coat
and putting on a heart
for once.
If only I could.

Reading Nick Hornby alone at 2 a.m.

If words measured
the depth of my heart
the Grand Canyon
could only hold the
first paragraph in a
three novel series

Kenya

Right now Kenya seems like a dream seen
through the smoke of a vanilla Cojimar half
burnt between my cold fingers.
Just a place, nothing else.
Foreign tongues, colored skin,
thousands of gallons of dirty water.
Thats not a place for a musician.
What if I got dirt on my freshly bought
designer jeans? My Puma's?
Would it come out?
Like a photograph in a back issue of
National Geographic. Swollen bellies,
HIV, visions of Sally Struthers getting
paid for sitting at home.
If faith is a plane ride then I'm in.
But if faith is getting dirty and touching
someone who's never heard of Bono,
I may have to wait a while.

11/24/07

Every once and again, mostly on holidays,
the idea that people have no true
redeeming value pops into my head.
Skipping family for early morning sales,
thirty channels of football,
enough food to feed an African
country for at least a month.
Lines out the door at Starbucks,
young bands playing shoddy tunes
from from the nineties as shoppers
push each other down for the
last Harry Potter gift box set.
Skinny girls laboring behind a counter,
promising themselves that they'll
run off mothers cornbread stuffing
on their next fifteen minute break.
Teenage hard ons clamoring for the
girl in the short skirt in twenty
degree weather.
"She's gotta be noticing me man!"
A time of love lost inside light
and dark meat, pushed behind the piles
of leftovers in your aunts ice box.
What happened to fires and thank yous
and girls who knew to cover their midriff?
Have we lost the simple joy of holding hands?
Looking in each others eyes and saying
"I Love You?"
If long checkout lanes and bust lines are
any indicator, maybe I should just buy
my coffee, stand in line and join in.

Sarah's Year

Not so unlike Gina.
Browner hair, ambition,
a smile that faded the summer.
Just like last June,
only now it's July
and things are moving faster.
It was "I Love You"
pushed between adoption
and cold fatherly stares
from the back of the room.
She always had a way of surprising,
photogenic poses, and the smell
of mountains laced in her hair.
I'll never forget the cold air
in the back of a Texas parking lot.
Her warm hands as she looked
into my eyes for the last time.
I'm sorry I didn't write back.
All I could think of was late
night water parks, blond haired
girls and how some things never change.
June to July.
August to October.
I wish I could have been
different. Maybe then I could
finally write back.

Love and the Machine

On calloused skin
her hand rests, an
awkward show of care.
Tracing lines between
small spots of melanin
'till her name appears.
H
O
P
E
Slowly passing time
with the tips of her
fingers softly on
her lovers back,
pushing down fast,
thought of impending
morning and approaching
goodbyes.
Sometimes the sun isn't
the biggest thing in the sky.
Tossing through sheets
and wires, trying not to
unplug the last semblance
of her name from love,
and the machine.