Author Archives: Brendon Behlke

I Implore

The horizon feels too strange,
the place of it, too alien for destiny.
A haze of guile undulating like waves,
so that as I look upon that distant goal,
my eyes are strained to hold it down,
yet still – I can’t make sense of it,

can you?

I’ve moved so little,
but I know it has moved against me,
together we both are changed,
though surely the journey is lost;
that future stalled while the horizon continues,
unmoved by my confusion,
taking measured steps long past my ramblings.
I cannot hope to keep up,

can you?

The static landscape envelopes me,
in a skyless desert without purpose,
where neither direction nor pace matter.
The horizon, stranger still,
keeps running towards a pointless end,
Sometimes – I swear I hear it screaming,

can you?

Conflict

I entered this world pure as light,
barren, smooth, meticulously white,
though quickly defiled with desires,
corrupted by eyes blind to sight.

Inward looking for what inspires,
not calm, but chaos to aspire,
unexplored possibilities.
Secrets now fueled and set to fire.

Undertaking hostilities,
nightmarishly tuned as are these,
requires but subtle restraint,
that dreams may also be appeased.

I make no audible complaint,
while I am so forced to acquaint,
with such colors ‘til I grow faint,
not a canvas, but a pile of paint.

Stories

Dark depths beneath a smooth surface,
Castaway thoughts, evasive and coy,
break against my expectant lips;
this moment of refuge hides joy.

Casting a glance past the threshold,
where all my dreams have found employ,
constrained within an earthen iris,
this moment of refuge hides joy.

The symphony of everything
silenced now to a quiet decoy,
muted in the choir of nothing,
this moment of refuge hides joy.

Collapse

The harm was not in the fall.
No, the drawl of tumbling
felt like a bow string released
and when it had ceased, humbling.

Pain was the pull from behind;
where my mind, ensnared in knots,
like a tangled quagmire drogue,
the last threads gone rogue in thought.

Though the relief was also strong,
it set wrong, muddled with guilt.
How could the cost of peace be
all of the things we had built?

Rebirth in Reflection

As the year ponders its own end,
aghast in morbid reflection,
the world I love stays hiding
in seeds of rejuvenation.

They dare not yet confide
the secrets kept from our ears
until the sun burns warm enough
to melt away their fears.

When wonders smooth out the rough,
blossom like fireworks in trees,
sparking, biting, igniting
life’s vibrant surge to be seen.

Colors bright and inviting,
emblazoned now in daylight,
dim gracefully in humbled bend,
yielding to stars’ conquering night.

A Tree, Alone

Like a boat through the mist,
its branches pierce the morning haze;
arthritic digits gently sunkissed,
reaching for the listless day.

The faintest whisper of leaves,
budding through the thinnest bark,
eager to live free, to breathe,
but too soon… too soon to start.

The veil of greedy clouds retreat,
to a sky of hope and crystal blue thrones,
leaving only dew at their feet,
to show that the world was ever known.

The wolfish spring pounces on the prey revealed,
That centuries old sentry alone in a field.

Transgressions

The song of things breaking
stumbles drunkenly through the house
abrasive in its volume
a violation of abruptness

It yields with all the darkness of space
The song of things breaking
transcending hostility
rifling through the consciousness

The echo of it alive and well,
even when the fugue has passed,
The song of things breaking
rising and falling like heart beats.

pushing blood one pump at a time
to all the edges of humanity,
through all the perforated stars,
The song of things breaking.

Wisteria

The life of you has left this place,
to creep through the cracks of my mind
explore the gloaming of that space;
my thoughts like bricks, your loss like vines,
until there is no wall left to find;
only a chaos of purple and leaves
undulating over the maligned
enough of me surfacing to grieve.

Cities

Chemicals bound like knots,
in wads of chewing gum,
escape within me through lesions,
cut by fiberglass aggression.
The feelings they give, the mindless chewing;
all distract me from what’s really brewing.
A mattress covered transgression,
answering unasked questions
to find a total sum
of one’s short life well fought,
and reach zero.