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.
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?
We, opposed, demand “name thyself, betrayer of those!”
There can be no definitive – no I, you, or me; only “who.”
Cataloged, possibility becomes need, wool to be tooled and worked;
pilfering all the ‘what,’ leaving naught but an empty ‘what for?’
How, in such dower environs could any ‘who’ forge tomorrow?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Pursue the throat through open bones out stretched
where screams of joy or sacrifice are moved
to live or die absurd amongst refuse.
Rejected, accepted and at last wretched
bereft now upon a wall of eyes smoothed
by past, by present, future all subfused.
What once would shake those tranquil waters fierce
now speaks a common tongue to have them soothed;
silent they watch and wait for more to loose.
Such loss is all that’s left for hearts to pierce,
life’s dues.
It all comes to a head,
sloped in confident stability,
glistening polearm in the sun;
trembling with each primal rhythm,
an apocalypse in hoof beats.
Echoed close like slow dance,
a warrior’s heart.
A tiny muscle fortified by steel,
beneath so much flimsy flesh,
in a hot dark space – cramped,
with fear, excitement, intimidation.
Awkward, boisterous things,
louder than the quiet duty beneath.
The motley pair gallop towards their mirrored end,
while the crowd pours forth celebration,
enough to drown in if murder were not their intent.
Grow Gray With Me 