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.
In your hand, a frail rose bud,
the edges whispering falls fatal hues,
curled up in exile,
of the once bright colors that remain.
The fleeting caress of petal’s memoirs,
bloom against gentle fingers,
bent like crooning midwives,
soothing scavengers.
This innocence plucked from wounded stalk,
shifts uncomfortably in the wind,
subtle tremors pining,
for the time and place where they began.
A woefully bare stem, violated,
standing amidst the rubble of its life,
a solitary piteous steel pipe,
its thorns shorn, its head in your hand.
The void you etched,
an echo of absence,
dark – wanting – growing,
where the flower never will again.
The pressure,
functions far beneath the surface,
beyond even darkness,
pushing against mundane complacency,
the nine to five,
contentedness;
jealousy seeking a surface it will never see.
That viscera,
grinding like worms, displacing the earth,
infecting the mantle with friction;
ur minerals confronting each other,
conflicted purposes,
devouring;
Sacrificing themselves to see the end of the other.
It burns,
that ancient exchange of authenticity,
for the hot pulpy rage that takes its place,
patiently waiting in the soil,
biding time,
stalking;
until finally it can break free and consume.
The surface,
undisturbed for countless generations,
is corrupted by the change,
so long schemed beneath its skin.
Malicious intent,
contempt;
the kind of anger only born from corpses.
There is an umbral seed
inside all of us that will grow
if given light and watered.
There are gnarled weeds too
that will choke those seeds to nothing
if not ripped from the soil.
Gardening is hard, messy, but intentional.
Find the seed and gift it your light,
inspire fertile fruits.
Childhoods absurdity wrangled,
rooting through thick wooded landscape,
reveling in every winding curve,
each ambitious jump,
just high enough to hang a dream on –
backwards.
Like memories gone false,
long past their sell-by date –
our minds are starved,
so we eat the dirt.
Desire, the fruit of patience,
overripe and waiting,
wrapped tightly,
throttling the trees
with coiled potentiality.
One can but see me,
and be sated.
I cannot be consumed,
burned
cared for
pruned
adorned.
What flesh I know,
is only a passing glance.
Ignorance or incompetence,
either meet at the same end.
The dirt though, is amorous
as I stretch into all its nuance,
settling that wayward soul.
The sun showers me with praise,
it’s light on me in subtle places,
echoing my fingers in the earth.
But still,
I hide a quiet passion,
to move through the world as you,
create as you.
I put that lust in sweet oils,
ambitions charming enough for honey,
for dew drops,
but too much,
far too much for you.
On your skin that passion burns with envy,
raises the flesh in sour complexions,
cries out in pain, but at least-
a part of me is with you.
At least- you won’t forget my name.
Butterflies are mysterious,
latticework wings, pumped by a corset of conduits beneath,
beauty-
locked in a history of back, forth and
back again.
A spike and hammer,
a bucket
unevenly distributed.
The sun means nothing but light,
A bright pylon amongst the clouds,
but its back is turned all the same;
giving its warmth to anyone else.
The freeze isn’t gone,
merely hiding amongst the shadows.
One tree,
prouder than the others, brighter;
stands tall-
an ambassador to the sky,
speaking for the earth of its roots,
or so it seems. Its arms fanned out
in a skeletal embrace.
The leaves are gone,
but the essence inside thrives.
The metal placed against the bark
causes no response,
not that anything is left to shake free.
What is needed is underneath,
a few blows away,
and then-
it slowly seeps,
unable to contain itself.
Later we burn most of it away,
so all that is left of that bitterness
is sweet.
Two chiral figures stand opposed
divided by a heavy moment,
hands clasped to keep one another in place;
white craters consuming the digits,
tapering off to olive arms
that too quickly sink beneath tufts of fabric.
Though their pose is static,
their faces tremble;
the unseen weight within
grinding against them,
excavating the innocence left
of the husks they’ve since become.
A discernible history revealed,
with careful examination,
exhaustion of the senses,
sacrificed for lucidity,
acceptance.
It- emerges from the void,
like a fluke over the stern;
not even the depths,
a simple hint of the darkness,
where all things find their origin.
Two chiral figures
opposed
forever.
The dirt, brittle cracks exposed,
hidden beneath flowers in rows, and rows, and rows-
begs for the darkness that hides the sun’s rising,
the labor gestating beyond the horizon.
Let the torrent wash over those wounds,
like sand over the dessert dunes;
let it fill the countless spaces between-
make them whole, placid, serene.
Rationalize the absurd landscapes
with a throng of rivers, ponds, and lakes;
though the myriad of cracks remain,
the water gives the earth an even plain-
stable enough for all the life we know
to drink deep and grow, and grow, and grow.
Grow Gray With Me 