kindred blue forget me nots
that knot across the glen,
and tie around the willow's hands,
reminding it of when

the wind would sweep across,
make a dancing sea of gold
in the ditch along the path:
the bright marsh marigold.

of how things used to be,
I want to say
come back

so constant is the lapping shore of change

starlight does not shine
on the shores of lake despair;
waters quell longing


. . .

it is easy to know the despicability of living,
and a surprise to see the kindness when it comes.

somehow the week is gone
as the church bells ring
and the water moves on

as the birds all sing
to another dawn

july
so sweet and shy
passive yet
pass swiftly by

july
a long goodbye
and every year
you make me cry

july
don't even try
cause when you're done
the end is nigh

july
if only I
could hold the tune
of your name
sigh

I gave my happiness as collateral

seduced by that
innocence
sounding so cruel like deer who
do not know to wait
they run head on
and live or die by chance

that is always the fear -
not even the timing
but the doing

an entire world is waiting
on the other side

so admire the grass
say things
ask.

does a voice ruin the wind?

I worry about the words I will say, forgetting that silence is charged with meaning,
and is easy to share with you.

darling,

I don't know when the next night beside the water,
sleeping quietly,
waking up to white, waveless mornings
will be

i cannot name what i feel for you
but you mean something to me

These waters shimmer with memory;
watch as they glisten, flowing on the cusp of this age and the next.

Earthy, brown, depthless pools;
lacustrine, surging on the precipice of pearly shores,
enriching me as I look in

and see the tide's truest nature looking back at me.
Ancient and clandestine, too,
the place where youth and wisdom dwell

You're the wayward star, blinking patterns in the sky,
burning lifetimes away;
you love god, kiss losers, hold close to the dying;

throwing yourself off the cliff of your potential as the lunatic who hies to the tall cliff and leaps into burning oblivion,

anchored now to a man who speaks at you and never could see you,
only feel your youth and covet your mind.

-

Jane! What wretched choices you were maybe forced to measure, for the shortcomings of your era.

Be the voice in the woods, the single song for the morning.

I'll be in love when I can dance in front of them as if I was alone.

plastic bags hang beneath my tired eyes
but i got up this morning and i did it.
and i did it yesterday and i will do it tomorrow, and the next day too.
and i will keep on going even if the bags get darker and longer
and i want another five minutes of darkness and comfort.
i will not stop for nothing
and then one day i will wake up and i will have no purple eyes
because i am used to early mornings
and i won't want to sleep in
because i need the sunshine
and i will look back and be proud,
even if i skipped some days or slept in.
Because I did it. I did it. No one did this for me.

And trust me, everyone.
I promise that you can do it too.
you can do anything, even if your world is catching fire,
be the phoenix and renew from the ashes.
have a little hope and you will get there.

They embraced. Two bodies clashing together, silencing the cheers and holding onto eachother as if the world burned around them in triumph and destruction.

hello children.
our lesson today will be on patience.
she is like fire when you try and touch her
but once you have some
it burns for a while.

Like beads of cloud,
you froth on my wading ankles.
Spilling your allure -- timeless and
unwilling -- onto lupins
in the drift of your splendid foam,

and salt gathers in the spritely dew of your tide.

"we can keep going, or stay right where we are -
because a fighter comes back with at least one invisible scar..."

Where there is lightening, there is thunder.
Sometimes never to be heard.

two bodies
parallel
one is lost
the other dwells

one sees the other
and watches, invisibly
but there's no sense
in plea
because neither of them
can break free

from the roots
of this old tree.

One has loved, though,
endlessly,
has watched the other,
helplessly.

Now that the year has come to Spring,
I want to see the lakeshore,
smell the green, hear birds sing,
taste sunlight in my core,
crown every flower king,
become enraptured and adorned
in sweeping streams, in the bee's sting,
in the haste of the hummingbird's wing,
in the thrill of the rushing spring
of the blooming months, the budding moor.

the strummer violently strums,
a glassy stare, and makes it into a graceful nell.
vibrations in the air tell me what she is saying in silence.

thump thump, thump thump, thump thump,
a heart bleeding from love or from burden?

born with the water
the lotus opens in the moonlight

a man fell for her,
and every now and then they dine
on moonshine

above the surface she is rose and white
and below she is tethered to the world

no one can hold her
except for the water

where there is love, there is also pain.
but where there is love, there is hope.

I do not know the sheer sweep on the bow of the heavy and weightless sword as it cuts like a river through a century of bark in an old growth forest -
only the wind knows the fabric of its edge and the balance between death and silence,
only the sun knows its blinding metal glistening in a summer afternoon,
a slow-motion dance in the song of the birds as they flutter from the stark gleam of the dancer.
It slices through matter and vibrates the continuum of air, ripples delicate waves against the cliff of the body whose extension is the knife
slashing at nothing with utter precision and grace.
I do not know the cost of what such a weapon demands, what scars tattoo themselves into skin with every stroke.
Perhaps it is a race of endurance, but still it is an endless battle of balance -
the loneliness condemned to the sheath of the human,
and the longing of the blade to be freed.

I'm feeling somewhat melancholy,
thinking things that make me so.

It feels like such a gloomy ending,
but when something ends, there is a new beginning.
And beginnings give me hope for what's more.

I am a product of collision
an incidental incision
A dead flower rotting in its own soil;

and so, I shall be dust returning to dust -
a product of myself, collapsing like the stars that made me.

too little

TOO MUCH

(I should just do my best and risk losing the security of their cares)

someone once said,
security is a prison which you give up your life for.

legs burn and weave the story,
a tapestry of snow

and wind yawns in a flurry,
a sanction that we go.

too high and you die
too down and you drown
too carless and you lose
too careful and you choose.

flushed with emotion, and choking on the truth.

could say a thousand things, talk into a corner.

to be clear,
I love you. That is all.

September Jane,
all but plain
standing in
the pretty rain.

Her hair is stained
with pretty rain;
umbrella left
atop the pane.

My sweet September,
do you remember
the pretty rain,
the dying embers?

The stories read
before bed,
the funny rhymes
you always said.

September Jane
where did you go?
I'll greet you when you come.

September Jane
you didn't know
it is the pretty rain you're from.

tell me someone
what happens when I just give in to the tentacles reaching for me
do I drown

Poem

pliant clay creases in your hands,
collected in the special place just off shore, below the waves.

good for the skin, it bakes onto flesh too easily in this heat,
and then comes off just as nicely.

you could shape it into anything, maybe an offering to the gods or a formless clump,

but you make a duckling out of it. Now it's sitting on the sill, staring out at the freshwater sea you birthed it from;

not from foam or anything special,
just the supple clay in the lake,

the cool respite of it, the way it allows life to make it so.

Two pairs of hands:
they coalesce in the drawl,
the duet shaping them
anew.
In the other room,
four bodies, carved by song.

it will not end here.

you, the one with violets in her lap,
the one, despite her mortality, that only gods may approach,
look at me

no truth was found in the fragments of sappho,
but what lies in all those lost to another time?

still waters sicken
at the ephemeral stream,
whose current is dream


Wading in waist-high water;
and I love you so violent,
more than maybe I can do.

there is anger in me and I have smothered it for so long.

so foolish, I fell
for the idea of you
your shadow, my dream

goodnight stars,
tomorrow I shall know the Sun -
its warmth and fire

When I was young, I hadn't learned of wars.
I thought they lasted hours, not lifetimes.
When I was young, I wanted to live in my room forever.
I didn't know there was a world past my backyard.
When I was young I played with kind kids.
I didn't know that people were mean because of someone's home.
When I was young, I disliked school.
I didn't know how much I took for granted.
When I was young, I was terribly afraid of getting taken.
I didn't know how many children went lost.
When I was young, I was free and had infinite imagination -
now I am caged inside of it.

brown eyed girl
with sand straight hair
never smiles anymore

brown eyed girl
with sand tan skin
left out on the open shore

seagulls scream
tides sweep in
salt stains drying up her core

feet sink in
the sand is dense
she sinks
and sinks
and sinks some more