I speak of hope
like the dawn it comes, there, on the horizon

her eyes are deep
stark like islands in an ocean
murky tides
misty waves
things lost and conveyed
a galaxy of clustered stars
that have dwindled off
so very long ago -
yet not to us
for no one has seen
how floods corrupt the dam
of her lashes,
the downy of her skin
so young and like a flower
wilting
she is guilty of another's crime
but again, she sinks
into sand
into clay at the absolute bottom of the deepest abyss
from sun-tanned to night-kissed
she reaches out with a hand,
a plea,
a look

and the pressure of the water pulls you in with her
so that you, too are lost
in the expanse
of those deep eyes

have you always been there -
yes, you have, I know

and now you are leaving
for better things to come for you -

I should have said good luck,
goodbye -
I was too ashamed

because

I never said hello to you
in the first place

Walking in the evening shade,
a figure there, it has not strayed
far from the path. It does depend
on shadows, lurking, it can blend

but sunlight enters through the trees,
reveals the cat, a stealthy breeze
that saunters over, brushes against
our legs, and now we have a little friend.

She sits on the stairs, stalks in the grass,
guards the street and greets those who pass;
a friendly thing, but we say goodbye,
until next we pass the creature by.

stand still.

I am like this,
like that

it is hard to be what I fear -
change

I am fickle and fain when things remain

my dearest darling,
ce qui est à moi est à toi
and smell a flower and taste its sweetness and know that the world holds you in its belonging caress so that you are symbiotic and chaotic and live free and happily and loved.

I am afraid of change -
it's so relative, so hard to prepare for.
I might like it better if it came less frequently,
if it waited just a day more so I could enjoy myself in the thicket of catkins.
Or gave me a notice so that I'd know it would be goodbye.

Spring comes again next year, I know this. But too fast we move on from the mourning of Winter. Slow your sunshine, pull the winds back, give me one last song of sorrow before you forget about her and move on.

Like we always do, always moving on, leaving it in the dust.
Take a breath first so I can at least let it go.

where can blame be laid
if not next to a body
after no one claimed it for themselves?

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.

fingers shake, skin tears
higher up the mountainside:
the climber's vision

Face them, I'd like to tell her.
They look like shadows but when you touch them,
They turn into fireflies.

you stab incessantly at each other's tires -
deflating heart, body, mind, and soul.

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

Compromise feels
only like my complete demise;
I am solely right.

you are not yet mine
what will I say
to make this into something

I'm wasting time
day after day
but nothing comes from nothing

it's almost june
it's been a year
I wish that I could tell

the lovely moon
to tell you, dear
that I am under your spell

we are not we
just me and you
two hundred thousand dreams

but do you see
a path so true
more lovely than it seems

I pray too much
and barter words
but I am too afraid

to risk a blush
and vision blurred
I think I'll just evade

I am still young
my heart is dumb
my mind is none the wiser

but now among
this foolish love
won't you be a sympathizer

i'll buy a ring
and take your hand
and kneel down on my knee

if I could sing
make you understand
the truth of my soliloquy

When I first came here I didn't know how to write and I think I still don't know what I'm doing.

fragile hands shaking;
I have sharpened the sword's blade.
You stand as my ghost

hover behind me

set your own pace
beat yourself
try again
you can do it -
will do it
if you give yourself the right attitude.

how do you think all these flowers survive through late snow?
they shrivel up and begin dying
but don't give in.

and with their perseverance, the sun rewards them.

the crow is dead and its eyes were open
and it had fallen off a branch, maybe
and it could have been sleeping,
body slumped in the dewy boulevard grass this morning,
but its eyes were open
and crows don't sleep that way.

I was surprised because death hides in all places,
except a ******.

have you ever had a coffee,
so terrible in taste but warm and inviting -
a place to numb insomnia.

What am I to do?
Even when I'm not thinking,
I'm thinking of you.

passion is a flame,
the body is just an urn.
let your soul be free

The destructive daughter
and the delicate one.

The blunt daughter,
and the passive one.

The rageful daughter
and the sad one.

The out burst daughter
and the collapse-in-on-itself one.

The always apologizing daughter
and the always receiving them one.

The destructive daughter
and the delicate one.

and in the dusk
where all days end
will we find ourselves in the hues
of gold into darkness

-

in the dawn,
we were brought
from summer into fall
cleansed into being

and now it is spring into summer
and we close this moment
with a song
a celebration
a sunset

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

as the birds all sing
to another dawn

sing, goddess,
of your immortal divinity,
and tell me how
it feels to watch the world burn
while you can never become of its ashes.

And in the cries of sunshine she declared her love -
I was getting struck by lightning at her promises;
The heart I once owned was away in the winds.

he stole her away,
that's what the stories say -
because women with voice
hardly ever got a choice
and even now
they doubt.

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.

A breath so epic and golden and extreme,
lips that whisper like olive branches and shooting stars,
eyes that hold constellations and dreams,
pinkies touching and the silver rope of love's string -
the kind of love I'm yearning for.

when eurydice fell
down into hell
orpheus wept
stars never slept
for his painful cries
were as pretty as lullabies
but agony pined
in his heartbroken mind.
and when he got a chance
he took one glance
and eurydice fell
back into hell.

Once upon a midday mourning,
thoughts and thrashing came a-swarming -
came to me, without a warning,
stayed in tide 'till the next morning.

the word for when
you're so afraid
that when days end
they're gone forever -

always before bed
i feel this dread
as if tomorrow
will not have this again.

i hate that feeling
it is like standing at the edge of a cliff, wavering
between how beautiful and how long the drop

stop 3 seconds
wait your turn
signal left
hit the petal

spin the wheel
look both ways
yield to on comers
delicate metal

follow the limit
slow and speed
this gasoline
is human greed

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.

echo loved you so much
but all you left her was the whisper of other's words,
the silent swan and mockingbird

exhausted, I bend to kiss
the burning dark,
I find your lips
blinded by this cold eclipse.