Mist moves through early morning
Swirling a top the remaining craggy Gods
Standing tall to form the Appalachia
PawPaw trees hang heavy
Laden with fruit, ripened by Eastern sun
Precious ecosystem sustaining what shouldn't grow in this hemisphere
What's left that has not been removed
By blasting coal extraction
Towers above us still, breathing deep
Guarding us in silent repose
Footsteps weave to and fro
Sweet grass brushing sensitive skin
My laughter echo's through the Old Oaks
Honey bees gather pollen
Buzzing happily by my side
We must protect this special place
Turn away from stripping her of her glitter
Of her shine
Clean air, healthy soil
She can recover, she will survive

You sit patiently at my feet
Humming earth vibrations lulling you to sleep
Your fragile warmth sinks into me
My soil cradles your cosmic divinity
Sharing the soft breeze of a June afternoon
Knowing you'll leave me all too soon
Wishing it could be different, our paths more whole
Growing like root trees out of the same fold
I will stay here growing while you go away
Waiting as night falls for another sunshine filled day

I have holes in my favorite pajamas
Wearing out everything I love

Your hands cup the mound of my soul
Blowing softly on dying embers
Sparking them back to life
Full flame
I've been walking solo
With a torn heart hidden
Your steps falling in tandem
Upon our crossing paths
Needle already threaded, waiting
Tears fell as you mended
Pulling on scarred edges
My spirit roared back to life
My vessel once more whole
Our steps became lighter
Weaving in and out
To the sweet rhythm of contentment
To the racing beat of adventure
No roots needed
I've got my home right here
*For it is where the heart is

The soft whisper of your breath
Against my nape
Sends shivers quivering down my spine
Thighs ache to part for you
"Not yet..."
I can smell my wetness permeating the air
Between our pulsing layers
Soft tongue snakes out to taste
Satiny swirls right below my ear
Every glide has me melting, swaying
Closer to the hazed space of your heat
Another *** charged moment and I'll explode
"Please?"
My plea reaches sigh focused ears
Heavy seconds pass until at last
The edges of your teeth sink into pliable shoulder
Your moan.
My scream.
*Our release.

Front porch Tennessee shine drunk
I may be seated but my heart is dancing through silver edges along these smoky hills
Moon reflecting off half jar reflections
Mind is eased by midnight soft lights
Somewhere in here I hear your voice a calling
Long stretches of silence marked by whispers laid low
Now I know I could be just tipsy but tears ***** sharp regardless
Memories of deep summer far off and away
Take my hand now as I blubber about days I said goodbye to
Hair once dark and glossy now in long braids is gray
Them stills is all I have now, my copper and me
Soon I will lay too in these hills of Tennessee

Bad news is always dreaded
Lump in my throat as I hear a voice I never thought I would get used to
The aftermath of losing a husband yet still dealing with his ex-wife
For the sake of three beautiful, full-of-hope faces that are left behind
The eldest is sunshine golden
Great at math, loves to laugh
My precious Kallie-bug
The second child, middle stuck
Kayla, she-who-creates
Is a writer, a drawer, a nurturer through and through
The youngest makes me see myself
Inquisitive, a loner but still so full of love she cannot help but shine
Sweet little Addison
Out of 3 gorgeous girls, 2 of you have been cursed
Your father's disease passed down exactly
We will have to watch you struggle, suffer, cry
I do not know what to say to you, to others
(tears in my eyes)
Besides "hope", we must be so full of it that we can feel/see nothing else
I watched your father slip through my grip
Once a towering presence of a man
Reduced to a slight few pounds drowning in hospital white
I am so thankful you had his love as a child, he was something else
Never would have wished this for you
DKC is not a disease we know well, only that it brings hell
Nor can we promise that what we can do will help
I pray with your mother to separate gods
Each of us knowing that it does not matter
Our tears mingle into one single river through hundreds of miles of cellphone tower  
I will always be here
I will fight until I can no more
My little loves

I stood silent, still
City lights and sounds rained down
Forming musical puddles all around
Eyes dart everywhere to pull it all in
Lungs working to pump it all out
Filth in the gutters
Trash in the streets
Everyone moving quickly
Business at their feet
Neon signs did buckle
Under the weight of picturesque pomp
I had no idea what I was getting into
Watching the curved lines of this city's model stomp
My colors don't belong here
Foreign, sore thumb seed
Everyone comments on bringing spring in
For earth is what they truly need
How could anyone be happy in a place
Where everyone is wearing black
I left with thoughts of open fields
Oceans against my toes
I say to myself I'll never go back
...but who knows?

I am not as thick-skinned as you may think.

I find that quiet place between deep black and soft gray
Just as easy as I always have
My mind wanders
The faint outline of not too far off mountains
Calls to a wild place within the marrow of tired bones
Songs of burnt leaves, bare trees and wet things echo in response
3am cobwebbed by mid-December frost
Reminds me of another place and time
When sand instead of snow stretched out before me

If there were thousands of galaxies between us
I would still traverse each one *searching

Little viking hallow
Sharp turns and horns of arctic white
You stole through me like Valhalla thunder
A lightening flash to burn this bright
Odin's rough touch never felt so good

By Brook Ilges and Sverre G Holter*

Smoke. Spark. Ignite.
Fire burning down these veins of paper machè
I watch as pieces of me drift off with you into the night
Your voice carries over the mountains
Calling me out into the shadows
At peace with my undoing
Aching for a touch
A moment in the light
You are pure sunshine
Melting the iced cavities that surround my castle
Defenses 20 feet deep
Ready for this battle
Walls fall
Your voice still calls
            **
I was destined to lose you, even
Before I saw your face.
There are too few years in a man's life
For me to swim, to walk to you.
Before I ever even spoke to you,
You were perfect for me. But
Not for forever.
I don't even know
You now.
I see you behind your stronghold.
There never was a stone that could
Keep me out of your
Warmth, little girl.
I'll sing until you dance.
I'll whisper until you come.
I'll keep one arm of my mind on your
Person while you sleep and
I don't.
I've known you for aeons.
I have held your soul with mine for
Astral hours every night
Since we were
Born.
Such I call. As such I call,
Until your walls
Can hold nothing,
And crumble unto
Me an entrance.
*I can smell your sweet
Soul, woman...

When I was much younger
Salamander for skin with aching veins of Pele
I always knew that I was better for the burning
Then ever I was for fading away
Making promises to innocence I would not hold on to much longer
Merely echos reminding me of what can never be
Resonating through the hollowed hallways residing deep within me

I have been given such little time here
Seems to me that in that space a hand of sorrow dealt
Widowed at twenty seven
A once purring friend who was nineteen years mine
Now ashes next to those of Jeremiah
Tears fall down swollen cheeks weary of the weeping
More reasons for choosing not to propagate compile
Old newspapers with new headlines I cannot help but read
My bed is less now, my pillow too big
I am still asking questions about the why and how
Where this leaves me- partly in the past and the hollow now
Two urns I carry with me while I wander through the crowd
Two urns I carry with me unto my final hour

Speechless
Shocked
Breath gasps from a dry, raw throat
Please. I beg of you.
Staccato whisper. Ragged. Torn.
Have mercy on the withered
Dead skin sloughs off into a scaly pile
I can feel my heart flutter, sputter
I've been too long in the sun
Blisters litter my shoulder and neck
Joints grinding and empty
Thoughts of thunderstorms and monsoons taunt
Finally drops touch my lips
Tears to my eyes
I thought I had nothing left to give
Relief

So what if I've got tentacles?
Pulling you all in
With a mouth made to ****
Embrace your sea legs
One swim in my silky depths
Will leave you thirsting
For more of my tide
I prefer boats roughly rocked
My caps foamy and white
Salt spray facials
Pearl necklaces
Venus, emerging
Tsunami wave of pheromones
Check your sonar love
I'm headed your way

What an amazing day
For those who are Gay
A milestone long over due
Equality is universal
Should not be treated as adversal
We ALL should be happy for you

By Shel Silverstein**

Oh, I'm being eaten
By a boa constrictor,
A boa constrictor,
A boa constrictor,
I'm being eaten by a boa constrictor,
And I don't like it--one bit.
Well, what do you know?
It's nibblin' my toe.
Oh, gee,
It's up to my knee.
Oh my,
It's up to my thigh.
Oh, fiddle,
It's up to my middle.
Oh, heck,
It's up to my neck.
Oh, dread,
It's upmmmmmmmmmmffffffffff . . .

I’ve got a wild hair
This oil spill running through my soul
Reflects iridescent rainbows
Soft shadows clinging to dark depths
I inhale the star dust of old bones
They scatter my brow, meteorites plunging across the edges of my sight
Exhale
The wind like burning sonnets
As I belt out across the wide expanse of fading cotton candy sky
My lungs ache with unspoken words, ones I long to whisper, to sing
Instead I scream until my legs feel weak
There is no more left of me
But for the rich loam of Appalachia curving crescents beneath each fingernail
Hold fast babbling brook
Hold fast

Clouds gather
Shadows race across the afternoon
The tops of trees sway towards the ground
As if hungry for it's solid kiss
Rumbles echo in the near distance
Electricity crackles in it's wake
Thor sending love notes
A veritable visual feast of destruction
Strange swirls form funnels
Whisking everything it's path
Up
Soon the roar of a train engine
Careening out of control down steel tracks
Circles closer to where you think is safe
Hidden
Whipping wind harder and harder
Big Bad Wolf storm
Determined to blow your house down

A handful of water thrown like glitter to bead against reflective floors
Mirrors my cage in a hundred different ways
If I look closely enough I can see myself that free, that open
With every breath I taste the sharp tang of memories
That without you will never sit with sugar on my tongue again
Now I’m not blaming you or this wooden heart that bobs aimlessly without direction upon this endless see of caged reflection
Just exercising atrophied muscles with which I learn to stretch, to feel
Without drowning these polished plains I place cold feet on each morning
I am Alice here, skirts twisted above my head to obstruct the view
Although I know I do not wish to see it’s vast edges
Not unless they’ve painted you

My heart sleeve is tattooed and scattered
Four wind corner scars
Crisscrossing like battle lines
I've drawn in this sand of mine
The roar of your cannon's memory
Explodes loud and clear
Over the muffled cries of those that marked before you
Their leaving was more like a land mind
Blasting craters in my giving soil
That have since filled back in
Where as you hurt as Namazu would
Without Kashima to guard
*Ripping my earth apart

I’m going to get better at this
Your missing won’t ache as much
Horrific reinactments of your loss won’t haunt me
Won’t leave me gasping for air covered in tears of anguish
After each restless sleep
Watching others with their happy purrs won’t cut deep like this ravaged feeling of betrayal that mine no longer does
One day
For now I’m going to cry and rage and remain alone, without console
Hoping that one day happy purrs will greet me each morning once more

You tell me to slow down
The playground of my childhood's gone rusty
Don't play so hard!
As I burn my thighs on sunburnt metal slides
That make my hair stand on end
I fingertip touch your lips
Arching sizzle between your flesh and mine
I tell you not to think so hard
The fastidious cogs of your aging brain weazing
Be spontaneous!
As you sit steadfast watching me
Swinging so high I touch the trees
Wishing they were stars
And that your toes painted the sky next to mine

Muscles once taunt now lie lax
A smile graces clear skin
Seeing through bright eyes once again
I've missed the feel of smoothness your memory evokes
Reigned in for longer than I would have preferred
Restricted with tear's choke
Clouds crowding me
My feet are beneath me
Soft pads pounding hot pavement
In midsummer celebration
Hearing your song from oceans away  
Eases the hold of emotional strangulation
I miss you.
Deep aches that know not the pressure of your touch
Even so they call for you
Missing you without measuring how much

I wake up with your smell braided through my hair
                            Saturating my senses from the night before

Starlight and moonshine lit rings of soft fire in our eyes

                            Falling asleep in your arms
                            World stops, fog settles in
                            No one here but our body heat
                            Syncopation at it's most natural speed
                            Cold fibers seek solace in lip kissed goose bumps

You push me deeper than ever before

                            Our hands parting but pried apart
                            Occupying the spaces between hello and goodbye
                            It is never that easy though, is it?

Straight lines curve when wrapped around your tongue

                           Making the most out of deep sighs and slow, easy smiles  
                           The subtle shifts in your geography have my mouth watering
                           Causing a wild flutter to awaken the dead ache
                           In flesh once thought to be silent

It beats only for you

                           Ink and I have been forged since birth
                           Soul seared and thirsty for it's satiny black quench
                           With it I paint you immortal
                           Dancing through veins and sacred neuron firing
                           you are held
                           Where I can always keep you safe
                           Where in memory you are eternal

Houston stood up from his stooped position on the sunken mattress edge. Shuffling over to his one lone window he grabbed a paint stained old t-shirt and used it to gingerly wipe the filth off of the closest pane. The light he allowed entrance made the sorry state of his quarters look all the more uninviting. Piles of soiled clothing, dozens of glass bottles, torn canvas shreds(he could never hold his temper long enough to sleep on it) and empty paint pots from one unkempt corner to the other.   No wonder he had not worked in months. How could an artist create in such a state? He sighed heavily to himself and pulled on faded blue jeans with a plaid button up. Clothed and comfortable he surveyed his "work" room, which consisted of his five foot wide, two foot deep closet with the doors removed. The easle sat sad and empty, waiting to fulfill it's sole purpose: to support the realized weight of this man's genius.  He was a painter. A **** good one too or so some folks said. He was still a skeptic. Houston mainly  painted to control his temper. It was his only outlet for a hair trigger rage that simmered just below his sweet and gentle demeanor. Those closest to him understood his struggle and did their best to not instigate but every once and a while they dealt with the business end of Houston Montgomery. Not a show anyone would want a repeat performance of.
       One of his so called "masterpieces" was sold to a gallery down town for twelve thousand dollars last year. Seven months had come and gone since then. . He would trade his most amazing memory to be able to rewind back to that day.  Around that time the fates must have decided Houston was having far too much fun. That very same month he also came across a down on her luck actress who went by Sylvia Stone. He had been doing pretty well for himself up until that point. Bills were paid, fridge was full and his clothes were clean.  Then everything went to ****. She was easily impressed with Houston's new money and thought jumping on this pony was better than settling for a jack ***. Houston spent more time with her than he had expected. More time than he really wanted but he had not been with a woman in many many months and she was incredible in the sack. She did this thing with her mouth that had his eyes even now rolling into his skull and his spine quivering. Too bad she turned out such a psychotic ****.
         His art started to suffer. Normally he could sit down and pump out two pieces a week. For four months straight he only produced three total and they were horrible, shamefully lack luster. He told Sylvia he needed space, that it wasn't because he did not want to be with her but that he needed more time to work. He would get a few pieces done then they could spend a week together.  She seemed understanding but distant. Houston went back to dedicating his time to his work. Hoping that after he made some money Sylvia would be open to picking up where they left off, Houston worked quickly to pump out something fantastic.  

Things were quiet and productive
for seventeen days.

**Then Sylvia called.

The split hit us hard like an ice avalanche
Both spinning off in opposite directions
I can still see her when I close my eyes
Smell her soft sleepy scent on my pillows
Heartsick. Complacent. Numb.
Did not wake up easy today
Dreams,my only reprieve, remain obscure
Trying to put thoughts together but I feel nothing
Emptiness consumes the weak willed
Hoping she is stronger than this
Knowing that I am not
Walls closing in on already cramped quarters
Lonely. Everything reminds me.
I ache to tell her how I feel
Tongue tied writer's block opacifying malignant thinking
Unraveling. Come undone.
I am not who she thinks
Just trapped in here. Prisoner.
My expressionary boundaries solid as my convictions
Steel. Concrete.

I approach calm
Uninvited
Yet your arms stay warm and wide
I'd rather not remember their weight
Instead I run and hide
You peel me back like banana skin
Yellow, yes, with sunshine
Please spare me words of comfort
I'd rather you stay benign
We are but two quasars
Spinning with flashing solar light
Compared to dawn and dusk
Our polarities reside with the night

I need to vent
An aperture has broken open inside of me
Spewing the poison of unspoken words
They oxidate and spoil against the back of my throat
Making swallowing a horrid task
I am not sure where to start
Unhappy? no Malcontent? no
Neglected there's the word
What remains is turning hollow
Weeds grown scraggly, untamed between my teeth
It needs voicing, this creeping malice
It needs out

Bleeding through like milk ink art
Your eyes splash the morning with color
Cobalt, sea foam and jade
I want to paint you
Paint you with my adoration
All silky acrylics and soft oils
Sweeping across the canvas of your smile
With the brush of my tongue
My fingertips
I would add to your already glowing masterpiece

Your soft morning sighs reach me
I crack open wishful lids to view
The perfect curve of your bearded cheek
Warm rays blind
The sun is bright too I suppose
Compared to you though...
What sun?
You light me up
Soul spark ignited
Seeking out the sore spots, rubbing deep
No cobwebbed corner goes untouched
Just when I start to drift back off in your arms
You kiss softly at the base of my neck
I arch back into your waiting heat
Arousal placed, rhythm reached
We are lost in each other's push and pull
Hard, fast, hair wrapped around rough hands
I come swiftly, wet clenches tight around you
Milking
You reach me at your peek, explode
Our moans of satisfaction dotting the air between us
Laying entwined, thinking softly as sleep claims our sated minds
*I'll be here when you wake up.

We are young, fresh
Stars in our eyes falling hard
Summer running wild across cotton candy skies
I wish I could push pause
Take it all in deep, slow breaths
Another season of warmth and sunshine
Passing me by with a quickness
Your smile glitters just beyond my melancholy
Bringing me back to the present
I mirror it with ease
Even if a part of me will always be wanting

I read today that they plan on patenting our DNA
Placing RFID chips deep inside the child's brain
So that when he grows older he will be tame
Now I don't know about you you or you
But I'd rather be dead than not free
Barbed wire cages with iron for bars
Under the guise of "security"
For the sake and safety of "democracy"
My hands are still shackled
Even though my feet shuffle on
Our children are poisoned by vaccines
Yet if you decline you are an unfit parent
Who are they to ******* say?
Where did our voices go?
Have we become consumed by consumerism?
Numb and blind to our basic instincts of survival
Toilet paper will be a luxury one day
Most will be crying in the bushes as they wipe their *** with poison ivy
Uneducated. Barely skilled. Their media sources corrupt.
I'll be in the woods hunting deer and building shelter
**I'd rather be dead than not free

All of the passion has been ripped from me
Piece by excruciating piece
Layer by sandpaper-salt-wound layer
Until all that remains
Is the hallow, numb seat of my soul
Cradling softly to my shadowed center
*The last sweet breath of you

Just keep on keeping on
This rickety frame will too
Collapse is eventual
Not always up to you
I suppose there in lies the beauty
Of not really knowing day to day
What around the corner holds for us
Perhaps we'll fade into the shade
Now I was raised by a wild hearted woman
Who taught me how to listen to wind song softly
Close whispers, their hidden melodies
Led my colors out more than often
I hung myself in trees
A hopeful wanderer
Trecked honey rich valleys
Always on the search for...something
Until knowing it was the search itself
In which case I will never be through
Scattering petals from one end to the other
You'll stand in wonder, curious as to who
Could hold such a creature
Maybe even you

Obsessed with a cure
Constantly distorting what occurs in nature
Refining it. Mixing it with chemical burn concoctions.
Covering every inch of green as far as you can see
Growth hormones.
Pesticides. Insecticides. Don't-care-if-the-bees-die-icides.
Anything that can be sprayed on a crop for higher yields
All they care about is production and profit
Hundreds of new factories every year
Pumping out quick acting gel tabs
Filling the cabinets with placebos
Close enough to the edge of science to not be considered god
A two billion dollar a year industry
To stay young
Be healthy
Not have to get off our fat, lazy, publicly ill-educated *****
To lose weight
Nothing worth having ever came easy
Your inability to learn from your mistakes takes over
Watching the inevitable if not medicated decline of society
DNA withering away to dust, until only shells are left
Gaudy and virile played out right before us like a badly made ****
Doesn't matter who is getting ******
You are still watching

Feeling marked and wicked
Silk skin stretched tight across the starving pain of my wanting
Stretching. Breathing. Breaking. Needing.
Ease this tension I must. I must.
The wet rage of the Shenandoah between my thighs
A soft rumble in the distance heralds the coming storm
I can almost feel you in me
Aching for you to fill the slick hollow that I keep hidden
Need you closer, closer, closer
Please
Begging so pretty against the distance
Please

Your appreciation
Means more to me
Than any gift in return

We are our addictions
If not we wouldn't be willing to
Bleed so quick
On an endless search to find like minded companies
When we are successful we dig in
Casting out whitty barb edged hooks
Exotic, ****** verse to shock and ensnare
I can feel yours just as easily as I feel myself sinking into you
Our chaotic experience of the waking world
Leaked out on paper, line after scathing line
Consume. Saturate. Devour. Paralyze.
We soak up the mysteries.
The miseries.
And everything in between
Sharing and tearing
Scaring and airing
Naked. Open. Bare.
Our soul fire burns up quick and bright like coal
The smoke often just as *****
Eclipsing preconceived notions
You know nothing of our dark pleasures
Aching secrets that have us wandering into the night
In search of something.
Thousands of words but never enough
Always searching for something
Our indulgences outweigh your pride
We will air your laundry too, uncaring
Just enough to shame and cower
Our only vulnerability is our inability to succeed from our talents
For it is only in death that we find **immortality

Our relationship with the Earth
Can be defined by two choices
Parasitic or Symbiotic
We choose to be fleas
*Why not choose to be Pilot fish?

It was not until I was forced to taste the shades of gray
Lying like a death shroud across your face
That I truly embraced the full spectrum
Of every other color

Porcelain goddess gaining momentum
Wishing she was anywhere but here
Popularity on hermit hiatus
Bile creeps up her throat
Bloated and dizzy
Binge. Binge. Binge.
Food a constant companion
Over indulge with sloth
Gluttony floods the senses
Smiles wreathed in decayed ruin
Mirror image rotund, unclean
Distorted into a thin, glowing unreality
I cannot make it through to your blistered self
Protected and coddled by strangling disease
You clean your toilet everyday
Hiding KFC wrappers under your bed until the smell permeates
Filth and Rot have become your calling cards
Twisted around the pinky finger of an esophageal acid burn deity

She's got heavy rain boots stomping
Silk pagado parasol soaking up the shadows
Leaving all her hard angles edged in mist
Behind her black sunglasses you see no sorrow in her eyes
As her pouting lips wrap around a good bye
She's a walk away with a heart full of metal
Twisted and rusted, she'll ruin you too
Midwestern skies always seem to be teary
A day and a night  suffocating under the bleak drowned and dreary
Tomorrow won't feel a thing like Thursday
Blues filtered underwater dreams of escape
Trapped in here
Trapped in here with every dark desire
Eating through her iron heart
Steel ribcage cannot protect from corrosion
Wasting precious time searching for an end
When all she had to do was start to begin

Unable to purge
My thoughts of throbbing, thick *****
Penetrating me