A barnacled bow beneath booted feet
Captain's quarters stifling and close tonight
The wind whips through my hair
An inky exspanse of Caribbean ocean lays ahead
Twinkling stars fade out above me
Dawn breaks over a hazy horizon
Dreams have taken root inside a cold heart
I gave up the hope of treasure
Content with the sea and a bottle
Her siren's song pulling me ever farther into the
ocean's expansive wilderness
Anxious for daylight
Salt for veins
Land feels unnatural, unmoving, but I must find you
Scents of coconut and spice penetrate memories of being whole
"Land **, Captain!"
Pulse kicks in
Fire replaces salt
A true treasure hunt begins

You're sinking in my soul.

I am italicized*


We sing and we simmer
Our cosmic tumble tune
Hardly yet wholly
A place without room
Stardust dancing along side our gate
Black hole chancing just beyond our escape

If that gate can be an escape
An entrance to the unknown world
Fistful of stardust
Blow it to the wind
Let the wind be our guide
Beyond the canvas of our life
Our imagination captured beyond the horizon

Sunset washes the day clean
Brilliant peach orange blaze
Still left wondering what this all means
I am connected to you
As I am to this tree
Whole and in pieces
Full picture you see
The circle comes round
We dance to it's beat
Evolving masterpieces
Rarely repleat
Fingertips touching
Secrets yielded to soft sigh
Hoping with sore hearts
You'll always feel this high

In the circle of eternity
The known rhythm is back
In concentric circles
Frenzied steps
Spark that kindles two hearts
Blazing through the night sky
Touch of freedom
Paints the encircled world
Hearts healed with magic potion
Trust emboldens the souls
To soar higher and higher
It’s an eternity
Now, the saga shall continue

Frigid wind howls through tall standing pines
A sudden break in pressure and silence
The lone keening of a wolf echos through the trees
Full moon blazing silver ghost light down
Glittered forests full of snow reflect
I can hear the whispered siren song among the gusts
Wendigo
Insatiable and wild bidding me to run
Unable to resist I charge into the wilderness
Frozen acres pass beneath numb feet
Faster. Run. Faster.
Suddenly lifted by great hulking shadow
Faster. Faster. Too fast.
O my feet. My burning feet of fire!
Then footprints vanished
Moaning can be heard way up above the tree line
No one would find my bones or flesh
Consumed.
Nothing left but ash

"they" keep us numb with news of horror, loss and war
To distract from the reality of calculated ******
Our inability to connect with suffering unless we ourselves are touched
Is tragic
That is our signature
Change triggers our fight or flight
You probably chose flight
Easy way taken, light visible at the end of the tunnel

What is there is comfortable.
Planned.
Safe.

Your place in life assured
To be bland.
Worked to your last breath
(Almost assuredly taken in pain from cancer)
Used. (Taxes are theft)

We lack the cohesive ability to connect
Never touched it personally
Feeling sad or horrified does not change the reality
MOVEMENT!  ACTION!
These two simple words
One an example of the other
Could change the world
The future.

What we are remembered for.

Yes, we are good at war.
Excel at it in fact
Many would say an "art form"
Whispered sovereignly across the lips of megalomaniacs, genocidial delusionists and those who always thirst for more
never quenched
Our perfected brand of self-species annihilation
Will be what we are remembered for
"Even one so precious, written from the mouth of god"
Did not stand a chance
Against our innate brutality
Consistent fear of change

Yet our past does not define us
Our actions right this very minute
How we treat not only others but also ourselves
They reflect what we have learned
We can choose to forgive. To love.
To respect each other
Bright beacons give light when we are in shadow
Rarely are they chosen to follow
Blinding all the same
They had many hands to guide them home

They chose love.
You can too
That is what I hope "we" are  remembered for

I want a trouble maker
A lover who breaks skin, commits sin
Leaves stars in my eyes
Passion in my cries
I hope he fills his arms with me
His heart as light as it could be

His fingers grew cold and stiff in the cradle of my own
Last breath rattled, marker of death
Innocence violently stripped away
Shell left, a hollow reflection
Those pieces lay in defeated slumber
For months the clouds gathered
Rain, soft and chilling
Lulled quiet the rage, tears fell
A violent gush coming dangerously close to flooding
All of the hidden cavities that remained
Until one day the sky opened
Hesitant rays like bird's first flight
Shimmered down with angelic serenity
Bringing warmth once again
My eyes squinted to adjust
Recoveries healing hand
Had finally reached out to sooth
The wounds remain, puckered, ragged edged
I will carry them like badges of honor
For you were worth fighting for
Your laughter still echo's
Plastering the walls of the hole you left behind
With saturated, hopeful colors

Lazarus heart of midnight
Rearing feral and new from hollowed ground
The taste of blood and chocolate still in his mouth
Bones twist, spine arching into the form of beast
Teeth aching in cut gums, lonesome howl thrown to a cold moon
Pounding.
Heart and feet, over hundreds of miles
Scent on the wind, howl
He can feel her, needs her
Crimson flash like a beacon in the silent woods
He closes in, licking his lips
Faster and faster
Pumping wildly
Catching up, jaws wet with want
He stretches and snaps shut
A scream echos in the silence
Red pools on the forest floor

I am sorry.

Three words that can help heal
Yet we often find it so hard to utter
Our pride gumming up our tongues
So they lay silent, our lips mute
I have never understood that difficulty
To take responsibility
Regardless the action
We are built to withstand pain
Not create it

Look around you.

Pain is an art form
One we have perfected
In what could be the sunset of our civilization
We are still as un-evolved emotionally
As our dawning
Such great pains are taken in the name of progress
Foul atrocities that stain our hands
When working together, as one heart
One whole
We could have sparkled bright in these last rays
Instead we are judge and executioner
With little thought to how we will look
When that sun rises again

I'm holding strong
Tight, so close the edges blur
Lines that once defined us
Now entwine us
Even though we are no longer the same
Your breath still warms my cheek
Heart still dances to your beat
We watch as the years pass
Age lines, laughter leaving it's mark
With time passing I wonder
If our eyes will find each other
At the end
Or if, like so many other's grip
We will slip away

We should ease the squeeze we have on each other's hearts
It is difficult to breathe in here
With all of our solids gone to liquid starts
Jump the moon, hang her high
I seem to always hear hello
Hidden and heavy in your goodbye
I'll keep searching the grounds for your redemption
Digging deep
Regrets in suspension
The circle will come back full, round
Your tongue and mine dancing
To the beat of our heart's pound

Dig deep*
Free your mind
We are not one in front of the other
*But side by side

I have been lit by candle
Wreathed in darkness
Kissed by that magic hour between twilight and 3am
None have held me
Rhythm of longing beats on through the night
Fingertips grasp for yours to keep company
Solitary and solemn without your shadow to whisper to
What happened then?
Where did you slip off to that I did not notice until the cold seeped in betwixt the floorboards of our secret place?
I fall on knees already sore with roses turned to bruise while waiting for an echo
Faint light dances, just a sliver
Bright enough to tease but too faint to ease

You went to that place
                         Where her flowers used to grow
Spilling hot, salty tears countless times
                    Left the air always smelling like the sea
Even years later
                       You can still hear her mermaid laughter
                   Echoing through the trees
Grown over with weeds now
                                      Sweet memories resting place
Much like the aching hollows of your heart
                   Anger rushes through the quiet solitude
           Urging your knees to buckle
Digging your hands into rich, wet earth
Sobbing great hiccuping gulps through mournful wails
                        True pain is that of loss
A circle is finally cleared
       Exhaustion floods the moment
Head heavily laid where she rests
                   Clouds hum by above the canopy
Digging into your pocket
Smiling softly now
            Grasping at incubating bleeding heart seeds
A hole here, a hole there
                                   She'll grow again

*For the dead never truly leave us

Parallel we run our course
Only difference in choice
You may say it is the scenery
Or how you see
When in the midst of knowing
We know nothing and all

Crisp leaves blow to and fro
Blustery fall morning edged in winter's kiss
The last day of October
Spirits roam and wolves howl
Gibbous moon hangs low
Scents of wood fires, caramel and face paint
Permeate the chilled air
I've got a treat for you
Tricks too!
Abound through a night of celebration
Altar laid out with orange and black
Build courage for the coming dark
Banish evil intent by candle light
Your picture is central
Your memory always bright
Come visit with me
Speak softly
On this Sawhain night

She pearlized the stage
Slippery, conch shell translucent
Dancing on air it seemed
Or Venus rising from open seas
I could not break away my gaze
As her cresting form broke the waves
Rolling me under just as easily
As root torn kelp in stormy late spring

Steampunk grind me down kind of heart
Pulsing static cling through bones that ache and groan
Coming alive again, the feeling of awake
I pull cobweb crochet hand-me-downs from eyes that even still find the light too cumbersome
Squint, pull the rusted hood back over and sleep once more
The struggle is real
Mind like a coal factory belching dust and debris
Keep shoveling, shoveling until it rages into an inferno
Only then will it not stay quiet
No found fuel has yet to ease this hunger for something...more
Lost amongst wave after wave of heat, knocking me down
Slipped grip fingers and toes gone haywire
Workers on strike

Shedding layers like crusted tundra
Equal parts bright and shade
Alternate to spread shadow or give light
With ragged edges I start to rip at weak seams
I am but many parts
Some of those gone soft, rotten
Hungry to pull away at them
Strip bare of every bruised surface
Moonlight cleansing sweet silver
Like holy water to the ******
Painful but necessary
I am reborn

Instead of oceans for eyes
She had puddles for skies
Everyone always telling her to dream bigger
She could not see past her own figure
Tainted and painted with innocence, with sight
Only knowing her small thoughts
Never really taking flight
Open up, radiant flower
Praise them all with your wide eyed wonder
Finally seeing the forest for the trees
Taking in wonders she thought she'd never see

The sky was beautiful that night
I saw it, azure sparkle diamond bright
Through tears.

A river.
An ocean.

I thought they'd never stop
You know I'm not one for blubbering
Feeling your transition
From physical to spiritual

Took me with you, for a time

What remained was hollow
Still even sounds like a watermelon
My cantaloupe days ended
With that last sunset
Tuesday. February. The 19th. Florida.
Scars.
Our beauty
Our tragedy
Left inside those that linger on
Running is no cure
Like any disease
It is carried within me
Constantly searching for molecules
To ease this ache

Gazing down at me
In starry eyed brilliance
The apex of your pleasure
Reached with sweated brow
Clenched teeth and moans
Energy released leaves love's scent
Heady. Hazed. Humming.
My body curls into yours
As worked out lungs catch up
To our finish line

Time has left it's share of scars
I remember the depth of each
Uncertainty steals my voice
Throat closing fast
Little did I know that it would stand between us
Tear us apart
Eventually.
I forget now which direction you ran
I only know that you took the sun with you
Turning warm smiles and bright laughter from me
All that remains is darkness
All that remains is night
My life force, slow sticky sap
Seeps from me into tortured puddles of hardened hope
Wounded
I fear without your light these shadows will start to
consume

I cannot say with any more ease
What you cannot say to me
I'm standing here holding my heart open
Your's is still running
Can't seem to see
You send your apologies on rough waters
Led by white sails
But what love is this that keeps you lying?
What truth is this that leaves me dying?
So you push me away
You pull me back
A constant emotion you fade to black
Should it hurt the way I feel?
Or should I do as I have learned and deal?

Red hands, hands of fire
Search for your cure
I rip my heart out and never sew shut the edges
Empty in here. Occupying the void.
It is raining in slow motion
Plastering long hair to my face and arms
Golden chocolate tendrils snaking around us
Ivy tight, strangling
We are like starved children
Biting as deep as we can
Not caring where it came from
I watch you recover
Apathy's poison receding with the night
My grip becomes less tight
Touch so light
You can't even feel me
at all.

I dream in drops of April showers
Each note prismed,
                          some soft,
                                             some sharp
Into blossomed bright hued midnight edges

Secret flowers I hold close with asfault heat
Shift souls that once fit into each groove like all wreathed-in-mystery creators
I once dreamed of you in crimson letters
Swamped in mountain kisses, big sky glory
Memory pulls at a few calm whispers but nothing truly there
Just the space between two tangled mouths and thick summer air
Hand to hip you silly sipper
I lick white lightening from the curve of your smile
Change of season saw you slipping
From one gypsy to the next
As roaming hearts are want to do
Maybe that’s why I like it short and sweet
The only way I could get it from you

I spent last night consoling you
Your hurt flooding Kleenex after Kleenex
Make a mess, don't spare a thought
We ladies must stick together
When the arms that should protect us
Raise in anger
That is not the love of a man
That is the insecurity of a coward
In the dark, lost
You do not need more shadows
Keep on shining pretty girl
I'll be your mirror

I once dreamed of tracing Ghost lines
Now I do in waking life
Shadows catching shape and form of those missing
From those left behind
By candle light you are whispered
When gloaming lays still in the chilled evening air
I remember an autumn, not long ago
That made all those before it
Pale
On Equinox morning I became a wife
Two and a half years later I lost that life
Words fall short
Your arms never squeeze tight enough
hold close enough
Those that hurt
I am not made of paper mâché
I am steel, spider silk, diamond bright
With alligator skin that is all too thin
Don't ask me if I am okay
That word no longer plays a part
Focus on the silver lining
*Not on your broken heart

I often sit and wonder
Amongst the blurred water colors of twilight
What you would have to say about today
Commenting softly on the morning bird song
Humming against the back of my neck in sleepy adoration
Sometimes I cry with longing, with regret
At all we will never share
Most often I smile that secret you and me smile
At all we were able to lay bare
The weight of your hand in mine has no measure
I recognize it in the deep hours of night
I'll hear your voice, taste your taste
Notice your presence in bright summer light
We lived drunk, so high our eyes crossed
Soaking up every second we had to grab
Nothing that strong lasts for long
I'm blessed to have loved you
Blessed to love you still

I am reminded of that scene from Fight Club
Airplane conversation
About single serving friends
Among every other convenience
We pass through each other's lives
Cool breezes. Hot sands.
Finger lengths entwined, connected
Eventually slip their grip for most
Some I can hold onto
Vice like in my intensity
The hurt and confusion can over rule
Common sense about change
We all are evolving
I cannot, will not, hold it against you
There is a purpose for every path crossed
A single serving can **** you
**A single serving can save your life

He was a trilogy master
Leaving out the brisk bite of winter chill
Extremes to an extend
Always turning back again towards the light
Engaged in graphic silence
He toiled
Ink stained fingertips acrid as he bit their half moon edges
Dragons and fire burn across the pages
Blank ones waiting their turn to soak up his imagery
Sand dunes sweep across his vision
Night landscapes forever shadowed in darkness
Howeling mountains inundated with sharp-toothed beasts
His pen swirls with magic and mist
At once a slave and master to his words
This is his world
One of falling asleep on half-written sentences
Waking up from vivid dreams to create again
*This is his world

I feel you in subtle trickles
At times a deluge
Words fall not on deaf ears
Just softly
The push and pull is palpable
Silky surfaces greeting imagined rough hands
You are used to dirt beneath their edges
Both are carried by the sounds of little feet behind us
Echoing the future of our old age
Trepidation lingers in the air between our breaths
If only we were more like moon shine
Straight forward
Less like skittish ponies

Honey ripples sticky and sweet
Down the pouted edge of my hungry lips
Slurping softly through the mist, my full moon skin feasts on soft, midnight wind
"Shed, shed , shed" whispers in my ear
I listen
Long grass tickling the curves of my dancing thighs
Laughter, raw and true, sings out above the tree tops
I have never felt so free
Someone on the outside would see a wood nymph
Fingers hard digging into dark earth
Then sprinting fast with willow-the-whips kissing my ribcage
Inked arms out, head back
My feet pounding the rhythm of January up into the stars

We project the shallows
In the hopes that you will
Let us hide from the shadows
Of the deep

Glitter falls from pregnant clouds
Giving birth to light amidst midnight
January blooms ice tipped, gorgeous
The face of silver moon on dark landscape

Don't let this blue sky in my eyes fool you
There's thunder in my heart
Lightening in my lungs
Rain pours in sheets from fingertips
That long to soak the thirsty plains of your skin

Petal soft lips
A taste, a kiss
Exhaling all of your love
Into me

Soft air drifted in hushed whispers over my still form
A dormant heart, cold as concrete in mid-winter snowfall
Stutters awake to sudden life
Deep inhalation, ******* in the sunlight
Until it melts the numb core within
Wake up sweet thing, the day greats you
Eye lids flutter like tiny May Fly wings
Unsure and brand new

Your crazy haloed spectrum smile
Curves lazy slow sweet amid early morning
I tag along, you step inside
The braided lengths of our hungry fingers
Time slows
My sighs stream softly into wishes
Neon tinted bubbles capturing swirl wind
I focus on their ascent to star dust
Right where I want to be

This internal cataclysm
Incurable but I am hoping
That my mid-twenties tragedy will transform
My biological clock into a vortex
Sending me shooting forward to see that I am divine
Then back again to this impending mortality
I cannot see the future, endless
Possibilities take form in the shape of current faces, places
I often wonder if in fact I am as I claim
"OK"
Words like strong, will of iron and resilient
Pair with my story when told by others
My version is much more malleable
More like gold in the hands of Hephaestus

Mute gray entwines wistfully around my ankles
Night time ghostly kittens playing with the shadows past
My eyes often see the moon reflecting upon the bright visage of your memory
I still feel burned down.
Broken.
A ruin that in future breaths will be seen as the discovery of my lifetime
In reality it is the great loss
Static hums between the quiet space connecting brain to ear
In that white noise I make out your voice singing songs of moving on
Understanding has yet to dawn yet I have heeded your wishes
My heart does warm once more
Though parts remain dark, hidden
Burdened
Blessed with carrying the weight of where you still rest

There is softness here
Lullabies and water lily lies
Half moon curved on trembling lips
Do I even want to know?
I sigh into the shadows were you used to reside
I almost cannot bare the weight of your echo
Solace in moonshine and borrowed time
Until the sun breaks over the mountains edge
Not to be complacent but how else should I handle this?
Wagon wheels turn with gravel sung rumble
Swinging water lily lies and a goodbye kiss

I just want to lay here
Wallowing in your loss