My ancient blood boils
As wood pops
Embers sizzle
New fuel added
Burned pieces fall
I can witness lives
Be engulfed
As the flames build
Growing taller into the sky
Mixing smoke and clouds
Summoning my inner demons
To dance on fires tongue
The grey snow falling
Cascading blessings
My ancestors bestow
Strength to continue forward
Peace on withered cliffs
Fear to motivate progress
Sanity with every pass
Of the peace pipe
As the flames build
My woes become ash
My dreams embers
Waiting for the fuel
Of my own approval

of soil and water

of dirt and cries of sky

musty aroma

packing the nostrils

translucent blobs

stutter on glass

disintegrate against ground

wave of pewter puffs

and that echo again

like a million falling *****

in an vacant room

begins

new jewel

almost a year

since you made it official

and now back

to the start

another year

stretching its arms

April wave

green blaze

love like the blossom

Was I all along
Too blind to notice
Sanity a self illustration
Painted in the dark

Why is it when somebody we love does us wrong
We bundle up our pain and pass it along?
Sharing the misery doesn't make yours shrink
Just adds to the chain another link
Only multiplies the hurt you feel
Gives another the same wounds to heal
We think by gifting it to someone new
Our own suffering we'll magically undo
But really we are just inflicting pain
On an undeserving person nothing to gain
All it does is make us feel even worse
To share with another our heartbroken curse

I wander through the irreplaceable night
waiting for the grey vagueness of dawn.

It isn't always so complicated;
the deepest things are simple at their root.

When the wolf wanders into the valley
does she hesitate at the fork?
Does she wonder about the untrod path,
or just stick to the banal evil of normal?
She prods at my kidneys with her nose,
hesitates, smells the remnants of Florida,
and trots onward, not looking back.

It's second nature to love you,
but first to see my wrongs.
It's easy to miss things
in the new darkness of night.

fall into myself again

i am the pale flower
you left out in the rain

never growing

but these things take time

one morning will sing

ring-a-ding-ding
inauguration day

become yourself again

champagne voice
or a cliché of your choice

does the new year
come in April

leaves that surf the breeze
got yourself going green

soak those lungs
with that fresh air

will it come it will come

you don't think it
but know it

the fog can only cradle you
for so long

until you grow

like spring flowers

the rain is playing
its jingle again
between the trees

night unravels
liquorice tongue
pricked with stars

your fingers
look perfect
between my fingers

our language
an ephemeral blush
on windowpanes