Do not fall in love with an artist;
Her mind is both a framework
And a disarray
Of jumbled sentiments.
And once you embed yourself
Within her horizons,
She’ll fathom you into a masterpiece.
She’ll draw the way your lips form words
With mesmerizing hues
And bind your love
Into a collection of poetic utterances
And she’ll make an inconsequential language
Into an unconventional expression.
She’ll pluck strings
To embody the way your chest
Rises against her ear with each breath;
She’ll make you fall in love with creativity.
And one wrong move,
And you’ll become a masterwork in her array.

Before today,
I spent nights looking at the stars,
and the moon,
knowing that anywhere you were,
you were also looking at the same sky I was.
day after day knowing
that no matter where the stars were in the sky
you saw them too.
No matter where the sun sat,
you were looking too.
Here we are,
almost three months along
and I look at the sky
and all its stars
and regret it all.
Because no matter where you are,
weather you be sober,
or dazed and confused,
strung out,
or stressed out,
behind the windsheild of your jeep
you see the same thing I do
but with through different eyes.

In memory of a flower that did not grow
its grey ashes lay forgotten in the snow
left to dry its spirit inside a soft Spring wind
whispering a message to their next of kin
carrying a hope, and prayer from within
that their cherished flowers never see
a war that kills beauty, and humanity
In memory of a flower that did not grow
its innocence, and number are all I know.

Rid of the world’s injustice, and his pain,
He rests at last beneath God’s veil of blue:
Taken from life when life and love were new
The youngest of the martyrs here is lain,
Fair as Sebastian, and as early slain.
No cypress shades his grave, no funeral yew,
But gentle violets weeping with the dew
Weave on his bones an ever-blossoming chain.
O proudest heart that broke for misery!
O sweetest lips since those of Mitylene!
O poet-painter of our English Land!
Thy name was writ in water—it shall stand:
And tears like mine will keep thy memory green,
As Isabella did her Basil-tree.

Loneliness walks hand in hand
With he who strides the long way forth,
With he who walks the path alone
Through solitary’s East and North.
Firm his sinewed hand so strong
That steers the compassed vessel back
Bridging pitfall’s chasm wrong
Through deft manipulation’s track.
Guiding they who pledge good faith
To fall then, by the wayside, weak,
Then in bridging disappointment’s song
Instead, he helps them to their feet.
So long that night of solitude
With stark decision’s crucial stack
When none would share that brutal loading
Weighing solely on his back.
Lonely is my leader’s song
Lonely as his dying day,
Would that he could share a word
Who would understand his way?

M.
17 October 2015