(From an interview with a young woman who escaped from ISIS)
She is dead and wonders why
Her heart goes on beating.
But, she has been dead before.

She died each time she thought
About the eight year old girl *****
Then taken, a wife for ISIS.

"Take me!" she had pleaded.
Her body would be stronger.
Her mind already knew . . .

So, now, at only twenty,
She dies, again and again.
Yet, her heart and memory will not.

Heat comes up
Heat cools down
Hot-white love
Can turn cool-blue

High color rising
On the horizon's line
Reflecting many colors
In a lover's eye

Beneath each new day
After every storm,
There must be a calm
As lovers often know

As all the lovely birds fly by, and
I am held, breathless, in this moment
Transfixed to the beauty of time and space
And the continuum of time and times and tides;
Across a sky lit by the morning sunrise.
I am caught in the thought, "What is a sunrise?"
It is a sight out the window of life, yes.  Thus,
As the earth slowly turns we get to watch it go by
Ever so slowly and we think we are seeing the sun "rise."
And thus "the world turns" imperceivable in its orbit,
A blue orb in a graceful dance with a bright orange orb.
All the lovely birds have since flown into the morning;
While standing here still I am wondering,
"What is a sunrise, really?

Some of us do not function well in chaos
Some of us can function quite well
And some maintain the status quo

Some of us will rise above
Even as some will sink below
There will be hands to slap away

Even as there will be hands to hold
And as time will undoubtedly go
What, in the end, will be your story told

Are words harmless?  Can they ever be benign?
Between you and I?-

And, how many times has the Soul mated and re-mated?
Tearing, scarring, and numbing the connection.

Is that how and why, we keep this distance?
Or, Love, is it fear of perfection?

The night is a silver cage
Containing the white bones of love;

My heart bleeds for you
I wish I had been able to flesh you out;

Yet, here we are
Barely human, anymore.

I pray that he is not lost to us;
He fell into a hole in his head.
Now, he cannot find himself.
How are we to proceed?

At first, his darkness is soft
And warm and of great comfort.
It comes sharp, dense, scary
In the recesses a cold blackness.

There are no doors, no windows
From which to escape that place.
Only a celestial hand can reach in,
Save him.

Author Raymond Chandler left a poem
Only found after his death.  It read:
“There is a moment after death when the face is beautiful
When the soft, tired eyes are closed, and the pain is over.”

The Psalmist said, "For he well knows how we are formed,
Remembering that we are dust."
And, Job cried out, "Remember, please,
That you made me out of clay,
But now you make me return to dust."

Did not Isaiah give insight?
“Your dead will live.
My corpses will rise up.
Awake and shout joyfully,
You residents in the dust!
For your dew is as the dew of the morning,
And the earth will let those powerless in death come to life."

Indeed, there is a certain beauty in the release at death,
And, in the remaining echoes of who we were.
Yet, there is greater beauty in life.
Regenerate, oh, you dust!  Live, again!

When we are old and gray
(Which isn't so far away!)
Nicessity will call upon me to say,
"Honey, put your teeth in!"

Suddenly the singer is unmasked,
And in the end, it's all clear:
It was always about where the bread was buttered!

Then it hits you!
You are in need of a shovel
Because this stuff has gotten too deep.

You are a fly.  Not the brown-black kind,
But the shiny green-blue type.  You know,
The one that is attracted to stink?
Some people thrive on crap!
What is the value in that?

Absolute magnificences
Held in richly woven garments
Arrayed in opulently fine linen
Washed in the light of ages
Adorned with sliver and gold
And they look upon you

You remind me of the woman that I have lashed
Until finally I ran her off.  God, I loved her.
But, she scared me to death!

It’ll soon be gone.
But don’t get me wrong
I am so very thankful for
The wondrous memories made.

And grateful for the beauty
And at seeing children play
In a world suddenly pure
Under snow’s blanket

Of wintery-white.

I’m holding on for dear life.
Passing seasons have changed me
Causing me to flutter about in the wind.

My spring colors once ran bold and true,
But that, my love, was before I met you,
You, the Winter of my life.

Cold, cold, you.

A powder of pink, blush
Is painted on the baby blue.
The snow falls softly,
As light as goose down.
I walk along a deserted shore
With only birds tracing lines
Across the watercolor sky
Then move into the gentle night.

A very light mist starts,

it is freezing!
I hold my breath because

that is how
You make it snow,

you hold your breath.
How to stop?

With death comes a release.
No, I do not mean for the dead, but for the living.
The living can love more fully in their memories,

letting pain go.  

Like cream which rises in fresh warm, white milk
The seconds, moments, hours, days, months, years
That was filled with joy rise to the top of our thoughts,

And we have that release of bitterness, pain, anger,
Now settled to the very bottom or are discarded completely.
Thus, it leaves an uncomfortable dissonance.

In my ancient history,
A mother stands over her daughter
Twisting her hair into Bantu knots.

The young men gather,
Who built the Great Enclosure
With the strength of mighty warriors.

I am 'umuntu,' a person, I embrace
The ancient beauty in their face,
Their shape, the color of race,

My ancient heritage.

Your eyes, a cloudy blue,
Set the pace and the mood.

We took this long drive
Hoping to help a relationship survive.

The many years of hours spent in pleasures
Are so filled with the things that we have treasured.

Yet, you say that you are tired of trying.  Why?
Don't you know?  Sometimes success happens on the last try.

Like substances broken out from your favorite perfume,
Somethings apart from the whole cannot be understood, nor enjoyed.
The beautiful scent comes from the delicate balance of each component.

Ingredients in your favorite dish do not taste as good as the whole.
Try eating flour on its own and see how far you get, and yet
A dessert made with it can be culinarily divine.

Sand is nice but what is it without the ocean or the ocean with sand?
You could plunk an alpine mountain down into a desert and then what?
The delicate ecosystem will not survive for long and then you have desert.

And what of literature, poetry?  What is its substance made of in the end?
Metaphors, meter, rhythm, rhyme, imagery, assonance, alliteration,
Words, phrases, stanzas, tone and form, ideas expressed to eke out the essence.

How do we construct a poem?
Poetry doesn't have to make sense,
But we want it to.

Her aching abdomen thumps with desire.
A universe resides within, waiting
For stars and planets to be born under a moon.

Ancestral entanglements wait for births
While weaving memory into a heavenly gauze.
It will catch the haunting inheritance of those

Before, present, and past.

Tiny, almost minuscule. Hollow *****,
The weight of petite feathers, silken sinew,
Sown into tensile strength, beguiling.

Beauty in song. Greater than giants.
Chirping out lovely textiles of golds and silvers;
Strong enough to hold universes in place.

Sweet like sugar. Sweeter than honey, elixir
Of baby's breath.  It ***** in air, exhales
Through an ***** the size of a raindrop,

Pushes out sucrose-laden vibrations
Which pour into my ears, my brain, my heart,
Until we both pulsate in an oscillating Self.

History, a word that carries memory,
transformation,
success, and failure.

Though written in skewed remarks
By the victors of the time
The truth will out.

It is not until
The Kool-Aid runs out
That one can begin to question.

Relentless, Time’s tide
As it flows onward ever so fast.
Each second slips away,
Creating a moment passed.

This world turns, yet my heart
Stands still, a hollow echo
That your laughter used to fill.

The sun will set on another day
Alone in the sky, it will happily stay.
But not I.

The stars explode with brightness
But still, I feel alone, no longer known.
A page will flip as the calendar burns;

Each season changing in its hue
And with every breath, I think of you.
For life can no longer be the same.

(Inspired by a poem posted on FB without a title or a credit to who wrote the one I used for inspiration.  Do any of you recognize the premise?)

"It is like a wildfire that you cannot stop",
Burning all around, you in the middle,
Until all is burned down.
You stand looking out, wondering
How you made it through,
Made it out only slightly singed.
Life is a wildfire that you cannot stop.

"It is like a wildfire that you cannot stop",
Burning all around, you in the middle,
Until all is burned down.

You stand looking out, wondering

How you made it through,
Made it out only slightly singed.
Life is a wildfire that you cannot stop.

"I am a poet"
That is what our ego tells us
What we tell others
What others desire for self
What we desire to hear
So they tell you that you are
Quid quo pro
We stroke one another
Manus manum lavat
When I die I hope "they'll" say
"A poet has left us"
But then as now
I will not know it

You by my side
You standing near
You next to me 
You I hold dear
You are a need
Which I fill
As often as possible 
You are sustenance

It is Love that has to be believed to be seen.

Deep within the heart, My World, the illusive passage

Tremulous feelings emerge into a light, which becomes You.

This poem can be read 2-3 ways.  Read the whole poem.  Next read only the ones.  Finally, read only the twos.

1 You are beautiful
       2 inside and out
1 And you were gifted
       2 bone and sinew
1 Muscle and brain
       2 within your mind
1 You can find all
       2 the strength

The last stanza is inspired by Mary Huxley's poem, If You Return

Your needs are calling, and I should go

Yet, I cannot this moment, for
I must write while the words flow

The pain of losing you
Before you're even gone

Is too acute for me to carry on
Yet, we all must, for in time we all go

And you will soon and so must I
We cannot turn to look back

Yet, when you return, no need to knock
For my door has memorized you

Stand near the cotton candy maker;
What a carnival atmosphere!

Sugar permeates the air we breathe;
The taste briefly lingers on the tongue.

Yet, the thing sweetly desired obtained
Becomes a sticky mess.

Stand near the cotton candy maker;
What a carnival atmosphere!
Sugar permeates the air,
    
We breathe; moisture glistens on our skin,

The taste briefly lingers on the tongue. Yet,
The thing sweetly desired obtained
Becomes a sticky mess.

The label read: Clarifying Shampoo
So I thought I'd give it a try.

Skeptical as I was
I lathered and I scrubbed,

But clarity never came.

The scissors marched across her forehead;
When Mommy stuck her head in
Baby Girl said

"Not now Mommy. I'm cutting my hair."

And sure enough, the horror was true.
Baby Girl's hair lay there on the floor
In little tufts of such pretty curls.

A tear rolled down Mommy's cheeks like a tiny pearl.

At times we are all fragile.
Casual words spoken at the time
Can cut to the bone
Leaving you hurt and feeling alone.

It's not another's responsibility to nurture you.
Only you can keep "you" from feeling like a fool.
Thus, tap deep into the core of who you really are
And all the good you may have wished to do.

Then ask yourself: What part did I play
In making the world the worse or better today?
Could my next actions alter those next casual words
Said with such disregard or even said in mirth?

The only "I" that is within my own control
Is the better "I" that slowly comes to the old.
That which has the hardest time erasing pasts acts
Can bring the knowledge that all things change and pass.

Even self-worth.

I'm not a cat, you will see, you wussy!
And I'd not be trapped anyway,
With that ball of string, I already played.
It is a tired old game for stupid *******.

My skin drum beats the message
Deep from within my chest sending
Out the rhythmed vibrations
Hopefully, the sound will pound
Upon your own heart

If I were a bird
You would be my nest.

You are the bed
When I need rest.

My ears had heard
But now my eyes see.

I come to know the depth
Of what you mean to me,

Life and love, and breath.

In the style of Marc Morais

Become a boulder for
Those who need a place to lean
Between solitude and stress
A tide for the jagged shore
For those who feel unmoored
And no longer want to be moored

Mighty strength to meager strength
Wrap your strength around mine
Become all things to all things
Then in this act, you will find
Two become mightier than one
And many hands make lighter lives

My strength in you, yours in mine

You could be my lungs
For you give me breath.

You could be my heart
Because it beats for you.

You were already in my head,
Now you are in the heart
Within my chest.