I fall in love, like it’s a dare.
No helmet, no warning,
like being in the middle of nowhere,
when it starts pouring.

My hollow heart, unprotected,
waits to be washed away
with echoes of the silence,
that grow too heavy, until they strain.

The flood begins within,
soaking through skin, through veins,
tainted by you, to my core,
with a weight I was never built to bear.
The water rises, inch by inch,
but I don’t gasp.
I’m prepared.

I drown quietly, without struggle,
as if this ache has earned its place.
The tide carves out my ruins,
leaving nothing, but empty space.

And maybe that’s the mercy —
not the saving, but the cease.
When the water stills inside me,
there’s a moment of release.

He beckons me forth,
my sanded toes dusted like candied fruit,
ready to be washed clean
by the delicate froth of white salted foam.
The hush of his tide brushes my bones,
black glass whispers,
rhythmic charm,
his fingers, luminous,
glint blue as he parades the coast,
curling around my ankles.
The moon sways,
singing silvered lullabies
rocking the earth
so that he sloshes, just so,
like the tilt of a glass
to your lips.
How could you not want to take
just one long, slow, sip?
I long to taste the briny wonder of that deep,
to float upon belonging.
The wind crests over the rolling water,
wrapping me in his cashmere grip,
damp earth, the raw green of kelp,
and butterscotch,
as if the sun had spun sugar
from his sweetness on the shore of day
and left it here in the breeze of night
to cool.
I wade into that ink,
assured by the calm and the air's friendly warmth
until I am marine to my middle.
My lips part in tendered sigh,
for at last, I feel I have found home,
but then, the sweeping of my heart
becomes the sweeping of my feet from under me.
I am dragged along the floor,
waves undulating viciously,
taking the whole of me with merciless desire.
His currents replace my breath,
my thoughts circling,
as if swirling into the drain,
I wanted to be a siren,
and didn't realize the sea was he.

'Twas but three years ago
I set my pen to sea, a vessel born
a fragile craft of ink and fervent flame
with compass cast in yearning, not in security

The waves lapped soft with secrets,
a few saddening,
fewer sweet.

Each line cast: a current pulling at my feet
no charts existed
no charts exist
for waters this deep nor wide
where poets dream,
struggle,
fight,
cry,
accept

and ancient myths
shared from one to the next
reside

The sky, a parchment vast with thousands of drifting stars
drew constellations shaped like hopeful scars

i
you
we,
search for love – the poet’s atlantis
a realm where whispered truths and passions flow


clouds
like veils
concealed what lay ahead
storms were born from longing
words went unsaid
crucial words
I chased reflections that danced on the waves
illusions
forged in the poet’s unforgiving mind

the siren’s song – a melody of doubt –
called me close
not once, but repeatedly
–
somewhere
I know
Janus smiles
–
called me close then took away my sound
took away my hearing, and my voice.
and what was it that was so alluring?
the shimmer? the glint? the gleam?
or just the ghost of a forgotten dream?

Ink dripped like rain upon my weathered scroll,
a log of my journeys,
a testament to my voyages,
each line, each stanza, each poem,
an ebb of the sea carrying me ever further on my path

There, at the ocean’s floor
lost in fragments,
scattered arrays —
a compass
broken,
fractured remnants

one night
tides of silence
waves of wait
the poet’s curse
the lover’s fate

until

a flash, a beacon–
love’s distant flame–
guided through tempest,
called my name.

–
still it glows
a lighthouse, for all ships
that pass
–

not all who wonder
sink or drown
not all condemned to be a poet,
a lover,
a feeler,
are left to fall
fall
fall
ever lower into the depths of the cold
dark
deep
waters.


Beneath the veil of night,
a whisper grew
a secret kept
only silence knew.
the heart, a vessel sailing starry seas
found shore where love’s soft voice
dissolved unease

no longer lost amid the waves and foam,
the poet’s quest
had brought him safely home
adorning not treasure, nor gold, nor gems
but a reason to put down the pen
a reason to discern
the clouds from the storm


I stepped onto sands
warm beneath my feet
where time and tides and two hearts
met

a poet’s journey
ended

for now, when he
causes the ink and parchment to embrace
once more
it is not for the same cause as once was
–
to express his discomfort,
drifting about on the waters:
his only support;
a 4 legged stool,
built solely to hold his skeleton-
but never built to bear the rest
–
but rather to express
the dilation of his pupils
as dawn approaches, and the
the morning spills like
honeyed gold;
a whispered warmth the
night can’t hold.



the ink now flows from calmer, steadier hands
the poet, now having resigned himself
to the discomfort of the ocean
finally lands.

–
She is my peace
her arms my warmth
her smile my joy
her love, my home.
--

Ambiguity
Seven Times
Maybe one and two
Or many verbal words
Scatter our grasp
For sense and meaning
A puzzle thrown
In the Air here and there.

Here these words
Are pieces unconnected
Even as the word, THE,
Can take us to "the" beach
Or to " the" room
What you bring can
And Might
Be your rescue. Maybe.

You are here.
In the dark or light
Where one can't be defined
Without the other
Just as the meaning of you
Lives never in just one place
But resolved
Simultaneously ambiguous
This is your beauty.

steady, steady
the waters billow.

time has come
for me to let down my sails.

drifting away
in search of myself.

where i got lost —
i cannot say.

but the tempest is calmed
and to the waters i must go.

5:30 AM on the beach
half sun floating on water
like a broken egg yolk