myself urges to understand
with no capacity to bear despair
i try to rest somewhere
between the thoughts
i am unable to sense sweet words:
a full well illusion

All stories are true,

somewhere in the world, and here --


they may happen too.

the pen is not mighty
the lily is not pure

and blood is not vengeful nor beautiful
it is just red

but i like stories


that white shirt you once wore
now yellow with use
that sweater you've had for years
adorned with the patches
of accidents gone by
that scar on your back
from when you fell off a swing
those lines by your lips
the remnant of a smile
and a smile and a smile

I like stories
i love reading yours

there are rabbits on my moon
divinity in my incense
my oaks stand mighty
my sun rides a chariot


park benches donated in memory
hasty scribbles on classroom benches
superstitions about crows and cows
love stories to make word games

i come from a world of stories
where the people are made
of matter and molecule
of memory and metaphor

i like stories
and this one's my favourite

In the allure of this thin air
Streetlights tell stories
Of snowflakes and rain drops waltzing
You put out your hand
Threads of your heart
Fall into place like hourglass sand
Hoping to catch some remnants of time
But on these darkest nights
Where dawn seems to have faded
Into the midnight sky
We count snowflakes
As if counting sheep
Falling asleep to the sound
Of the beating hearts on our sleeves

(a poem in 2 Senryus)

We carefully choose
bits of our lives that we then
weave into stories.

Like birds building nests,
making the safe places that
keep and define us.

The fire is blazing,

so are the stories we tell --


setting us aglow.

What stories?
People tell a story and think that makes it universal law:
makes the story real and reality only a dream.
This is what ego-driven people do:
why one day they say one thing
and another day they say something new.
Are times hard? We can say this.
We can say times are joyful, too.
We can say whatever we like.
We can reframe a genocidal land grab
as a freedom chasing dream.
We can be real, too.
We can see what we’ve got
here and now.
And we can love each other
despite the stuff that doesn’t line up.
We can acknowledge and affirm
and set intention
that this that we see right here
will not be our road again.

Mother and child, room of wails
Pales in comparison to what the pen has prepared
A laird to hardships unaware, she protects her hope in her ***** to no avail
For what hails heroes from the dust least they have yet to be erred


Their tormentors shudder from oppressed cut brilliance hidden in pages, addicts to riches bought with blood
Yea, a spud to peace, their wages of greed persist into a protagonist’s drudgery
The journey they face disregards limits, obstacles held together by the will of the author must they succumb
Shunned by amity, the mastermind leaves their conclusion smudgily in dirt


We Readers helplessly watch our heroes with words of consolation clumped in our throat
Devoted to a good story, we gleefully sell time to the composer so our champions can climb the ropes
Common tropes of old, we discuss in groups or alone characters we breathe to life with admiration in which we bloat
Rote in its finest, we continue this slow dancing of pages to the tempo of screams of peril or the feast of shortlived jokes
For the author knows to keep everyone afloat by throwing a good tale on a boat

I saw a circle of light
soundlessly pierce a wall

A hole to get lost in
Everything changes there
The earth doesn't stand still

and the sky is chasing, fleeing
from me, I start a new notebook, quick
quick, before things are gone
and I no longer know if
they were ever there
and then will wander
in my memories

Your fantasy is proof
of the truth of my stories
You know the language I speak

I describe to you where I was
as if you were there yourself

i am over without the easy|
sometimes a cup without a saucer|
often shoes without socks|
but mostly i am legs running and arms whirling

in a hurry to escape the day|
in a rush to fill my head with bouncy thoughts|
in a flurry of wishing flat words into fantastic stories|
of turning grey into cerulean, and rust into claret

i am questions with more than one answer|
questions which play on my mind|
answers which go around and around|
like petals of eccentricity whelmed by an eddy|
and trying to escape the day in a hurry