Dreamscapes clenched in winter’s frozen grip.
Through which, with futility
Yet faithfully,
We slip.
Down from the heavens —
Down;
Amongst
Ablazed
Aerial
Aurorae.
A hopeless pair of snowflakes
Amongst a
Frosty
Frigid
Foray.
Perching on a wind gust:
Two
Scintillating
Snow-stars
Searching
For union in uniqueness,
But becoming
Lost
Looking
Lurching.

Our masks are many —
The cold chases us between characters.
Dreaming that your selves and mine,
Together,
Draw a starkly striking caricature.

Is it hopeless yet to ask
Whether in us we will find felicity?
Is there hope left in the dream
Of a snowy synchronicity?

How many poems go unwritten
And where do they go?
Are they buried somewhere in carbon:
Caught between the synapses?
Do the words merely come to surface
In the nets of another vessel?
Or do they wilt and expire?
Was there a betrayal when they came and then left?
Does someone collect the poems that go unwritten?

Torrents of creativity sweat through me,
And with the rapacity of cities
I dare to opine
To the heavens
And to all those who confront my assertion.
Thus, that a pursuit more lofty
Than that of the artist is not to be found.
Neither in oneself nor the matter that surrounds.
For to make one’s stance
In the wailing void
Demarking the known, but not grasped,
From the unknown, but most visceral,
Is indeed a mirror —
A demonstration of our likeness to Him
Who inspires with lightning bolts of revelation
The slice of a master-painter or the choice cut of a bard.

By design we, who occupy the medium,
Live in constant states of semi consciousness
On the border between sanity and lucidity
Chasing fires for the burnt offerings of our attachments
And the emancipation of our better-selves;
Ascertaining horrors and delights most penetrating
Alongside the lusts that course through these gnawing bones.
Of all the vocations and avocations
Is not the quintessence of sentience to be found in the arts?
Is not that the lodestar to our infinite horizons?

How ephemeral the memories now seem.
As if they truly come from a world altogether unfamiliar…

Tis but a dream
The early mornings spent on ice,
The blinding lights and gorgeous whites,
Thirsty lungs,
Tired quadriceps,
And of course bruised knees.
And all of them filled to bursting with the emphatic movements,
Gestures,
Leaps,
And lifts,
Of the bladed ballerinas
That dance across my fading dreamscapes…

The ice-dancer glides effortlessly,
But with purpose austere.
Every muscle contracted in the manner most conducive
To manifesting their artistic desire.
From fingertips
To toe-picks
Their body transfigured into an instrument of emotion —
A weapon of beauty.
From start to end each routine is a metamorphosis:
Budding and blooming along a euphonious plane
Until the artist’s full potential is revealed…
The energy released —
The raw power,
Of the jumps and spins,
Kaleidoscopic fireworks
Clashing
Against the roaring white backdrop:
Each explosion
The ignition of a chambered round;
The spiralling bullet,
The impact on target…
The artist’s winter warfare actualized.

Last night,
As such ballerinas …riveting …terrifying
Danced around the panorama of my mind’s eye
I recalled that ultimate unison between flesh and spirit;
That of the figure skater
Painting their art
On a canvas most cruel.

Oh, seldom doth my heart not ache
For thee, my wretched curse.
Two years its been and still I pine
Alone for thou my sadist nurse.

Four cycles I neither nourished nor idled
As I pondered the sameness of it all.
Heard Solomon’s voice.
Shrewd as ever, but varnished with sorrow
Like mine.
Could it be?
That once that filmy overlay,
So seemingly inane,
Has been pulled back — the vacuum seal breached.
No longer sustenance in enterprise?
But in repetition one must sate?
No!
The story of man is not a tragedy!
Of shackled ankles and nine to fives.
But a dialogue with God!
Where the audience jests and heckles.
But is moved again
And again to silence
By a mere visceral soliloquy.

Today,
From our cells of subjectivity
We shout and dance for progress.
But is there a better way
To breach the barriers between spirits
Than by rediscovery of the known,
But ignored,
Forgotten,
The pathway to our wholes?
Are we then just fools
Wandering eternally through a mist?
Have we once again shed
What’s most precious?
To reveal what?
But our shameful nakedness.
For what Solomon knew is lost today
When I interact with the world.
All is vain but the path.
Till full circle our story begins anew.

Please don’t.
I can hear their screams as well.
Have faith I share your pain tonight:
The mocking and the ridicule.

Know that through it all I’m by your side;
A crutch for you to lean on.
And in your darkest hour don’t be ashamed to use me like a rag.
I promise I will take it.

I know it’s a soothing thought;
Their ignorance knows no bounds.
I’m in your arms and you in mine;
Darling I’m right in your very soul and mind.

Our spirits touch;
They mend the bones.
Coastal shores are where we’ll walk
Together, a home away from home.

Bruised as your heels are they’re mine to wash;
In me solace you can always find.
I promise soon we’ll be made one;
The glass is nearly broken.

This war all but over;
I’m not destined forever to be an incentive.
Hold out the siege;
I know you’ll complete the mission.

Don’t hide your fear;
I’m just as lost without my anchor.
Each night in romance we’ll hoist the sails;
Your shame my joy to wipe away.

Babe you’re not alone;
Throughout it all you never were.
Don’t **** yourself tonight;
I’ll never get to be your world.