How can you ask a man
Who loves you,
About the man you love?

If I was lesser than
I may play pretend and spin a thread
That pulls you closer to the center of my web.
         But,

My love is a field of a thousand faceless corpses.
Each one a time when I swallowed pride, and
Gave you my mouth
So you could smile wide.
          Little Lady,

Can you not see this calm bravado
Relies solely
On my never-blinking eyes.

For even a wink would have this city sink
Beneath
This grief I trap in ink.
You woke up and only met the sun today
          Because,

In the dead of night
I cupped your pain, and
Drank your inclement weather like bottled rain.

Hallways ever lonely in my mind
The duality
Of whispering voices
Screaming inside

Walls of empty picture frames,
Move like mirrors chasing a lost reflection.
Fading memories melt away like oil paintings in the desert.
Fickle, or free. I remember when,
Remembering was the furthest feeling found flowering inside of me.

Sword-crossed lovers,
And now a dagger in my heart.
Empty castle now stands full,
With all the rubble from its broken parts.

Tonight, she taught me the nature of healing summer rains
Whimsical descriptions of dancing in puddles, but
Metaphors only serve to drown her pain
Dry on the surface, swearing inside the drought sustains
But dew droplets in her eyes betray her restraint
The morning after, the storm remains

Little flower, bent at the stem
Oversaturated by the self-absorbed
Her waterlogged roots weighing her down, but
In fields of bloom they still look to you
See, the weak reach for the easily used green and blue tulip hues
But her yellow petals require strength to be pulled from the meadow

Who will cherish me
When withering autumn leaves
Are stripped of their golden gallantry
By the biting winter winds

Writer and reader alike
Chasing currents of contradictions
Like our will to death, fighting for life
Am I here at all if I am not here to stay

Points of purpose, in shallow moments
Ripped by tides and dragged away
We mind the depths, so to never dig up our dead
A fading remember when

Time and tide, forever outpacing the lives of men
Unearthed and submerged
In the instant between
The angel opening his eyes, and the tired who resign to dream

A Thought:
                 Maybe there is no grand crescendo to the human symphony
Maybe life ends, and begins, on a prolonged refrain
A steady, repeating, fading rhythm
The only flourish of a lonely universe
Trying desperately, in its way, to find a dance partner for the darkness
Eternity; our veiled mistress waiting past the mist
For the light to outrun an endlessly unfurling landscape of black
The space between
The mimicry of a photograph, and the true shape of the memory
That a frame can never quite squeeze
Those lost edges lie in wait
Just beyond a waking moment, and the closing scene of our final dream
A place not lost, but yet to be found
That is all,
For now.

I walk aimless, but alert, down moon washed streets
In the twilight, I strain to tell patron from vagrant
A coalescing of something at once ageless, but fading
Like the stone of this courthouse; pillars of justice
Cracked quietly by the steady chiseling of time
On forgotten foundations

In the air rests a stench of contempt, or neglect
Like an oil stain, thickening turquoise waves
To a sickening ooze, of endless, crashing degradation
A nation of people, betrothed to suitors unknown
The power of a dollar hedged against the weight of your soul
Where pockets are plump, and virtue is sold

Magenta and Reds, Cerulean and Blues
Piano paint splashes the mind of the fool
And makes him create, mostly mistakes
When trying to illustrate his own point of view

Hopeless and Danceless, Broken Old Romantic
Wooden chair rocks him like a cradle for his ashes
And time doesn’t wait, for him only it fades
Stuck on the wake of waves perpetually crashing

Black Holes and Stars, Landmarks for Gods
He just sits and he orbits like a moon for his heart
Passing the days, a face for a frame
Symphony of flowers contrasting his rain