Is it summer or is it spring will it rain or
Will the sun continue to kiss my long torso and petit feet?
Storms always seem to blow over in the Midwest as a dog bounces right past me, gives me a look and goes completely, merrily on his way. He doesn't seem to concerned about the weather.
Nor, should I be. I am going to stay put and ignore the neighbor. He's dying to talk to me and I won't even lift my head to see the noise he makes in hope of a turn
He'll never receive the bone he is looking for, this dog on a mission his fur all damp and wet from a swim. His ears floppy and tail short if he comes by again and gives me a wink, I'll know the coast is clear from whatever task is complete.
My book is in the car which isn't terribly far but to leave my seat and get on my feet seems like such a chore when the wind is blowing my hair and my green tea can cold a pack of cigs and I think I'm already gold. The book can wait, it's taking a twist Maria doesn't seemed too concerned about her lovers death but consumed by the clandestine love affairs when all the glares she thought were hers were now shared with a shoebox full of letters, cards and daring pictures along aside gift cigars.
The lake is calm, I'm happy I'm here rather than the busy streets which take its toll, always on the go but instead I can kick back and watch the hands on my wrist tick on by if I'd like, there is no one stopping me, no one to fight. I should look for a job but maybe in the fall, asleep out in the sunshine to clear my wandering head. No sign of rain the clouds have gone. I'll just listen for the neighbor kids to pet Lou and Ill follow his lead and be a team player to see my mission through of fetching my book.
The air is damp and fresh,
the scent of new rain perfumes all that surrounds me
and thin mist lingers in the atmosphere.
It caresses my face when I walk through it's path,
a simple, happy path,
like moth's wings on silk, and it no longer stings.
A large oak tree stands tall and mighty, a magnificent display of solidarity -
but not imposing.
It is kind and bare and humble,
and I see that we are both stripped in some way, raw and defrocked.
I touch the last trace of green it possesses,
the last bit of hope and the last reminder that things come back
and that things move forward,
soft moss under the pads of my fingertips, soaked and sponge like,
and just there - clean and true.
I turn up my collar against the wind and tighten the wrap of my coat around me,
still clinging,
but at least I'm shielding myself from the cold.
I'm still allowed to cling just a little, I think. Sometimes we need to cling -
to help us let go.
And anyway, I know that change has arrived at last, no matter how small it is,
because although the only embrace I receive here, aside from the fabric of my coat, is the bitter cold,
I am not bitter.
And this chill does nothing but bring peace,
and somehow warm my heart this time instead of freezing it.
A ruby under the wet russet leaves
is what I see through the remnants of the rain.
Peel away the outer layers so that I can remember what is beautiful.
These colours do not look like blood anymore;
they're a sunset: fading but with a guaranteed return.
Beginnings, endings, departures and returns -
that is an existence.
But a life
is when we look back with both longing and acceptance,
to never forget but never dwell too long
on what has been.
Sweetness, bitterness, sourness:
a weary traveler making his way along a path
with Autumn meadow on one side: tranquility and rest,
and Autumn meadow on the other: Summer is ended and so are you.
I know which side I'm ready to seek now.
For what is taken in Autumn,
is also returned.
And the evidence is in your being on this side of the path with me.
I know - because I see the good things now.
I see only the beautiful colours and the chestnuts and the mercifully short days.
Yes. This Autumn will be different.
Written as a wedding gift for two dear friends, Gregg and Lisa.
This is a love poem.
This is a clashing skylines over mountain tops love poem.
This is a desert wind kicking dust clouds off of the earthen floor like time love poem.
It's a phoenix rising from the ashes again and again, smoothing every rough edge to make them beautiful, burning faults like paper lanterns love poem.
It's giant monument cascading down in a rainstorm of embers as the lone giant tumbles to the earth in a offering of solidarity.
This is a love poem.
It's wind and water and trees bowing limbs in genuflect out of respect for the hearts combined.
It's wild and fierce, like great beasts and flashing storms that match the primal song of the passion of two souls aligning.
It's hanging by a single chord from the tallest of ancient brothers. It's laughter echoing off of canyon walls and echoed back like majesty.
This is a love poem.
This is an urban jungle alive with life and color love poem.
This is a chain link fence and beat pounding to vibrate two heart strings into a single rhythm, striking a beautiful chord love poem.
This poem is spinning lights and a body of hundreds. Legion, moving as one, rich with the scent of joy and effort.
It's late nights and early mornings, adorned in affection and whispers. It's music and dance and holding tight and holding on.
This is a love poem.
This is a timeless love moving at the speed of thought, pushing clocks to keep pace in futility love poem.
This is a hand touching skin, like ink touching paper to record the poems of your past, present, and future, to only be recited with a kiss love poem.
It's a forever has too few letters for how long this love has been destined and how long it will continue on love poem.
This poem is learning the other like morning prayer. It's tasting each goodnight kiss like Eucharist.
This poem is sound and fury and steadfast through every storm and letting the wind of your whirling dance fill the sails of the wooden ship you build together.
This poem is aging. Building monoliths of your past. Tearing them down and using the stones to build the cobbled path of your future. It's a new laugh. An innocent laugh. Fresh eyes glimpsing a future made from the hearts of two that will carry the love forward so that it can remain forever a wave giving back to the shore. Rich. Tidal. Steady.
This is a love poem.
This is a wrinkles and cracks forming like cuneiform. Making the sculpture more beautiful with time love poem. A lines spreading out across the cover of the book, wrinkled to resemble a road map of the winding path of the journey of two, circling one and other like a binary star. Bright and radiant.
It's a patina heart. Showing through with red and blue. Lines lit by fire that warms aching bones on even the coldest nights of our minds.
This is a love poem.
This is a celebration.
This is a gathering of witnesses who checked their wings at the door, that we may stand below and watch the dance above. Quaking parishioners glimpsing the face of God and beauty. Jaws agape eyes shining with tears like morning dew.
This is a love poem trying in vain to describe the beauty of soul mates finding their way back home. For sometimes home is not a destination, but a person.
This is a love poem.
This is a poem about love.
People the world over suffer
They suffer from:
Hard circumstances, warring institutions,
Famine, lack of education,
Drugs and abuse, poverty, the list is endless.
But they are also addicted...addicted to hope.
Hope that things will improve
Hope that their dreams will one day be realized
Hope that what is so hard will finally be a hurtle passed
Hope is their mind's addiction, the fuel for whatever
It is they are striving for
If the temporary satiation of a drug is finally found,
Then their hope for the drug and their hope for the feeling
And their hope for the escape from reality are fueling them.
If they are struggling to make ends meet, to feed themselves,
clothe their children, escape the debt collector, find a place to sleep
Their hope is to not to have to face these same issues
Every day for as many days as they have living.
If suffering from illness, they hope for healing or death
Hope is their addiction when the young children sit in hot, enclosed spaces
Ill, hungry, malnourished, traumatised
Hope for something better, better than what is before them
Hopelessness is acceptance, it is living in the day to day
Knowing what is is, what can't be changed can't be changed
what can be changed for the better,
Well steps towards that then are slowly taken
And the absolute beauty of life, the wonder of these moments
Begin to sparkle and shine in a way that is subtly impressive
Small is sometimes the most beautiful of all
it is solid, it is simple, it is a sturdy brick upon which one can
Always grasp and stand upon...over and over and over
Refreshing and truly adventurous
To see the nature and artifice of the path one is walking
Realizing that each step is a changing landscape
Of environment, perspective, emotion, situation
When one is down they look up with hope, their addiction solidly in place,
To get to the top of the mountain for a finer view
An accomplishment and relief at having succeeded
but the top is always just the pinnacle
And hope to remain affixed in such a perilous place
Is not in actuality possible
Be it a very violent gust that blows you off,
For we all know the wind vortices are something fierce in mountainous terrain,
Or a misstep, a loss of footing as the ground suddenly whithers away,
Perhaps the grasping hands of others trying to join you,
Their hope addiction now at an all-time high because they
Are. Right. There.
Clawing like animals for the last little handhold to hoist themselves up
And in shouldering themselves into a stand,
They accidentally knock you off, or not accidentally perhaps.
Whatever the case, hope addiction swings back into full force
and if it doesn't motivate, it at least satiates the mind
But hope addiction is also deceptive,
It rallies the wild dreams and ignites the heart with delusions
When hopelessness and acceptance and disconnect are a wiser course
For to live on hope addiction alone is not sustaining
It isn't real.
When alternatives and different paths may be wiser, better
To begin walking upon for now
Hope addiction can be misleading, blinding
He beauty of hopelessness is looking then without the hope addiction
At the possibility that this new path, albeit much different from the other
Is only visible up to a few steps ahead
Does it curve? Does it stop? Does it merge further down
With the original path or perhaps another different one?
Hope addiction...I have been addicted to hope
We all have, it is beautiful and it is scary
I live in hopelessness...content, happy, busy, progressing, adventurous, never knowing what little chocolate from the box of life my day is going to taste like.
I must admit though, one a day is not enough to really enjoy a full day...fully.
She was called Autumn
because her hair was fiery
and her eyes were brown.
Because she held onto the past as desperately
as the dying leaves clung to the trees.
She was called Autumn
because bits of her were constantly
being whisked away by the wind
and her heart was always on fire.
She was called Autumn
because she was her prettiest
when she was half dead or dying.
And because she was always
falling apart.
I'm tipping myself over to encourage response from deep in your throat
the wind breaks over in ignorance of my spastic limbs
illicit - I want to stop and tell you how I used to pull out my own teeth
and now I would do anything to squeeze myself in the gaps between yours
tell me you love me
feel me
need
me
I wake in the dim light of morning mumbling my own name
Satan couldn't
tempt a fool
to write the
arch of her back,
the trajectory of her smile.
They might beg
and plead with
the most Godlike of sculptors
to bring his words to form,
that they might kneel
breathless
at her bare feet
and look away flushed
if their eyes strayed
above her ankles
exposed.
Played like a harp.
No sound
verbal or otherwise
might convey an atom
of meaning,
but for the Ionian
plucking of wind
on string
in the hushed corridors
of her temple.
I saw a dying light go out
And vanish with the wind
As my mind flooded with empty doubt
For fear of ne'er seeing it again.
I felt a gentle hand reach forward
Wrapping around my throat
While my arms still flailed and pushed out toward
The shore- as my body rose to float.
The bell did toll a solemn boom
That silent, shrouded night-
I laid my head upon my tomb,
Relinquishing my sight.
How sweet the silhouette of death
Upon the vacant sky
Encompassing my heavy breath
As I heave a final sigh.
i was unable to sleep last night everything was too loud, clocks ticked, fans whirred, all these noises were amplified by the night. though the noises were pounding, loud, obnoxious, they weren't loud enough to quieten the thoughts in my head. they spin, like dancers beautiful by themselves, but together, with so many they crash, bump and disturb the dancers next to them. they spin uncontrollably fast, they will only stop once they are too tired to continue on. once these dancing thoughts are too sore and tired to move, a wind gathers, slow at first, then as it speeds up. the dancers recover, and together they whip around, creating a wind storm, one that destroys all surroundings, flattens everything but those thoughts.
The best dream I ever had went by far too fast
It had me lying in the grass looking up
Resting next to blades blowing
Inward as I inhaled
A swirl flowing up and outward
In all directions the wind whirled
A washing machine around me
Wailing and wanting me to get carried away
But I maintained a straight arrow
Stare at the stars and
Saw so many of them shooting
I swear they were
Cosmic passing cars
A traffic jam of celestial
Extraterrestrial vehicles
In this lucid moment
I had that same epiphany
That we all have had consciously
One time or another in the same
Seemingly safe serenity
We are sand
Watching pebbles fly far away
Some already lived their lives
But still wink their eyes at us
Others hit the brink and
Try to breach our safety
A questionable security
As I see through this
My eyes align with clarity
I open my arms and
Allow the spin cycle to to complete
It's cleansing
I realize I'm soaked to the bone
With the wind knocked out of me
Again looking skyward without cyclone
I heave to catch my breath
But I know it was never really thrown
Through each huff and puff
I feel at peace with the unknown
I start to wonder if in this dream
I have a handful of quarters
To start the dryer
But then again it dawns on me
Wet with wisdom is where I want to be
Eyes open awake shut
Them forever
