Sending chills this tortured spine,
as aches precede the worded fiction
Sorted truth does rest sublime
beneath the light of benediction
Broken dreams of compass flair,
directions cast a blinded waning
Trusted roots abridge the square
of all that’s lost and is remaining

Washed along this fertile beach
of sanded hope and history
Tasting o’ thy patterned speech
as common phrases come to me
Desolate my cornered mind
of images I pray be true
Dangling the lost to find
retaliation in my view

Pray, oh be, as life does rattle
chains of only mist to turn
Laughter like some long fought battle,
in amongst we tend to learn
When the calling comes so random,
names are lost on open seas
One by one in columned tandem,
drenched of hell’s insanities

Take me to thy deepest haven,
so that I may find the end
Black as night o’ windswept raven,
come to me now once again
Razored claw and broken arrows,
filled with such, the violence
Playing through the endless narrows,
falling to my own expense

This, a life that's not worth living,
not this day, not anymore
Breaths so tethered in their giving,
pull the drapes and close the door
Take a seat your exits' waiting,
frozen hinges squeak in time
Find the map for navigating,
somehow through this wicked rhyme

Follow me, I know the heading,
down this staircase, up the hall
End those futile tears you're shedding,
she's not waiting for your call
Through this doorway stenciled broken,
toss your heart there on the floor
It is but a useless token,
you'll not need it anymore

You’re now privy to the meaning,
whether you do understand
Motioned light, this night is leaning,
let it take you by the hand
Now of time and missing portal,
through the lens of sights unknown
Nothing whispers you are mortal,
for this day you have been shown

On days like this
cool, with little winds
desert birds forage for sticks
they build nests perched in cactus
some build green in palo verde trees
always I think of baby birds in spring
hatchlings, the fledglings that fly
I travel far beyond the noise of towns
watch the movement of cooling clouds
the roundness of rain upon the ground
the grey banked scurrilous skies
of hurried birds, their silhouettes before a storm
daisies that close, cold amid the stones
beneath where snakes and lizards go
slither and crawl in this landscape of saguaros
and I, ever tethered can only dream to fly.

I gather smells from
the garden near
the well
where
every drop drank
will be worth
my toil.

some believe in the deity
others in the sanctity of self
I think poetry is a religion
a soul unto itself
not a god
but close
and I seek her his its
calming words
wisdom
to get on my knees
and worship
every night
alone
here
in my sanctuary
like any
true believer