A taxi drove past
at two in the morning,
blurring through the street lamp halo
painted on the sidewalk.

A click.
Flash frozen,
stuck speeding stationary,
clipping the spotlight.
And the night hanging off the lamp pole
does not appreciate
being caged away

This is a stroll through the valley
of the last Forgotten God.
The walls, overgrown, throw shadows
that whisper when the wind blows

Step gingerly
through the maze ahead.
The temple is fragile
and the slumber of the unknown
is a blessing

After time's cruel neglect,
pray at the empty dais.
The only lost
is losing faith again

Take me clear into mist and cotton.
Launch a rocket through heavens door.
What a rush to be perched from a bird's eye view
and see man's triumphs laid bare like toys.

Through history, we've chased the wind.
Forever grasping at fleeting breaths.
And now we've brought all of man's glory and sins
so much higher than where we began.

Through the forest grass,
a lockstep march.
Neat columns
of silent striding teams.

To ground they go,
to burrow deep.
Bringing prizes
foreign and mundane

Can they look into the giants above?
There is no time to dream.

Hurry home! Your colony calls
and the task is but half done

The march
never tells true
stories of weary legs.
Through great jungles of green and steel,
aching.

Press on,
we urge against
the ground dragging beneath.
Unconquerable, every day
they walk

Down a
forgotten lane
in a canyon of corn,
a blue ban calls new life to this
old world.

Gather
around the stall.
Don't let the foal's whiney
be an unanswered question to
live ears.

Shaky
legs held us all
when we were fresh and blind
Take pride in teaching to see a
new soul

It is quiet in the halls.
All the merriment has died.
Paper lines the floors,
all the elves have gone to hide.

Tonight we will sleep in,
for there is no more surprise.
No cookies are left out,
just happy smiles on Christmas night

Take me to another world.
Away from the streets that bind me,
to roam a land abreast with curiosity.
To wander under new stars
and drive atop new roads.
Through old earth I haver seen
with new faces I'd like to meet.

Well traveled leather binding a vault of lost ideas.
Haphazard graffiti
dripping ink down the page.
Crumbled sentences and half-finished
thoughts
backdrop the soft scratch of the pen
trying to outrace time

Years, composed as fragments,
have no place
outside the white walls where they were born
Only the architect remembers

and still he is mortal

Where is the beholder,
deigning beauty from a glare?
Through gaslit haze, mirrors tell stories.
Reflected distress, framed in antique oak.

How long have you longed
to pass through the glass?
Just to prove what you're shown is real.

Is it you looking back?
And how can you know
they're not still staring
once you turn away?

A blind face is the only introspection
many can afford.
Does watching make it worthwhile?
Does counting calm your nerves?

The hands will always listen,
when all we are is gone
The ticking never ceases,
whispering along.

Such habits born of repetition
through the meandering walk of days.
Moments caught in a rhythm
or stranded out of time

Scribbles captured and enshrined,
ignored and then forgotten
Back to the mind of your creator
to recall the lyrics of yesterday

A broken haze drifts down
form a gray and weary sky.

Who has cast this blanket?
It is dampening our light.

Lift this dull affair.
Bring the sun back to our lives

End this tiresome evening
of speckled windows and soft sighs

Like violent footsteps of translucent insects,
rain clouds the glass.
A dynamic curtain between
the warmth
and the wind

Window dancers,
forever shifting, obscuring, revealing.
A one man audience
to a one night only movie
playing exclusively
in the courtyard below

I know what I am to become.
Revel in the gazes casting me insane
Only I have seen the future from the pavement,
hidden like a painting stolen from its frame

This is my autobiography!
A fluttering, open book caught up in the wind
Telling my story faster than it can be written.
A thriller all the way until the end

The Lord whispers prophecies to one to hear.
"Heal thy neighbor" he commands of the sleepwalking dead

At the temple, a candle still flickers,
and a scholar works out what was said.

"But Lord, I am but a priest.
What miracles can I divine?"

The ***** idles in silence,
but the candle will burn through the night.

It is quiet in the dark
the winter air settles,
stagnant on the glass,
before the sun can thaw the sleeping dew

Striped wool hats and cracked leather gloves
emerge from the closet
to join a hopeless war.
They shamble,
illuminated by the high rise windows
dotting through the fog,
towards the front lines.
Catching the warmth from their breath

And for a split second,
just before it flits away,
they are dragons

Exhaustion drip the night away,
bleeding the clock of every second.
Drifting on a raft of dimlit dreams,
down a river of wayward thoughts.
Stopping and starting.
A blurry room fades
to backlit black.

Float,
sink down with every breath

A shutter clicks in flashing colors,
recording the imaginary.

The wheezing voice of tales unfolding,
now hoarse from an endless retelling.

Capture what we can't remember,
make up everything that's left.

A faint, but echoed, call to arms
that no on hears on set

A path of color
through abstract landscapes,
under the shade of an old willow

Gods of their own world
sit at makeshift altars
in makeshift temples
placed neatly in rows of white canvas,
so the peasants may stroll idly
between kingdoms.

"Look at this!"
"I've never seen anything like it before!"

Bring sacred work into the daily routine.
Hang the divine from every rafter.
There is enough heaven for us all.

The bed is empty again.
Warmth settles in the void
now reclaimed
by neatly tucked sheet corners
and a fading memory in the mattress.
A wayward dream of soft snores
begging to come true

One pillow
recovering from a restless night,
the other
frozen like marble.
Too foreign to be disturbed.
Too real to be dismissed.
Too distant to be admired

Welcome to a land that is not.
Don masks and play pretend.
Characters are outfits to be tried on and shared,
merry heroes until the end

Off to steal glory from the world
and etch their names in the legends to come.
Every impossible tale of beating the odds
and pray doesn't roll you a one.

There was a chorus of mighty hammer blows
and the chimes rang out on cue.
The thump of progress echoing,
waiting for the last note to tune.

Witness the birth of something beatiful,
bathed in sparks and painted flames.
Build me a new masterpiece
for the earth from which it came

Reap the fields of dying holly
and sow the fields with red berries.

Dream of sunny spring awakening,
before the dew sets in the morning.

The last star before the dawn
fights all the majesty of a brilliant sunrise.
The last remnant of the night,
drowning in an over saturated sky.

When the curtain calls come
to usher everyone off stage,
the last star before the dawn,
through morning haze and window panes,
takes its final bow

Pray the foghorn comes no closer;
bringing thunder over rolling waves.
A stampede across an open prarie
bellowing with ancient lungs.

Are there secrets with the crickets?
Whispering in harmony
to the rustling leaves?

There is no hospitality
in silence.
Conversation lives between everything that breathes.

Smog and sizzle,
ears fight eyes to be the first report.
Colors swirling in a pan,
steam hissing up,
the ripe flesh cleft through,
spraying the counter top.
Pungent spices dance with delicate herbs
through the kitchen air.

A spoon as a baton
and a knife as a paintbrush
are tools of a necessary art

The sunset is a warning
of the chaos of night.

When the horizon floods with black ink
and the sleepwalkers emerge
to dance under the stars.

Witches cackle.
Chanting spells at the moon.

And the sky hides the time,
if it even passes at all.

You can sleep
through the fever dream.
But where's the fun
in being afraid
of the dark.

Dragging feet down the twisted riverbanks,
seduced by what I cannot reach.
There's an island just past the current
and I am marooned on the wrong beach

A raft of driftwood, a bridge of stones
Let slip the days from when I could not breath
Ah! but now I've been swimming for years!
And from the sand, the sky melts into the trees.

Raise the flag!
The lucky lost
fighting waves of inky stars.

Sleepless soldiers
on silent streets,
waging war on the wild and wistful.

Fall in line,
learn our song!
These ragged ranks have room for all.

So long as dreams ne'er come
and nightmares run,
we will whisper our violent lullabies.

Standing against the sun.
Gazing across beaches.
Staring down cliff faces.
Towering over harbors.
What is a lighthouse in the daytime?
But our Athena to Poseidon

"When am I?"
Calls a young man's voice.
"Once, I could freeze time.
Once, I could read every detail."

"When am I?"
Calls the old man's voice.
"I've lived a full life,
but I know not how long that is."

"When am I?"
Whispers the westbound wind.
"The sun rises faster every morning
and night only falls when I blink."

"When am I?"
Asks no one at all.
Silently studying history
whilst looking for riddles undiscovered.

Raze the fields of poisoned crop.
What antidote is there?
No cure for absent hearts
and black tar tears.
Burn the stores of harvest grain
claiming to be clean.
Save the innocent seeds
so we me grow free again.

Brace for the rip tide's
crash and sweep and pull.
Light, hazy blue,
flares safe heavens,
beckoning a breathless plea

There has never been peace in drowning.
Because every wave worth fighting
demands a hero who can breathe underwater

You promised me cheesecake.
And now, we can't remember our first date

There's a photobooth strip of the zoo,
that first summer,
when it was too hot
and all the animals were napping.
But I held your hand
while we looked for the red panda.

There's something about
mac and cheese,
Ben and Jerrys
on a Friday night.
Or waking up to make breakfast
home fries, eggs, and toast
on Saturday morning.

Sitting with you,
alone together.
Knowing I can blow you a kiss
and you'll catch it.
Every time.

You promised me cheesecake.
But I'd have followed
even if you hadn't