it’s sad to say
that nowadays
a smile
is more often
used
to hide depression
rather than
express
happiness.

I’ve only ever seen two outcomes
in terms of meeting people:
you’re either betrayed
or forgotten about.

and sometimes I’d rather take
the malicious stabbing of bad faith
over the slow waltz with the long knife.


that’s all.

A shatter of glitter
Breaks over her eyes
When she looks in the mirror:

Swathes of pink
Speckled by silver circles
Matched by the anxious glittering
Of the waterfall
That is her earrings.

It's her last glance
To hold the spectre
Of herself
Until she explodes
With the other girls;
Prim and dainty.

~
Refraction
Love passes through
And changes
Direction
Let it hold sway
The heart leans toward catastrophe
In the blue headlights
Of parenthood
Mom and dad
Suspended from a pivot
Their offspring
Asleep on a sunbeam
~

When nature's inhalation
whips up storms,
  We are set in stone monoliths.

Carefully carved intricate marks
decorate our walls; unfinished
since we must finish etching them
   Together.

Heed lightning cracks its
own violent tremor into
   Our stone walls.

Still! Winds will tear and maul
rains will erupt and slaughter
then give way to bright sky
   and deadly clear horizons;

reflecting back to us
our own trailing ripple
   of increasingly clear syllables.

Each etched now in our walls.
Mother printed the first
symbol, a delicate addition
first of many, now forming
sprawling racing lines.
Strung together, from the
    inside.

And the monoliths stand tall
and we bare storm
   and choose together.

when I hear the wind I wonder about the tales
in the chestnut flowers, they refute their ideal
yet even stones need hope to bloom
history recycles its magnitude,
confuses its layers, refurbishes illusions
with every breath we make history

on these streets I look people in the eye
their frozen smile land in my bones
we look at each other with surprise
this is who we are, for real
sealed wounds are spinning a pain in transition
who can admit the exploitation of dreams,
the violence of lies, the competition of shadows
sitting crossed-legs with eyes closed
what we know we are;  what we don't know we are too
we have such a hunger for the food of life hidden
in a lotus flower