Loneliness lamented,
never exempt from
tremendous emptiness,
relentless against
hellbent descent
of my own invention;
entrenched in
mental torment
taking up every tenement residence,
detention condemns.

But
mid November
summer still incenses,
in sun scented
memories
tempted by your
gentlest remnants
still renders me
senseless.

Daydreamt,
ephemeral,
almost replenishes and mends
until
heart hemorrhaging
becomes a
drenching tempest,
like a fist clenching
tension
holding onto your
absence
and some semblance of
what you meant
and yet
goodbye
you went
again.

Seeds scattered
gather the courage
to germinate, emerge
as fertile, verdant trees
of evergreen and birch,
breeze's tease and flirt
enough to render
Earth fractured–
shattered.

Underneath the dirt
remorse's corpse interred,
lurking thoughts linger,
yet something within me
still stirs and burns;
searching the surface
for touch, tender.

Heart murmurs
but not as
a murmuration of starlings depart,
more like crows murdered;
buzzards, vultures circling birds
conjured–
the curse unburied torture,
no dying word in final dirge
and yet it yearns
for yesterday's return.

Memories mind blurs,
my senses
fervently usurped
but time can never
be reversed,
this cistern's nature
gushing to a turbulent river–
water's surging,
turgid current, pure;
about to die of thirst,
this dam soon fills to burst,
my love i spill and purge
as i remember her.

I was a version
of an imperfect person,
a scourge
of that I stand assured,
but this pain is
terminal,
permanent,
the only cure
her laugher
or feeling
fragile fingers,
shelter–
you certainly weren't the first
heartbreak I've had
but **** it hurts the worst.

Orange
dancing lady slippers
perform uncoordinated
reblooming of dormant orchids;
warm and cordial in
informal candor
but agoraphobic
from misfortune;
mourning and remorseful
over flowers wilting, mortal.

Daybreak aurora
portent of
sunlight to come,
but stuck northward,
scorching corneas
in torrid dysphoria.

Organism born
horticulturally
disproportioned
and poorly formed,
origin in morbid horror;
cerebral cortex
its own torture,
the mortician
orphaning the organs
from the corpus;
stored in morgue,
torched in crematorium,
vivisected immemorial.

Stems and tendrils incorrigible,
disorganized into
deplorable ****
of tangled discord
clumsily running its course,
corsage and bouquet
aborted in accord.

Important shortage
warrants foraging
for resources
hoarded by some
abhorrent lord;
crowning court this
monarch's consort,
sordid and immoral,
keeping score like some
sick and sadistic sport;
reinforcing order of what's normal,
stronghold cordoned to conform.

Pollinating
swarm of hornets,
buzzing orchestra
of wings in chorus
quarreling with silence,
their scorpion stings absorbed;
stabbed, pierced, and gored.

Like a tortoise
slowly inching forward, torpid,
morass forbids;
roots exploring floorboards,
divorcing into a gorge,
fingers blindly implore
contours of the walls
searching for the door.

But drawn and quartered,
blossoms' florid
and ornate frame contorted,
warping its own portrait;
assorted torment transforming
efflorrescent, metamorphic.

Dwarfing, enormous,
and soaring towards orbit,
forty story high
arboreal forest
flourishing before us;
gorgeous morning glory,
thorny laurel adorning.

Forthwith,
storming windows' glass,
bastille, and castle supports;
warring against fortress
though swordless,
never resorting to forfeit until
entire territory terraformed
into floral orchard-
fragrant and vibrant aura
rewarding victoriously.

[City Bridges (5th draft)]

Indigenous citizen
struggling to stay civilized
amidst
monolithic visages,
stone-faced and stoic witnesses;
overhead,
gargoyles grin—
hideous grimaces
guarding ever vigilant.

Inhospitable city grid
dimly lit,
rain's residual liquid
slicks
gritty asphalt
glistened,
blacktop igneous
pavement glittering–
shimmering
in rigid obsidian.

Hidden within this vision
visits
solitude, unsolicited–
loneliness exhibited,
never fitting in;
island imprisonment
as bridges begin
quivering
above stygian rivers grim,
abysmal reflections glint,
swimming in viridian.

Water's
brim risen
to vertiginous limits
I see
flitting images
of cataclysmic collision
with frigidness
obliterating to oblivion.

A dismal wish
reminded by
a grisly glimpse
of figments vivid since
residual shiver imprints
from winter's winds
whipping shins
and thinning skin;
I cringe, wither, wince,
my eyelids squint–
but I still live, so
no longer motionless
my frostbitten digits grip,
limbs never given in
to blizzard's pins
or crystalline prisms–
I walk,
despite icy splinters
and misery digging in
my ambition wins.

Summer surrenders sunlight to snow, so slow;
in shades of yellow and red reposed,
autumn’s amber drove.
Into the cold and winter’s wanton woes
restlessness still blows;
despite the icy bite unavoidably exposed,
now a blooming green, in memory still glows.
Through longer nights and silent sleeted sorrows
by keeping close a wealth of warmth from yesterdays ago, I’ve borrowed;
I close my eyes today and dream, now of tomorrows.

So nicely
love like
a knife slit
siphons the life from me.

Just the price to be
unrequited,
like a vice grip tightness
strife will seize.

Lightning strike
ignites memories,
fighting
horizon's eve.

Island retreat,
my plight
in crisis
I flee.

Wind sweeps me
off feet
away from
eden's weeds,
ankles buried.

Gaze momentarily peeks
overhead scenery
between steepest
seas of greenery
so clearly breached,
sun beams cleave
trees' canopies
as they breathe.

Grieving the reasons
seasons recede,
summer's heat retreats
before fall will weep
each and every red leaf.

Beneath bark
heart still beats
like machinery,
arteries bleed
and release debris,
branches secreting seeds
til winter's freeze
renders
timbers' limbs empty.

Arms that reach
for sweet reverie
of the breeze
but instead
creaking knees disagree
as body pleas for relief,
searching for
fleeting serene peace
in frigid degrees.

Featureless creature
seized by defeat
no safety,
plagued by diseased
vulnerabilities.

But time's slipstream
reality the
only guarantee;
though no belief that
letting go means I'm free
with nothing to keep
yet memories
heavily weighing down
beleaguered dreams.

So I still seek;
each piece of autumn
melancholy potpourri,
fragrantly reminding me
as I sleep.