58,000 names
Chisled into black granite walls.
The hallowed ground in front of
This sacred, special place
Has seen roses, rings & letters,
Wreaths, money, trinkets.
It has been watered with tears of love,
Of grief, of pain.
A wilderness of emotion and memory
Is tied to the smooth dark stone.
Name after name,
Row after row,
Slab after slab,
Wall after wall.
Behind each etched name
There is a story of bravery,
Of courage, of hope;
But at the same time
You can read the grusome headlines
Of the unfeeling papers.
You can see the blood and the smoke,
The eyes of comrades
Glazed over in passing.
You can hear the gunshots,
The agonized screams of the doomed.
Is this a place of life?
A place of death?
A place of worship?
A place of pain? Of sorrow?
A place of memory?
A place of love?

Unraveling the threads
Of my tangled, sticky lies,
Tearing the delicate cloth
Of my fragile, broken life.
One by one,
The stiches pop out
Exposing the wounds
That they know nothing about.
A single salty tear
Trickles down my face
As a single crimson drop of blood
Is dripping from my wrist.
This cruel and viscious cyle
Will never have and end
As my sanity unravels,
Alone and with out friends.

Live in the shadows
And flee from the sun,
An army of rebels
Marching as one.
Mingle your voice
With the other outcasts,
Your single goal
Is to simply outlast.

Pen glides on paper,
As smooth as black ribbons
Draped across the snow,
Or black thread
Stitching up white silk.
The lines of words
Imprint themselves into my brain.
I breathe language,
Feel my heart beat with songs,
Dream in the rythm
Of poetry.
Eventually, the
Ink
Forces its way into my veins,
Carried throughout my body
So that I bleed
Ebony rain.
It infiltrates me
Until I am crying
Midnight tears.
My hearts pumps the
Unformed phrases around and
Around again
Until I dissolve,
Becoming a mirror of darkness
On the floor
To inspire another writer.
'Tis the fate of the poet:
To become one
With one's work
And dreams
And life
And soul.

A backwards world
Where teardrops fall
On petals unfurled;
Live your life behind a wall.

Don't show the pain,
Just follow the crowd
The drip-drop of rain,
Silent screaming so loud.

Strangers give kisses
While friends hand you knives;
What you don't know you can't miss;
Our thousands of lies.

Hiding the shame
Behind perfect expressions,
Falling from fame
Into depression.

Everyone walking around
With these secrets inside,
Fall to the ground
And a part of you died.

The heart of an angel
Condemmed to Hell,
Was as fragile as glass,
And shattered as it fell.
She denied what she had seen,
But it was far too late;
Try to find yourself,
Try to accept Fate.
She wept and pleaded
To no avail,
This was her life
And she must prevail.
Her broken heart reformed,
But it was no longer clear as glass.
A smokey cloud engulfed her
As her profound shame supassed
The limits of her mind.
So she took the only course of action,
And I watch my angel cut herself,
Staring at her reflection.

The dusty old notes
Twirl 'round the room,
Bringing false sunshine
Into the gloom.
Memories form
In the back of the mind,
Laughter and smiles
From an earlier time.
A teardrop falls,
Making no sound,
On white keys turned yellow
And black keys turned brown.
Nothing is left
Except for the pain,
And as that gives way
Only nothing remains.

We have a dancing love,
He and I,
Dancing on the windswept heather,
Laughter ringing over the sea
Him and me.
We have a quiet love,
He and I,
Curled by crackling fires,
Poems whispered on a cloudy eve
Him and me.
We have a wild love,
He and I,
Sparks flying from rich red lips,
Shaking the branches of the willow tree
Him and me.

My home is a tiny cabin in the woods,
My voice a timid trail of smoke from
The quaint log chimney
That would never reveal the pain
Hiding under the shiny tin roof.
You hold my bleeding heart
Carefully, like a baby bird just
Stretching it's wings, and you
Stitch it back together with your  
Whispers of strength
Like quiet raindrops on a tin roof,
I
  t
  '
   s
    
      o
       k,

         I
          '
           m

             h
              e
                r
                 e
                   .

Starlight from a bottle  
To drown my tears, liquid sorrow
Seeping through my veins, filling
Gaping black holes with empty memories
Of your love.

Watch the clock with blank eyes,
Seconds ticking past, a wasted life
Lost in memories of sunshine and pianos,
Nothing but memories now.

If only you could read minds,
Then I wouldn't have to carve my love
On the air between my lips,
Droplets of secrecy and blush that,
Once gone,
Can't ever come back.

My mind roams through a wilderness
Of imagination,
Only to reach a wrought-iron wall
At my lips.
The filters of polite society won't let me
Speak,
Won't let me scream "*******!"
To their soft-mannered prejudices
That gather in the bottom of glasses of
Expensive champagne.

Delicately pink hearts gently unfurl
From nests of lively minds;
There is nothing weak about Southern women
We are supposed to wear ugly dresses,
Enamel bugs,
French scarves that wrap around and
Tie us all together from the inside out
Football and sassy new haircuts might not make faces look younger,
But they can lift spirits
And just because you spend all day advising others
Of their secret trials
Doesn't mean that you can hold your family in a cage,
Golden and happy though you may want things to be.
Remember that if you feel new, an outsider,
Your personal tragedies seeming too much to bear,
You will always find comfort in laughter
Especially if laughter through tears is your favorite emotion.
You might not pick up boys or money,
But friendship steeps in small salons
Like sweet tea.
Prickly sarcasm and pessimism aren't always the hallmarks
Of a heart devoid of caring,
It's just a natural response after two deadbeat husbands and
Three ungrateful children; somewhere in all of it is a promise
Of hope.
And even in a barren womb new life is discovered,
And even in death joy is found,
And even through pain,
Sisterhood blooms,
Delicate steel petals enveloping grieving hearts.

Waves roll in and out and
I drift on the tide,
A stirring corpse that has been
Exhausted by your love.
You kiss and touch and care,
Yet all the while a fortress is growing around your
Heart,
To keep me safe from secrets that can't be shared
To anyone,
Lest the spider-web strings
Of relationships
Should tear.
I am bird in a golden cage,
Whose bars are plenty
Far enough apart to let me
Slip through,
Yet I am content to sing
In my self-enforced captivity
So That our kingdom can become a fairytale.
Yet I have tumbled from my perch and
Landed in the real world,
Slumping on ***** sidewalks and in cluttered homes.
What do I have to do to keep myself
From blowing away on the wind
While you turn to a zombie in front of a screen
Covered in games full of fantasy and giants?
I am lost, wandering in a maze of confusion and first love,
And you are not there to save me.

My heart curdles, blackened
By cruel whispers. I try to be me, but
I clipped my wings years ago;
No hope of vibrant feathers
Re-emerging from raw and bloodied skin.
But you! My fluttering hope, how I
Wish
I could keep you in a cage of
Tarnished silver in my chest,
Your gossamer wings pinned to my
Struggling heart.

I open my ribs, cold air breathing on
My gasping lungs, feeble heart
And I give you back your rainbow feathers
For without them you pine and crumble.
Wrench open the delicate silver gate
And be free, your healed wings yanking
Ribbons of red from my love.

Kiss each autumnal day;
Savor it.
Feel it's cold raw breath on your chapped lips,
It's windy embrace tangling your hair and
Twining around your fingers,
Begging you to stay and twirl and dance
In a field of dying grass;
Taste it, like ginger and peppermint tea
Left sitting on the edge of the worn wooden steps
Overnight, gathering the taste of frost and moist earth
And the peculiar scent of red-yellow leaves
With their brown edges rotting away into nothing;
Sense it, like the geese and the blackbirds
Just know to be carried away to warmer air,
Like the small animals just know that it's time
To stay deep underground, buried beneath the
Soft white blankets of snow;
See it in the skeleton branches and
Damp yellowish grass and iron grey clouds,
Watch the trees drop their leaves
And the crows sit like silhouettes in the tops of the oaks;
Hear it in the soft breezes and cold, whistling winds and
Dry, rustling grass and shrill birds, trying to find warmth;
And taste and smell and feel and hear and sense and savor
The grey-silver rain that drops from the heavy-bellied,
Purple bruised clouds and breaks against your chilled skin
And dews in sparkling diamonds on your eyelashes
And slips between trembling lips and
Runs in streams and rivulets down your spine and into the
Hollow of your neck and across your wrists and in
Little waterfalls from your fingers and chin and nose
As it washes away the stains and scars of life
And rinses your mind clear and focused and
You open your eyes and through the
Blurry sheets of rain, the street lights are dimmed and
The ground glistens and the only sound is the
Drumming of raindrops and the
Thrumming of life in your soul.

Silence.
Silence - raw, serene,
Loud silence that
Crushes eardrums and fingertips,
Sinking into creases in dry, cracked skin,
Collecting like silver-black rain
In drops on red lips, ebony eyelashes.
Silence - green and young,
Fresh and completed,
Bending around waists and ankles
Swishing smoothly through gold-brown hair
The color of ripe wheat waving mutely in a
Prairie breeze.
Silence - huge and dark,
Clinging like shadows to necks and ribs,
Tying the moon hand and foot
So her pale lips won't move,
Stillness reigning in the hearts of the maidens,
Corners hiding hushed scurryings
Of the night.
Silence - weird, wonderful
Creating fields of green rivers that
Noiselessly laugh, bubble quickly off to Dreamland
Leaving a world of weighted mirrors
That are filled with God's reflection,
Whispering words I cannot hear in
A perfect world of
Silence.

Silver drops of starlight fall like a river
To gild your eyes and nose and hair
And make you sparkle, here and there,
With all your precious memories,
My dear departed giver.
Your smile lingers on my reflected face
With cold corners crunching up my eyes,
Building ice-green walls of mirrored lies
With nothing behind but another void,
An abscess of empty space,
Filled with stars of blackened lead
That stay awake, but yet unlit
For being confronted with ****** slits
They smolder redly, richly hidden
Until the darkness they can shed.
A sword to cut the twisted tines
That enthrallingly entangle
And hopelessly mangle
Was found in Love,
And now I shine.

The steel shovel bites through cold dust,
Rain dripping softly into
A pit of despair
Surrounded by a sea of black coats.
Red roses drop gently down into
The half-inch of mud at the bottom,
Onto the wooden box that looks warm
Even in the October wind,
Containing all the memories of a lifetime.
A small girl crouches by the
Grave
Of her father,
Too young to sense the
Space left by a life.

crimson Poison Apples drop off Burning
Bridges into Murky Waters
red with rust swirling swirling
she cries as her father's fists curling
beat Seeds of Suspicion into
her Reckless heart
bleeding bruises art art
runs and hides but stands alone
pleading begging moan moan
her shoes are jimmy choo
she whispers secrets to herself
"I Just Wanted to be Me"
but the King of Hearts is Out for
Blood
scarlet laughter piercing darkness
growling stomach fight fight
tears flow and flood the night
and she is Shrinking away
Coming Out to the show
blinding bright in the glow glow
spotlit on a blackened stage
forced to perform Circus Acts
remembering when she was-was what?-nothing
Prom Queen twirling twirling
"Look" -hearts in a sea of ****** silk-
but the only one looking is
The Collector
hoarding up stories of rosy misery
Mean Colors dancing in cruel red eyes
sneer and cry and lie lie
their Psychic Powers forcing isolation into her veins
like a Blood Borne killer
she is just fading away until the Song in Her
Heart is just a hum of amazing grace
life thought gone forever
lives
on
as
the
tears
of
friends
remake
her
memories
she is buried in a glass casket under
grey skies The Red Dress she wears
without a care care
flashy crimson
sunset
ruby
apple
scarlet
blood
pain
love
life
soul
RED
v­ibrant in dead fields
life thought gone forever
lives
on

Octobre venira, et il trouvera
Nous ensemble,
Perdue dans la brume blanche.
Je tiendra ta main
Nous nous reposerons dans les feuilles
Y aura partout.
Nous croiserons le soir, et
Je t'offrirai ma cœur et tu la prendras.
Nous tiendrons la lune d'Octobre et
Nous volerons part ****.


October will come, and he will find
Us together,
Lost in the white mist.
I will take your hand
We will lie in the leaves
That are everywhere.
We will walk in the evening, and
I will offer you my heart and you will take it.
We will hold onto the October moon and
We will fly far away.

I hold hands with my boyfriend
As we walk - no - dance
Down the tiled halls of the purgatory called high school
But I'm not listening to his voice,
Not thinking of him,
Not his smile,
Not his eyes,
Not his hands skimming my skin,
Not even kneeling on his bedroom floor,
Being his *****, somehow
Reveling
In tongue and *** and moaning,
His hand on the back of my head.
I think not of his **** or
Anything it stands for - no - my fancies
Wander over the girl next to me,
My lust dripping like honey over her
Slender shoulders,
Collarbones,
Flowing over the gentle swell of her *******,
Around her supple waist,
Smooth hips and perfect *** unknowingly enticing me,
Seduction even more potent for being
My own secret knowledge.
My heart tumbles over dark precipices,
Falling from one side to another
Men - no - women - no - men - no - women
Women - no - men - no - women - no - men
An eternity of labyrinthine puzzles,
Guilty glances and
Late-night imaginings in shameful ecstasy
Before an answer settles like a
Stone that stirs up a muddy pool before clearing into crystal.
Both.
Not men - no - women,
But men - and - women.
And I will stand proud,
My dress and her skirt swishing softly as we walk,
My hand and his hand, together, as we talk.

I sigh, my soul bubbling up from between
Rose petal lips,
Silent arpeggios of emotion falling from
Eyes, mouth, ears
Shimmering like heat waves on an empty road
I am in a mood for words
Deep words, warm and silty as a
River bed in summer
Quiet thoughts sinking like stones
Through endless evenings, barely rippling
The still, glowing sunsets
Soft words, like my grandmother's creased hands holding out
Smooth bits of sea glass for her granddaughter to smile at,
Clapping her grubby fingers
Dreamy whispers glide across silver lakes,
Reflections of dark velvet and diamonds
Stretched over the bones of the universe
I am in a mood for words
Heavy words and light words
Separating heaven and hell, I float betwixt
Drifting aimlessly in front of drowsy fires,
Pages littering my lap, books spineless from re-reading
My slow breath, thudding heart becoming a dictionary
My mind sleeping under darkness, softly
Gentle whispers of labyrinthine poems
Infinite, eternal