In the birdhouse I built,
The youngling flies off for the first time
Looking back

With hope for you
       I whispered your name

I wanted nothing more than the world for you,
So much,
I invented new ones.

     We made moons at the cliff
In a word of spoken poetry.

   The rivers split
And we became found.
  
     I caught all the petals in the wind
To recreate a flower.

      I taught you how to fly,
And you became a bird.

    I'm just an old fool
           Who pieces together
                  The broken heart.

It's hard to write a poem
When there's nothing going on
It's hard to think of what to say
When you've given most of it away

As poets we never scratch the surface
We delve within, disclose our deepest sin
We crave our pain, declare it's for our art
Yet more often than not have no idea where to start

But start we do and start we must
A deep desire in all of us
To spill out on the written page
What little bit we have tried to save

Ink now is the poets blood
Fragments of self pour from within
Silence is our safety net
To stop us from bleeding out

Although it's hard to write a poem
With nothing going on
We still find words to form a verse
From deep within our marrow bone

Work © Mike Hauser & © Sia Jane

I am black, he is white,
We differ in height,
What does it matter?
If the former and the latter,
Assent to the marriage of our minds,
Love in diversity, oh! What a find!
Rather than take a solo flight,
Into a terrain of unceasing plights.

Fairness an aeonian act,
That cleanses a mind’s eye full of cataracts,
It determines the form of my imprints on the sands of time,
It measures the height of my strides, without unnecessary chime.

I am black shouldn’t make my judgement devoid of light and sombre,
He is white shouldn’t make his judgement pallid and lacklustre.
We can weld our hearts, mind and soul together in the heat of flames,
And say no to this untamed monster called injustice which has no one but us to blame,
Because underneath our skin lies the feelings
Of happiness, sadness, anger. Reeling
Us in confusion, fear, peace, guilt, innocence, contempt, love and pain.
Everyone has his or her stain,
Hence we are all the same.

This atmosphere lacks a certain kind of beauty
It's all too low, it must rise to the sky
The night is much too dark for me
I will ignite the fire, I'll bring the light

The sky is too blue, I'll turn it charcoal
The streets, they're far too serene, I'll make them sizzle
The people, too quiet, they'll soon be scorching with pain
The alley is dark, I'll make it flashing white
The wind is too calm, the ashes shall  flutter in no time
My skin, too smooth, I'll  singe it till it's rough

I'll burn this city down until the residue means something to you.
I'll make it all disappear
They'll all finally hear
They'll celebrate today, every year
The day I saved us from here.

I've only got one bar
on my phone and there's only
one more between here and home.
Ten dollars in my pocket may as well
be a thousand. Like a penny
in the fusebox, I could make it last
until the lights go out. There's a cowboy
band playing. A wooden Indian
by the door. I don't think he listens
to their stories anymore. He's quiet
on the subject. He's quite an object
of curiosity. Instead of two-stepping
all night long, maybe I should take
that Indian home. Use the last bar
to call Coleen. Tell her to put a ***
of cowboy coffee on. We'll tell stories
of our own. Sing songs in the old way
about better days when we were young.

Two hundred years ago and yesterday
a sailor wrote a letter in longhand,
entrusting it to the road
back to his beloved,
where dawn was breaking
at the closest port of call.

A century ago, a shy and lovely
mail order bride wrote
to the man who would be her husband,
in a land entirely different from her own.

In her delicate, sincere questions, from a
heart wrapped in ornate brocade layers of
kimono silk, she hoped to begin to know him.

Relationships formed gracefully, over time,
an ocean of water and thought intervening.

Water and air may be there
keeping souls apart,
until they are meant to be united.
 
Now, two beloved young friends have found
in each other a twin flame, first seen shining
in the virtual world of today. With only letters,
or flares or morse code, these two would have
seen, and known, that light within one another.

Souls destined from very early on.

My loving eyes have seen them, decades from now,
leaning into one another, silver hair entwined
as they rest their heads together on one more journey.

I defy anyone who might challenge me,
seeing these two blossoming in love
from a virtual, chance encounter, 
to say that life is any less real
in the ways that matter most,
when it is born in abstract space,
in this manifestation of a reality
that is in itself a metaphor for
Reality.

Reality, is living,
deeply living,
the inexplicable,
unfathomable,
exquisitely simple
complexity,
of being fully human.