Have you ever been somewhere
the acoustics just right
and your voice somehow warmed like a fresh cup of tea?
You hear yourself singing
notes tender and bright
and the atmosphere joins in your melody.

Not a scratch or a crack.

It's just like the sunlight of goldenest hours
or the dimly lit mirror that conceals and empowers--
all your flaws swept away a merciful haze,

backlit and glowing.

Have you ever loved someone
like a radiant ghost
or a bright constellation of beautiful things?
Head so high past the clouds
in the glittery host,
you could make out the song that you wrote them to sing.

A vapor delight.

How many
of your best portraits can back to taunt you? How many
of the feelings you loved
just were never true? Many see
only
exactly
precisely
we think that we need.

How many
portraits of others have you copied back from your memory,
and got it so wrong! How many
futures and pasts have you dreamt up for closeness and beckoning?
Many
never know anything more than a cold, quiet seed.

Come to earth,
sit in the dust and let it settle in.
You are earth. Dust, yes, and star-wind.
You are more than a shadow, a mist or a light,
and all of you's looked at in love and delight.
Do not love yourself, no, or anyone else as a ghost of what they should be!

Have you ever been somewhere
and it wasn't just right
but your heart somehow warmed like a fresh cup of tea?
You hear yourself singing
notes tender and bright
and another voice carries your melody.

Her manicured leaves and thirsty rainbow faces always deliver
but she envies the daisy in the sidewalk.

Having the sudden urge to hug someone, but restraining yourself because you don't know hour they would react.

The uncomfortable triumph that comes from being brave enough to admit that you're scared

Sea of rubber, storm of rock
Ponder endless, mudslide thoughts
Never,
      never,
           never        
stops
    Until I
cannot see

Batter, torment, carry, pour
Solid things are shifting shores
    Until
I cannot hear

Sighs are monsters, out from under
Mud is made of every mutter
Thunder fades into more thunder
    Avalanche demands

All of what you thought was peace
deserts to deserts underseas
the grains of sand
climb past  your knees

    and now i cannot think

I used to hide from walls of rock
  or shrink into a corner;
    
    at least
cement
    is solid set

"No," he said quite softly, tender sorrow in his eyes.
"I always wanted you to grow up. But I never meant for you to stop being a child."

It's like I dance with each of you, but only pantomime
You answer back my sentences, but in familiar rhyme.

My hands will follow yours around, but never really touch.
A slice of air will keep us safe, or else a silken glove.

From time to time, our fingers brush, I'll even hold your hands
Discussions of those moments sweet are whispered, maybe banned.

My chest, it yearns, my heart so turns
within me; hollow, sore.
And yet the fear so claims me I may never ask for more.

courage is not what they think it is.

courage is desperate and shrieking and shattered in one thousand places,

the final threads that should have snapped long ago.

I gazed at her, the warrior woman,
standing on the hill
where crum'bling stones of castles made their home.
Her form against the solemn sky stood noble, tall and fierce;
tenacity bespake her ev'ry stride.

The clouds before her only served
to frame her fairer still;
through richly dark, they parted just enough
to filter drops of sunlight to where she stood like the moon;
an argent gleam shone in her mane and eyes.

I frowned at her from where I hunched,
longed for her iron will,
clawed my lackluster hair and tore my heart.
The flat grey fog above the hole where I shrank in the dust
had only heard my coward, cursing cries.

As we prepared to march again
I struggled up the hill
in hopes that I could find what grace she knew.
I didn't know she was still there, her back against a rock;
I caught her eye and realized

she had been crying too.

Looking at myself I cannot see
The One who sees inside of me.
Stuck in my head I'm not aware
Of everyone
Out there
Who cares.

They're all doubled over in an aching belly laugh;
I can already smell the apple pie.

Cave Art

The caves of Altamira, Spain
were painted, it is said
not by one or a collaborative few
pondering together the arrangement of forms into a composition,
but by strangers
wandering in and out,
each adding independently their own designs--
a hand or deer or buffalo--
their mark upon the world.

So, too, it was on the walls of the gas station bathroom.
The wandering strangers left their marks
not in pigments of red or yellow ochre
but with technology quite new—
sharpies, pocketknives, and written word.
They etched their works in jagged strokes upon the peeling paint.

Their subject matter mostly centered
incoherent curses
but one corner housed
a whole political debate.

They had no antelope nor spears
but still, a ghost of beastly hunts—
of chasing or of being chased—
perhaps is recognized.

Spacious though the canvas was,
it struggled to contain the thoughts
of its collaborators—
so much they had to say
that like the painters of Lascaux
they simply overlapped the strokes of others who had gone before,
interlocking cries into a web.

To a conservator’s dismay,
some of their words were silenced
by a mist of sapphire aerosol spray
but still, they can be read
by those who care to see.

An anthropologist who stops and looks quite carefully
can trace the lines below the paint
and read what lies beneath—
the testaments of artist souls and neolithic dreams.

clean

so very clean



thank you.

Because a thing may seem cliche won't mean it isn't right.
Warm sunbeams, drumbeat thunder, and the clash of dark and light.
Or just because it's overused, don't say it can't be true.
Old words and phrases well describe my burning love for you.

The cold bites my nose
And the frost chills my lungs
And the wind is stinging my face.

But outside in this moment I'd rather be here than in any more comfortable place.

I won't relent.

I know what happened last time, but I'm
stronger now.  Don't
give me that!

I am not alone
and I
will not
relent.
.

But I
am getting tired. So
tired.
Again.
And it's barely even Tuesday.

I'll be
fine, I'll
do it, I'll
keep going and it all will be
great
in the end.

All I have to do is just... jh!
if I could just...
   just...
      if-
-I;,
  I need to just...

...j-h
              ...-
    ...!

.



But no, I
won't
relent.

Coming home is seldom as-the-crow-flies;
It's not a beeline, darling, it's a dance.

Sometimes a voice in your head will tell you that you are a disappointment.  Look that thing in the eye and say, "You're a disappointment!"

Then realize that you are still shouting negative things at yourself in the mirror.  Second thought, don't.  Please don't take advice like this from me.

Humans are so stupid.
Arrogant, disgusting, small-minded, selfish, pathetic mortals.



I think I might be one.





That would explain a lot.

I'm tired of halfway-grasping, nearly clasping greatness whole.
And yet I know though incomplete I still enjoy life full.

Among the clutter
and the flies
and gadgets I can't recognize
the peanuts, cherry-slices, window scrapers
and the maps there lies
a jar of local honey,
glistening
neglected
and crystalized.

I thought the trail was over
just beyond the yellow gate.
But no.
The daisies drew me in and I soon found
that with a little ducking
and bending around,
I could continue on.

I thought I'd turn around for sure
in that first clearing at the top of the hill--
It seemed like such
a perfect stopping point--
so high!
but something in me still was hungry,
so I crossed the grass and found
a path that led me deeper in.

The conifer-lined walking trail
bade me sigh with aches and joys,
rewarding me
with simple pleasures, now and then--
a bunch of purple flowers
or a little pool of polliwogs.
It's rolling ridges continued on, the end always hidden behind
one more turn.

The forest, very kind to me,
has never truly let me see
anything to satisfy without a whispered mystery.
A promise, or a hope, at least,
a path so many wonders deep
coaxes, smiles, unfolds to me
and keeps me coming ever back.

Someday, when I'm transformed
I'll know
it's twists and turns are infinite
and wonders over and below I haven't half considered yet.
But now, where all seems closing in, I'll ever be surprised
each time it isn't over yet--each time I learn to rise.

There's
a
rhythm inside me that I want  craft fire to
But I never can keep up with the ticking clock

There's

a
wall that obstructs my view I want to see higher yet
What if I climb until I find out I don't like what's at the top?

One day I'll step out of line and ignore the warden who drags me back
I'll climb the tree next to the wall and dance along the top
But for now each day pulls me in a struggle unyielding
It would be a dance if my mind could process all that keeps proceeding

If I could pause it for a beat perhaps I could find my feet
But the game gets faster while I just get more confused.

I suppose I'll get used to it.  Will it always be this way?
and does it feel the same somehow to everybody else?
I want to dance perfectly
impeccably,
beautifully
in a way that's new and full of life and my own very soul

but head down I keep dozing to miss out on the pain and I shut my eyes
Squint over the wall's holes.

Pacing
Floating
Detached
Bouncing off of walls
Turning cartwheels and then passing through the wall
Nothing to grasp but the anchor I ignore

Distracted wanderings
Bringing me nothing.
Why don't I land,
Why can't I stop?

driftwood on the surf
the quaking of a feather
my unstable heart

be gin and it seems there is so much time left / pro ceed ing and speed ing much fast er a gain / craw ling and march ing the mo ments count down / the tick ing grows loud er the se cond hand 's shou ting and fas ter yet slo wly i'm fro zen a sleep / i'm thin king in slo mo time's spee ding and surg ing a round de com pos ing and what do i mean  ? what can i show for the min utes i'm was ting ? i need to be mov ing like there 's no time left / can i get some where make some thing be fore the end ? move me to trust you build some thing be cause I can 't / ev er y se cond i'm dying i need your breath /

Something is stirring inside me.
It urges me,
Surging through
Nagging me.
move, grow, fight, dance.
I miss the quiet and yet
I dread it.
Right now I can not **** nor calm this yearning
And yet I am afraid it will die a natural death before long.

blinking like a blade
of grass before a lake-storm
soft but not asleep

The enchanting, unearthly fog
overwhelms the parking lot
and my small romantic heart.
This drab field of concrete becomes
a magical fen
the place where epics and legends unfold.
My feet lift lightly through the damp
and I dance with the shadows
transformed by the mist into something
fantastical.
The street lamps beam fantastic eerie rays
in to my wonderland domain.
Am I a storyteller?
wanderer?
faerie?
I think I am the beloved of a great Lover,
pursued with gossamer dreams
and romanced by sacred light.

Stupid GPS doesn't have a clue.