Everywhere I go
Everybody wants to know
"Where's the lady"
They all ask
I answer, hiding behind a mask
Of smiles and laughs,
And say to them:
"She's gone, she won't be back again;
I don't care"
And shrug my shoulders.
But now my life is so much colder
I walk alone, the crowded streets
And tell my tale to friends I meet
Then I turn, walk on with the truth
With tear-filled eyes
I think of you

eating watermelon
is a dripping thing
as the liquid in it
runs down your chin

the sunflowers gleamed
in the noon day sun
their flourish of color
couldn't be out done

the sparrows flitted
above their ravishing visages
they were enchanted
by their dazzling mirages

The little ***
You gave

White with red
Flower-

Kept it so long
The glaze cracked.

Bet you are
Improved too

By a few
Laughing lines

Does it matter
How to live
How we die?

The householder
In his bed surrounded
By family, friends

The ****** in the
Gutter all sense of
Self abandoned

The monk bolt
Upright sat
Self-gone mummified

What matter
When matter gone

All flesh decayed
All mind leaked
Away and
Away all spirit
Flown

All dead all beastly

Dead and gone

What happens then,
When we finally reach that bridge
The unsteady footpath of decision 
That only one of us can cross
When our hands part
And you walk the shaky steps of commitment and truth
With a single glance backward 
Avoiding my eyes 
As I watch you walk away
Only a few steps apart
But with a lifetime of history and emotion stretching it's cavernous yawn beneath us

Do I forget you?
As you stride out, leaving of the mists of my adoration 
Should I cleanse my mind of love
Crush the butterflies that sit in my stomach
Awaiting your every word 
Do I scratch out your face from the photographs of my mind?
Remake memories 
Reforge falsified passion
Ignore the beauty in the delicate brush of wind against a sheltered forest,
The bittersweet sting of cold rain against warm skin
The rush of blood to my cheeks at a black and white image I know only you could love.
Do I embrace my senses
Turn my back
Allow us to be separate entities in a world where we were supposed to be whole

Or do I follow the solitary wake of my heart
Cross legged, silent
Patiently waiting at that edge for the moment you may return 
For the moment you realise
Life cannot go on without us
And you turn back 
To leap the chasm that keeps us apart
Wait for the flames of your outstretched arms to reignite the fire in my broken heart
For us to connect
In the unending circle of emotion and connection 
That makes us whole within ourselves 
That feeds us
Free to blossom into the multitude of colour our wistful lives have always promised 

Can I wait in vain
And let my heart forever overthrow the sensibility of the mind
Expose myself to the elements of rejection and sorrow 
For the promise of something perfect
Sublime and intangible
Can I forsake the solid ground of reality?

I already know how this will end 
When we reach that path.
My body can let you go
But my heart will never forget

We reach a time in our lives
Shuffling along our own dusty highways
In the warmth of a whisky stained dusk
Watching the honeyed heat of our future seep along the horizon
Into bruised sky of overburdened past
We each meet the same crossroad of decision
The two sides of our soul extending welcoming arms
As we stand, a prize in the feud between mind and heart
Practicality and passion
Security and sensuality

Who am I to choose which gravelled path to follow
Whether to take the wrinkled hand of prudence
And crunch the stones of wisdom and logic with each familiar step
Does my future lay ahead
At that point where the sun kneels to kiss the ground
And throws its glowing arms across the earth in a blanket of safety
Not in passion, but affection
In the comfort of routine
The reliability and purity of what is, and what has always been

Or does it sit within the flicker of a fiery heart
In the sigh of breath that creeps along with the breeze
That trickles down my spine
And dares me to turn my head, to look down roads of impenetrable darkness
To embrace the possibility of the unknown
And the leaping tongues of flame that might lie where those paths end
To be engulfed, and to know myself within that destruction.
Is it the voice that whispers inside my veins
"should there be more than this?"

I stay static
Leaderless
A spectator to the conflict of the soul
Stuck fast in a deadlock of inertia and indecision
Awaiting that moment
When the last glimmer of sun has bled through the cracked earth
And I open my blurred eyes to icy silence, shapeless and pure in its clarity
To see, without obstruction
That the decision is clear.
My future transparent.
That there was only ever one road I could take.