there is a scene in my day
when I leave the wretched white-walled windowless building
and a blast of the freshest air hits me,
and it feels like my first breath in hours.
The sun is a glory on my skin,
and I take off my jacket to feel the air on my arms
for the first time in a season.

do they know of the uproar,
the unrest,
the tirelessly shifting waves
of wind against the window?
So harsh, all through the day,
but it is a severity I can feel safe by,
watching the gusts and hearing the voices
while, in this alcove, everything is still.

I took a break on
trying. But tomorrow is
when I try again.

there are times when my voice gives into the devouring worm
that is the silence,
that is the pull between your thoughts,
the tug of hate and love.

who do you let win,
because it is up to you.
but when you must choose who does lose,
there is no trophy for selfish choices,
there is no winner in this wordless crime.

i have loved and ached
and sought after those things you two once shared -
compared to now, we are impaired
of this balance between
too little and too much -

a lack of patience and of touch

there is a sculpture
she claims unsketchable
of a woman in a mangled
frozen pose

the people flock to kiss
her pale lifeless feet
and gaze up in such proximity
to the angelic, unravelled woman
who becomes something more
in their gazes

but we sit from afar
and she marvelled at those wings
at the bends and swerves of that limestone
or marble
at the spine and the cracks

the prose of anonymity in beauty without a face,
a fetish,
just awe in raw skill

Autumn pulls at dusks
yet August will not relent
until September

when evenings begin to hold that hallowed smell inside,
yet summer holds

I love harshly,
in the thicket with sword
I will not yield,
I'll be your shoulder, your shield

Cherish it, children -
cherish the cherry blossoms for they bloom in spring and fall shortly thereafter.
Cherish the clear sky for soon enough, smog will cower in the corners of the night.
Cherish the freedom of childhood; soon you'll turn ten and be off to college or travel the world.
Cherish this second because it's over before you realize how many milliseconds went away with it.

finally the snow
comes in a steadfast,
overnight blow

and we expect,
depend and know
that lovely quietness
of winter.

everything hushed,
more still and so
we whisper

There's a spring in my mind, and we sit near it together
and there's a silence between us, charged with the memory of winter and summer and pelicans on the shore.
You close your eyes in prayer, but I keep mine open and watch you
in this eastern light, thanking someone.

The ocean, the lake, the water is lapping with the phrase
moments in time, and I hear you next to me.
We stare at this expanse and are next to one another. I don't have to look at you, to say a word,
just this moment is like a well in the earth, springing with fresh water from the dark, into my arms,
fulfilling me.

not immune, but blind and used to
what your habits do to you.

stand too close,
and bite me.
I will lead the way
through people, swarms and swarms of them,
hold tight
and take me to that view of ours:
we close our moments with the lake in mind.

I think I knew you once,
with eyes like the sea caught by a storm,
you left on the vow of this unbreaking love.

Come back to me, I begged into the hills, death having made us wed. I died that day, and every day after.

In the throws of a fateful wind, my dress blew scarlet threads; my dead heart was promised to a prince, and vacantly I walked, a ghost for you.

Come back to me, I begged into the hills.

In this life or the next, I will ride wildly on horses with you, my love. I became yours on the sword of your vow.

I have listened to the strumming of your song
and the way your fingers move is something I'm afraid I will never understand

the veins in your hands are flooding like rivers
like when swords are grasped and ****** into battle

you fight the air with your songs
and the water with your melody

and orpheus might turn, again, at you who plays for the pleasure of the gods -
yet it is not for them you play,
but for yourself.

and that is purity.

Face them, I'd like to tell her.
They look like shadows but when you touch them,
They turn into fireflies.

her eyes are deep
stark like islands in an ocean
murky tides
misty waves
things lost and conveyed
a galaxy of clustered stars
that have dwindled off
so very long ago -
yet not to us
for no one has seen
how floods corrupt the dam
of her lashes,
the downy of her skin
so young and like a flower
wilting
she is guilty of another's crime
but again, she sinks
into sand
into clay at the absolute bottom of the deepest abyss
from sun-tanned to night-kissed
she reaches out with a hand,
a plea,
a look

and the pressure of the water pulls you in with her
so that you, too are lost
in the expanse
of those deep eyes

the ocean batters
reckless waves and constant storms
but the rock is still

The horizon's obsolete
I want to appear mature,
so I stare at it for forever.

It is worth all that time
next to you.

there are two sides of this moon -
one has always been cast in darkness,

and the other,
a mirror for the sun.

but she is ethereal, though she takes all light and dark

and she is steady, though the tides she turns are monstrous

and she is encompassing, for without her we would have been cast in our own shadows.

she is battered with asteroid collision, entrapped in this gravity,
protecting the mother that kills itself.

this love,
or not so sure,
but something close,
naive, or pure

it is enough
to sustain me
into waiting for you,
until we

or I
am brave,
and the timing is just right.
Like a tidal wave,

I hope we will look
into each other's eyes,
and see the truth,
beyond the guise,

beyond just love,
meek or concentrated,
whatever.
it is just right.

I miss being a little girl,
ignorant and happy and loved.

I want to write a song for you but you are the strummer,
the player,
the gentle wrist flicking up and down,
the echo in the cavity,
the vibration of the strings
and the voice that sings.

where can blame be laid
if not next to a body
after no one claimed it for themselves?

stand still.

I am like this,
like that

it is hard to be what I fear -
change

I am fickle and fain when things remain

A breath so epic and golden and extreme,
lips that whisper like olive branches and shooting stars,
eyes that hold constellations and dreams,
pinkies touching and the silver rope of love's string -
the kind of love I'm yearning for.

Walking in the evening shade,
a figure there, it has not strayed
far from the path. It does depend
on shadows, lurking, it can blend

but sunlight enters through the trees,
reveals the cat, a stealthy breeze
that saunters over, brushes against
our legs, and now we have a little friend.

She sits on the stairs, stalks in the grass,
guards the street and greets those who pass;
a friendly thing, but we say goodbye,
until next we pass the creature by.

the hierarchy of learning is in the institutions
that rob you of your money and then spit you
out into the world, shaking.

Learning is a form of art, I think,
yet it has lost its lustre.

Curiosity is no killer,
but the cruelty of what "education" has become, is.

I am a cat.
Curiosity has killed me.

The pilgrimage, across the rocks,
along the shore,
they walk with solace.

Twilight stretches long limbs as they waltz in a line to the edge of the world,

gazing into the depths of the waters to see whatever it is they have come for.

Then the sun slips down and stars make a path for them back to that place of beginnings.

the snow is a siphon

are you pulling me in
or am I pulling you toward me?

are you pushing me out
or am I pushing you away?

it blows into the windshield so we pull to this side,
let the transport pass us by,
hazards flashing in the dark.

silence hangs between us like the edge,
so feebly teetering between tears and peace
I want to spill my guts out to you,
but I am worried it will distance us.

my dear.

who cares about the past,
since now is now.
Have cool adventures and surround yourself with good people,
and be kind and authentic and sassy,
and you'll be just fine.

spring is hardly sure it loves the summer sun,
till the wind is warm and fruitful.

It is cold and dark in the morning.
Night passes from evening until noon,
Short hours of daylight in June -
the clouds reveal sun without warning.

there is a quality subtler than kindness,
though they are connected.
quieter, lovelier, beautiful to notice and reciprocate
if you can see it in those eyes,
that smile, the look across the room

barely platonic, but some kind of love without tension,
a frequency that hums in beholders if you listen and reply
in your own way.

I admire this quality and the people it belongs to;
I only ever see them in passing, mostly,
and in fleeting moments I am enveloped by the warmth, the belonging, this lasting tryst of hearts that stay connected