This is elation:
A flushing fever through my bones;
Fire on the skyline, molten smile-wolffish,
bright.
And a hum so giddy it snaps the seams,
In his ecstasy flavored freedom-
He brings forth the rampant howling of the night.

This is the purpose:
Artificial gleam, ablaze your manic eyes,
and the taste of copper and anticipation,
In scarlet cinders - amplifies
The chase that is upon us;
You,
The demons
And I;

And this is the reason:
The blood in our bones
knows nothing more than the
thrill of the fight.

It's a raw honesty.
An unbided brutality;
Laying bare every fear lurking beneath
Your shelling skin.

It is forgotten that the light
Is just as frightening as the
Darkness.

Soft strung on mourning dew
Moon-lit nights stung, chasing you.
Evanescent upon thin waking lids
The pages burnt with nitrogen.

The aching echo, overbearing hollow
Dusty ash. An after taste.
Not tear enough to hardly swallow-
Or stomach left to try to sate.

The pillars-statues-all in our name
Bleached out hero's in history's game.
Naught plight enough to recall how human
Our blood-our tears-stained our face.

We legends born from pleading minds-
Broken spirits and battered limbs.
Who seek to finally cease the crime-
To bring back the light-wash out the dim.

Give our strength-are cast in shadow
To drive the ghost that haunt the land
Back to their own, bleak bloodied meadow
With our hearts-grasped tightly-in their hands.

The rest is but a washed out vision.
The lull of peace saturates the land.
But you and I have been ripped open and swallowed
As the lion now scarified to the lamb.

A watercolor film reel.
            That is how Olive is to me,
Dancing in the dandelions,
Grinning chicklet white teeth.
Olive smells like summer-
Like salt and a wild sea;
A mane of seashell secrets,
And eyes that mirror the gleam.

The gleam of self-realization,
The leaping fires in your dreams,
But in such a supple pastel haze,
That quietly, sings and sways—

Like hot cotton in your ears
Behind your eyes
And round your throat,
But the tune is gentle and smells of the ocean-
Olive’s own anecdote.

And I remember, at the end, she put the sea into a jar-
Sand, colored glass, and rippling waves of ocean water.
It felt like a tribute; a memory-
Like death.
When olive left the coast line,
And her glass ocean world-
Glinting crystals in the sunlight-
On the cat walk,
Still sat.

Wet grass and inky skylines,
Dusty summers have us
Remembering starlight;

When forever was on our fingertips;
When home was always wherever we
Chose.

Sun kissed and infallible,
Sleep was the shadow of a
Space forgotten with winter;

Forgotten under the dappled shadows in May;
Forgotten in the water, the warmth of seemingly everlasting.

On our backs in a tangled night,
Ironically-the sunshine had us
Remembering starlight.

Shedding our skin and being
Born baby-serpent-new.

Remembering the taste of dirt and of freedom;
Remembering the sting of a crazy memory made:

In bright, and in night, we were brought warmth-
A respite,
Of a most dampening life,
One dictated by walls and
By strife.

Yet she insists with hope and delight--
*Remember the starlight.

I have been waiting for you around the
Edges of my heart, where you lurk in
The underbrush and the shadows; still
Too lost in the rest of the world to know
To navigate back home.

I have been waiting for you in the
Pause at the end of every sentence,
the hitch of every breath, and
Within the depths of my waking lids-
Explosive starlight ablaze in my minds
Eye.

And
I have been waiting-
Patience my sedative-
For the hand that fits over
Mine and warms the chronic
Chill.

You have waited too; I can tell because
In your sleep I am always awake and
Pacing-I know you are restless
And need someone to kiss your crown
To remind you that not all kings have
Castles.

But they have riches--
my soul can promise you that.