To dance?
The oncoming storm,
All breezy bluster and
Quicksilver lightening.
You dance in my mind
All silken whispers
And subtle grace
You dance.

We bared our teeth.
Tight, mocking grins.
Your expectations ours to devour.

We hunt and haunt
These distorted roads.
We wait, timeless, to consume or free you.

Sweet treat left upon the pavement
A sweltering, bereft mess becoming sticker.
I wish to scoop you up,
Stuff your blue shell back into
Your crinkly wrapper, all done up
In a pale green so dapper.

I gave up somewhere along this road—
When it was I don’t know.
So I’ll sit here, underneath the shade
And wait for the Tin man,
Now rusted in time, far behind me.
I discovered, sitting there, that day—
That losing a heart
Was actually an easy thing to do.

I should sleep.
Nestled quietly next to him.
Bundled against that soft breeze.
But I want to be mindful.
Breathe in his lingering scent.
That rests against my skin.

It was a merry-go-round.
I was gambling on the animals.
There was something more,
Going on between us.
A faint flutter of discontent
As I laughed astride a Tiger,
Ready to battle.
I’m not making any demands.
Complete surrender is all I’ll take.

Well, there had been a tree
All soft gray trunk,
Crawling with snails after the rain,
And carved with symbols of naïve love.
You couldn’t climb the branches to the sky,
But they could cradle you as you watched the world go by.

Sleepless nights
Basking in dreams,
Evanescent.

I had a heart then,
but then the Queen drowned in a tea cup,
overflowing with complacency.
It’s delicate porcelain shape
a study in the emotionless.
A Jack of hearts slipped in,
To steal it all away.

That day the goose feathers went ****,
The Sun blamed the Wind.
The Stars blamed the Clouds,
And Cause blamed the Effect in the confusion.
But truly Cause was to blame,
And shame that he was able to fool all,
By meddling with the details
And suggesting cures to mask the symptoms,
Or the feathers would have been returned
And not a goose would go cold.

A soul, a skip, a time, a page.
Twill and twine, butter me up.
Bowler hat, dapper gray.
Tea and twist, slap it away.
Hatpins stab and teamice snore.
A soul, a skip, a time no more.

Twisted, complicated steps
Of a graceful waltz;
I’d fall if not for my partner;
Where? I’m not sure.
I’d say into the dark, but its day.
If only I weren’t afraid to be lost.
Wandering mind, twirling thoughts,
Startling clarity, the center of the eye.
I see only a jagged edge of red ribbon,
Caught fast in your affectionate hands,
Woven from our bleeding hearts.
I could be bound tight by you;
Blinded by spinning visions,
Of a maddening waltz
The strings of music bind and tighten.

Rising, twisting flames,
Ruby golden against the shapeless night.
Bright enough to drown out the glitter of the stars,
Thrusting higher as they devour shadows.
They reach for their distant brethren.

Stained ink to bring wanting. With concave, lights twisting

notes. Fingertips in unreal closet. Lights with mildew out

nothing. Pure broken tapping closets to ink fingertips.

I’ve toyed with fight or flight,
Had it freeze me in a nitrogen bath.
At the very innocuous sight of a face.
But the face just denoted
The crushing fear, that swallows me whole.
So I’m a runner and
I’ll hide in anything, including a frozen mind.
If I could I’d fight
One of these days I will fight.
But, battles of the self, need to be chosen carefully.
So I’ll just keep toying with flight
Until I’m sure that fight won’t end me

Splinters jabbed deep over time
It was just a drop that dripped out
That miserable first time
Now a river cuts through me.
How do I turn off the tap?

My fury would wash you down and away.
Tumbled red and broken dry,
Til you’ve been laid out flat
And pinned to cork.
No better than a butterfly.
All mine to display.

The Circles are calling!
As they circle round my head
Weaving me dizzy and divine
As we fall into the Circles of Hell.
I try to block them by feeling square
Only to form a triangle
The pressure builds
And lines are being bowed
Everything collapses into roundness
And my sanity goes.

These unspoken words,
They recall a moment.
Against the inky black of the sky,
Touch, whisper soft, on skin
Poetry spoken quietly, contented.
Movement, undone by moonlight.
Disquiet soothed by the stars.
A moment of peace in between.

I’ll fall.
My tarnished ideals,
Heavy on my heart
And filled to the brim
With intoxicating…
Lust?
It sweeps through my veins.
Leaving me wrecked,
Lost in dreams
The kisses of memory
A hazy shimmering world.
Heart pounding.
Beating.
Thrumming.
I’ll lose myself in the mists.
Emerging, filled with fire.

Blue eyes
Torturous and cruel
A cold beauty like
Windswept mountain lakes
Half frozen
Half there
Not reality
My soul catches,
Caught,
Trapped, frozen by
Memories of blue
But any shade of warmth
Has been stolen
By time
By distance
So I’ll sit and wait
For summer’s sun
To thaw my
Frostbitten heart

Searing tears,
Rubbing-sore hands,
Pounding drum headache,
Red eyes,
Lips and cheeks inflamed.
The embers burn,
Laying forgotten amongst
Dull gray ashes.
Shimmering smoke
Leaches away tenderness,
And slowly,
Oh so slowly,
Steal my soul as it rises.

To go back. It’s a fond wish.
One that’s locked up and buried deep,
Because it can never be fulfilled.

But in the dark corners of the night,
When the stars, eons old, dance
And the sweet temperate moon,
Washes the harsh day away.
I can pretend in my dreams.

In my memories you never left.
I went left instead of right.
That the hurt never happened.

And in these moments I’ll try to find,
What happened to my happiness.
When I find it again, then the dawn
Will no longer shatter my illusions.
Leaving me to drown in bittersweet reality

Freedom is a heady feeling.
I didn’t know how much I needed to feel.
Until all those emotions had been wrung out,
Except for this bright little jewel.

On those quiet gray days,
My mind wanders.
Echoes of anger and hurt
Greet it as they paint the walls red.
They haunt my footsteps
They haunt my memories
Making me aware of how wrong,
Absolutely everything was.
Make me wish for that time,
When I can live and forget.

White Knight?
All the stories have been told.
Black Knight?
A touch to evil for my tastes perhaps.
Gray Knight?
Most would say just right. I say eh.
Pink Knight?
Too tempting I should think.
So neither it is.
I’ll take the Jester
If you please
And smile as my woes crumble before me.

“Oh dear, oh dear”, exclaimed the rabbit
“I’ve appeared to have lost it in this havoc!”
He searched high and low
Near and far, above and below.
It wasn’t until the very last place he looked,
That he found his poetry book.

She stood, thin wire
Beneath her pointed feet.
“Just a show”
She whispered. Her
Feet danced endlessly
In crimson shoes.
Pirouette, and bow.
The curtain fell along
With her tears.

What happened?
To that fragile moment we held tight in our heats?
Red glorious ribbons of Fate.
The quiet comfort of long nights
Pulled apart, worn by age,
In which we talked.
They lie dirtied on the ground.
Till Dawn whispered to the stars,
As they left, her tears washed it all away.

Green eyes, worn
Like sea glass left behind.
Unsure, impure, so full of faults.
The pull irresistible
Wave after wave of sagacity.
I won’t falter,
But, gladly, I’ll drown
In pools, sea glass green.

Free licks, the sign read.
Of ice cream? My mind questioned.
Summer was not here.  

The sign read free licks of ice cream,
Summer was not here?
My mind questioned.

When I said that I was trying,
What I really should have said
Was that I had been stuck.
Mud, muck, mired, and miserable.

What I should have said
Was that I began to claw my way out.
Slipping, sliding, slowly, steady.

What I should have said
Was that home had been in sight
Welcoming, warm, whimsical.

When I said that I was trying,
What I should have said
Was that I had made it back
Only to find I had been gone for too long.

Everything shut up tight,
Boarded over and cold.
I’m sorry I was too late,
Is what I really should have said.

This Rush,
Heady, intoxicating
Pounding against my white interior
Clawing through my skin.
Begging, fighting, screaming,
For a way out.
Dripping, oozing
Through every word
And every well timed ******.
Its fire and warmth gives me
A new sort of fragile
Strength.

All quiet nothings
Exist within the dark
Just like your broken promises.

The embers still spark.
I’d mute them with tears,
But oddly everything has dried up.
Everything is either hot,
Or harsh cold.
At this crossroads
I can’t take the middle path
And so I stand frostbitten and burning bright.

I squirm in my seat.
The pricking of my dreams,
Like a long…
Slow…
Lazy drag
of a soft feather along my back.
Tormenting,
And ticklish,
As all those little stinging secrets
Start to come pouring out.

Blue
It flickered lazily in the back of my mind.
At the thought of letting go,
My mind became a pebble skipping across frigid waters.
Blue
It murmured in my ear, a breath tickling.
At the thought of falling,
Memories of heat and flames rose to meet
Blue

If I call upon the wind,
It’ll dance upwards,
From the sea of green meadows.
From the hallowed arches of the woods.
It’ll dance around me
And cloak me in power.

I had never really liked you
Until that day,
When I noticed
You didn’t look at me
With shame.

Twisted silver
Aged divine
Horsed gallop
Priests beg
Gold flowers
Grow on
Bronze designs

The night is dramatic
Awash in silver and black.
Without the stars
The full moon glows,
Singing to you, lullabies
To ease those skulking dreams.

Flip on the music
Flip on the water
(Try not to burn myself)
Grab the implement,
(A sponge with soap)
Let the mind ponder,
Cups first? Or perhaps
The plates.
How shall everything
Fit together within
The drying rack?

The Poem I’d never write
Has perhaps already been written
Drained out of me
By poetry classes
And poetry forms
In which to force my words
An emotions to fit
Into squares

My anger was righteous,
Deserved and harsh.
It poured your ichor
Onto paper.
Mingled words on
A hundred pages.
Only to set it ablaze
With blue flames
That took years
To do their job.
Now the coals smolder
In destruction
And wait,
Patiently

Disappearing into the milk
Silver goes for a swim
And a thunderous whirlpool

And you’re here now
To wash away my fears.
No black angel,
Merely a human sacred.

No bells or prophecy
To claim your arrival.
Just one wish,
Spoken to the night’s sky

Paid in silent agony
Our tears heal.
The rainbow unbroken,
Our journeys begun.

You’re a primary color,
The brightest of the bunch.
Even if your shape is
Slightly off from circular,
Your wedges make,
the best bitter smile.

Streaks of gray blot out my nothing.
Piano strokes key into the sound,
Key into my mind. Strings me along
With fevered pitches and staggering lows.
Till passed out in color I lie, drowning.

I’ll shout you down,
Laughing in my way:
A joy filled sound,
To shake you
To your core.
A sound to amuse me,
To shatter the farce.
Sweet and pleasant,
Loud and musical,
Never have I heard
Such terrifying Joy.

Oh these lack of easily spun words
Sticky caramel masses in the back of my mind.
Stuck, stuck, stuck
Messy to boot
And stuck
To worry it, or stick it back on simmer?