She came one morn in a pool of red, rising in the east
And she left that day in a pool of red, west-bound, daylight’s priest
So I looked upon her cooler side that lay on sheets of black
Waiting for her graceful form to usher daylight back.

I am a garden just waiting to let spring in
I stand frozen now with wind blown tufts in the air
Nothing but a blankness, as suits the harsher months
I wait for the signal to unclasp my sprigs
To make known my blooming blush
To let down my head of greenery
And fill the empty space where I have slumbered

I feel small
The world is a laughing giant
Wearing a coat to stop the cold
But all of her coats are too big for me

Hoarse are the birds in this garden
Coarse are the feathers they wear
Strange are the songs that they’re singing
Songs that tell strangers “beware”

Deep in the shadows lies Beauty
Long overgrown by thick vines
Lying in silence she’s staring
At naught but the passing of time.

Footsteps are scarce in this garden
Scattered with leaves as it is
Darkness has snatched it from Beauty
Her once cherished garden is his

Crying in silence lies Beauty
Watching her poor garden rot
If it lies only in darkness
Her toil will soon be forgot

Soft sang the birds in this garden
Bright were the feathers they wore
Sweet were the songs they were singing
But now there is Beauty no more

Tucked between bark and the life blood of trees
Shrouded in shadows and leaves
Deep at the core of the heartstrings of woods
From magic and elmwood conceived

Living in silence but also in wood
Falling for none but the axe
Standing in stillness, her shroud is a cage
Her only consolements are tracks

She watches and wishes as travelers come
Hoping that one will commit
To chopping her life giving elm cage away
And helping her learn to forget

A man did just that in the forest one day
He swung and his axe whistled through
She fell to the ground and she tried to get up
But her elm cage had trapped her there too

Is a common turtle really different from a crab?
They both make their ways slowly, across the dirt and sand.
The mouth and claw don't differ much in ways they're used to grab.
Could a common turtle really be a green-shelled crab?

They ask me why I am quiet but I don’t answer, I am not quiet I am silent

A gentle voice to cut through nascent wails
A tender hug to quiet and to love
A guiding hand to give a needed shove

His heart beat in two
And mine was in three
Our cadence was always just off
But I switched to a two
One bright afternoon
When I missed a beat trying to cough

The elusive redbug crawls in men's veins
In men alive and men just slain
A single needle draws it out
A *****, a drip, and then it sprouts

My grandmother once told me
A fantastic story
Of moonlight that was lost
From beneath the moon's pale frost
She said it floated off at night
And turned into the small pale lights
That I now see in the sky
Brighter than the moon's dim eye

Oh stars in yonder sky
Born of moonlight, learned to fly
You left La Lune behind
Gently weeping faded light

Faithful buds you poke your heads out green
Leaves unfold round petals’ silky sheen
Sunlight draws you from your cellar rest
Dry-dirt roots seek water to ingest
Gift of romance, jewel of child’s crown
Found and owned, your beauty not your own
Perfect picture, ruined out of love
Plucked from home you flourish long for none

I often wander past her gallows
And feel a sympathetic twinge
At glints of sun on growing rifts
I long to hear her sing

My fingers itch to hold the mallet
Molded to her brazen form
A tongue, once ripped from quiet lips
It rests, with ears, unworn

If treasured glance is counted higher
Than the purest ringing note
Then may she hang still, gagged in silence
“To Liberty!”, I quote

You were falling
So I stretched out my porcelain hand
But you were scared
And you gripped it too hard
Now it’s broken
And so are you

Her red lips like the roses of a cracking stained glass window
When she leaned in to whisper her secret
The words falling from them like demons through a gate
Into a crumbling church

Into my ear

I had sat in those pews
With zealous eyes and thoughts upon those lip-red roses
But one by one her demons came like whispers
And cracked the red stained window like a breaking heart

If sleep is a portal through time
Then I haven’t found that white rabbit to follow down the hole
To magical adventures
Instead I sit in heavy consciousness under this tree
Waiting for him to appear

If the earth had a temple
Surely it would be the ocean
With its stained-glass fish
And its stately silver sands
Its keening choir of whales
And rocking sermon of waves

The world above is not
A foreign paradise
With its broken-glass windows
And its dingy gas-stained streets
Its keening choir of mothers
And angry sermons of men

If the earth had a temple
Our world would be its end.

A spiral of light, like music to my eyes
I spun out into the golden grass
The stars shining brightly above me
Only seconds ago the vortex that seemed to knock me down
I heard a laugh, but no one was there
Maybe it was the stars
The moon was too kind to laugh
My silver feet began to work again
Daring the stars to tip me twice
The dampened earth beneath my twirling soles
A cushion when the dare was done
I laid there then, but
Only long enough to find Pegasus
Until I heard the muffled steps and swishing grass
As others wandered from the trees
Their candles sad mirrors
Of the vortex in the sky
One by one they challenged the stars
That tucked them all in to a bed of laughter and golden grass
I watched as they disappeared beneath the waving fronds
Until I could feel the hands of the stars readying the finale
Pulling me into a spiral of sweat and lazy zephyrs
They too knew that this was the last dance
But still I whispered up to their shining choir
Daring them to stop time.
Their hands were on their pocket watches
Pulling out the gears
A wish so close to granting you could hear the crickets pause
Yet soon they stirred
The spiral pushed, but laughter pushed it back
No longer harmonizing to their melodic lights
I fell again
This time over a root
My silver feet tarnished to grey
And lost their shine walking back through the woods

A guitar has six strings
That when struck as one note
Can elicit a sound
Far beyond a mere throat
Yet a voice can sink ships
Or at least it's been said
Can a six-stringed guitar
Claim one person that's dead?

Trees smearing past the window
Other cars streak past with snarls
Snippets of vitality springing forth before receding behind
A man cleans his car
Preparing for your now
But then he's gone
A girl grabs for papers in your breeze
You should help but she's already gone
A dog's barks precede
And then recede
Before your ride slows and the barks are not quite gone
At a stop and with a click
Dismount and leave the metal ride

Some sit on a pile of books
Not knowing the worth of their seat
Not knowing that the paper holds the tongues of a thousand souls
They sit on their bright future
If only their legs could read

I'm glad I live in an average place
So that I can keep my breath
Who cares about the lack of sights
If my lungs keep me from death
And sure it's not quite pretty
But there's certainly some charm
To back up quiet living
Without tracheal alarm

Did you ever hear the one about the guy?
You know, he did a few things, lived his life.
Real upstanding, I guess not outstanding, but you know, decent.
Of course you remember him.
If he was good, then wasn’t he good enough for your memories?
No?
Ok then, I’ll ask again later...
What was I talking about?

May I propose a fifth season
It’s anytime you feel happy
And the world suddenly shifts
Rain becomes music
And sunlight happy dancers
Leaves fall like inhibitions
And snow comforts warmly
This season is universal
No happiness is equatorially dependent
A smile is a smile
In rain or sun or leaves or snow
The world can be changed
By a glimpse of the fifth season

I read a story once
About a bug that crawls into people's ears and lays eggs in their brains
Ever since then I have to cover my ears to fall asleep
It's funny that people think that way
That they matter
That a story WILL happen to them
Because at the end of the day
It might

Satellites grow like barnacles out of rooftops
Bringing to us sights and sounds that sprout like anemones in our minds
Their blinking lights and metal forms are idols to their purpose
The rain did not come from the sky, it welled up from the rooftops and poured down on our heads
They told us, “get your hammers, get your nails, you’re gonna need a boat”
I wonder why I can’t just lay my head back and float

Ever since the flood started, Grandma’s been staring out the window
She says “that rain’s just not the way it used to be”
I don’t look up, too busy learning how to swim
She smiles and knits another coat, she says the rain is awfully cold

I haven’t slept a bit since all this water has appeared
My car was carried off and now I’m living on the streets
But even streets can only stay dry so long
I went into a seven eleven and saw the puddles in the aisles
I stole some chips and got out quick
I knew the rain was coming soon

A whale is singing near my head
It’s leaned against the glass
I know he’s trapped for now, but soon the waves will let him out
My teacher calls me once again
But water’s sloshing in my head
She yells “we have to leave!”
But I’m too busy smiling at the whale
He speeds away
And sings a song
The water pins me down but he is gone

I stand atop a mountain climbed with only my bare hands
The water laps at my bare feet
The highest beach in the world
And I put my towel down first
Everyone else is swimming
I sit and see the sun go down behind the ocean for the last time
What a beautiful end to the day

The Great Wave
A sight often mistaken for a thing of beauty
A sight that means death
A graceful tragedy

I guess it's true
That words come out like chunks of CO2
It's not emotional
But something speaking mandates that we all must do

Threads of people winding by each other, clumping and then seamlessly slipping past.
I try to blend in but I feel like I’m too slow or too fast.
My skills at reading crowds are on the lower side.
Yet I love being in crowds, amongst so many you can hide.

People running everywhere, and I’ve nowhere to go
But that’s fine with me if these are people I don’t know
Their eyes slipping right past me, neither towards or away,
They simply disregard me, nothing warrants naught to say.

This is how I want it, yet I can’t help feeling that
It’s hard sometimes to be the one that everyone forgets
I don’t want that at all, now that I think about it more
For how could they forget me if they’d not seen me before?

Awash in dancing sea glass light
I watch the ocean late at night
But I have never been

The only ocean that I know
Is filled with wintry frozen snow
That God did not intend

I wander cross it in a fright
While tripping often as it’s night
And slipping on the snow

An owl wings above my head
Reminding me of seagulls led
By merchants to the coast

A barrel loaded to the brim
And sailors singing salty hymns
Assault my ears and nose

I grasp the rough hewn timber rail
And hear the snapping of the sail
Among the clapping waves

The salty air upon my tongue
Turns dark and rough and then we plunge
Upon a pitching swell

A glowing branch lights up the sky
I see it though I’ve closed my eyes
And shines upon some hell

I know it from my darkest fears
And shun such moaning from my ears
All thought has lost its perch

Wait, no more am I staring out
Aloof, aghast, about to shout
Now I see ice-glazed birch

They shiver slightly with the cold
A breeze picks up and takes its hold
On sounds from far away

A quiet whisper fills my head
The voice that wracks a soul with dread
And grabs me by the feet

I stand there frozen to my spot
But seeing only driftwood rot
And float away from me

The icy hand that grasped my throat
And pricked my skin and thinned my coat
Now plays his lilting harp

I fall into a deepened sleep
His lullaby like counting sheep
And nod off in the snow

When I awake, a tropic storm
Has thundered in to greet with warm
But hellish gusts of air

I smell it Here
The death of books
Whose prayers drift to nowhere
On the wings of ringlet smoke

I hear immortal authors
Those flammable Flamels
Who believed in their own ability
To turn ink to gold
Whose leather-bound brains crack
And whither with every shimmer
Of the heated air

Their words do nothing now but coat my lungs in ***** flakes of ash.