Close to this end you were a free-spirit caged
Body-bound parlyzed, muted and muzzeled, entombed
locked alive and screaming from a keyless cell.
A fleshy coffin-with-a-view, an unburied object of pity on public display.

Further from this end you were daughter, sister, friend,
wife, mother. More. You will always be so much more.

Leading up to this end you showed me a suffering so completely devestating
I can't bear to think of it. I can't bear to speak of it.

A suffering I could never endure myself.
A suffering I can't understand or imagine, and hopefully never experience.
A suffering I had been praying your release from for years.
A suffering you had been pleading your release from for years.

A suffering that thankfully you are now released from.

It is a suffering I will never forget, that you alone endured.

I had never known strength until I witnessed your strength through your suffering.

Here at this end I know real loss.

It is a loss I cannot possibly bear, but will.
Using a strength that is not mine, but yours.

The summer's day sun died; drenched, drowned, felled
beneath golden water of a past fall's horizon;
set. The trees' ephemeral amber leaves. To flames as it expired

autumn's bright seer burned the world a dark and chill,
ever failing to stay the approaching night
beneath. Golden water of a past fall's horizon

strained, swelled, rose to greet winter's ashen moon
who left earth- for a moment- a frozen visage.
Ever failing to stay, the approaching night  

ebbed, revealed spring rains and summer heat before flowing
again to autumn's golden twilight.  That harvest sun,
who left earth for a moment, a frozen visage

in the heavens now it seems, begins once more to wane.
The summer's day- sun-dyed drenched and drowned- felled
again to autumn's golden twilight.  That harvest sun
sets the trees' ephemeral amber leaves -to flame- as it expires.

I lie-

Not from a beating heart, bleeding and breaking always
for the cynic in all of us, for the human spirit's relentless wane between birth and death,
but from the bottom of a mind unburdened by feelings of empathy or loss I

hide behind deep mahogany eyes, the ones you whispered
shone through to illuminate my soul which was a dinghy lost at sea, a quiet storm
or the full moon reflected off a placid lake at night.

If I were honest I'd tell you that I only see reflections of myself in others eyes, the world
a pallor shade of something not quite discernible and not quite good; I'd say
the lies I will never convince myself of are the truths you use to fall asleep at night.

You said I was enlightened. You said my mind was beautiful. You said
you wished you could see the world as I do.... The grass is not greener.
The scene from where I'm standing is dim and growing darker.

True love is... and it is truth, and my truth is a world of melancholy grays,
memories of all the things that have ever hurt and a forgiveness in which I hope to claim solace.

My love is: never forgetting that I've been undeserving; rising each morning
in a place devoid of hue or tint only to keep up appearances and expectations;

The beautiful lies I whisper as you drift off to sleep...

The lies I make you believe just to save you from the truth...

To to save you from me.

- because I love you.

Life is bigger- than you; me-

you treading mire
choosing these heavy eyed tragedies over religion

me holding on
so tightly to that comforting distance always-
In my eyes the comedy is that I'm losing
these confessions once spoken-
I say so much under covers throwing
faith  at empathetic shadows.

Can't we hear our better demons?

Feel sympathies?

God's abandoned as we protest
a dismal fantasy over truth- and off our knees
we use cold notions of what's "real"... like fools-
Our ironic hint towards the centuries
as we lose our religion- trading flaws for other flaws

Pretending all the time

God was just a dream.

Each night, which engulfs the day,- like the ocean's tide
Rolls over sand, like death envelops life, both timely and blessed-
Washes us away to reveal who we are. From him we can not hide.

Still we attempt, we turn, we face inside ourselves. We confide
In no one, in fear that others will soil our dreams. We detest
Each night, which engulfs the day like the ocean's tide.

The Son of Man was nailed to a cross and died. He chose to abide
A God he had never seen but believed in. A God he confessed
Washes us away and reveals who we are. From Him we can not hide.

Yet we are condemned by our choice, our power to decide
What is wrong from what is right. Which is why we can not rest
Each night, which engulfs the day like the ocean's tide.

We hope that when we look back at our lives we can say we've tried
To turn ourselves around. I've heard that at our final hour fear of death
Washes us away to reveal who we are. From him we can not hide.

All three noblemen: the darkness, he who defied
Death, and that black angel himself hold our souls within their *******.
Each knight- engulfs the days like the ocean's tide
Rolls over sand, like death envelops life, all timley and blessed-
Washes us away to reveal who we are. From Him we can not hide.

Crimson comes to those that wait but gold
it never does

Nights in neon hazes on ***** bar stools
transient coffins on sticky floors

Snatching seraphim from pipe dream myths

Wishes come true at the worst moments,
through jaded smiles

+

Another round we lie, from our mouths,
these glossy eyes

Sacrifice nothing to the looking

The walking dead speak with conviction of their
so called lives

Lived in palor boxes and unbalenced columns
where they

Die each week, come full circle to us
fo-cherubs

In hopes of being reborn.

We met in the Red Square at Midnight. Sitting on the austere steps of the Kremlin We drank Stolichnaya in silence; listened to St. Basil’s Bells stoic ringing until Our sun rose pale over Moscow  

Beauty is created when I press your mulatto skin to mine.
We shift. You move, and as you’re moved you move me.
Our motion akin to your mother’s in a gentle breeze or a dancer;
Some Elise pirouetting et fouetter and falling over graceful infinities.    

I am deliberate during this ballet. Subdominant.
Una corda e sostenuto, and as you request so do you respond; relaxed,
Sustaining single notes; soft into that ethereal Moonlight…
Blurred and blunted, your perfect meter dampened by my learned cadence.
    
As you sound off forte I rock slightly forward, coming into you harder.
We breathe sharp together; my fingertips caressing you legato;
My Ana Magdalena. Andantino; rolling into flurries of crescendos
presto allegro climaxing; Capitulating again before we rest…
Before lento diminuendo.                                                      ­                

We courted at the Konig Von Ungarn in Vienna. It was classical and   romantic. Baroque. We fell in love. At Figaro’s wedding we tasted sangria as the stars Set, pastel, over Seville. Our first kiss was the Holy Roman Empire fading; A footnote under bass cleft.

We were married in the Rhineland, a single Canon announcing our nuptial.
You a Riesling and I your lattice. I stood firm, resolute, as you grew in, around, and from me. But the lords, they taint you, they **** me of your fruits; oblivious, they invoke their subtle prima nocta.                            

From the rooftops and the gutters they hear you. A virtue is lost between us. We shift. They are unwelcome eavesdroppers’ playing ******.  
They come and gather round us and I grow nervous, stiff; sweat falling from my brow to your ebony and ivory.
They move provocative, but they do not care; they do not notice us.                            

I stop as they begin. They’re discourteous during this Can-can. Their  praise and kind words may arouse the pimps and ****** wandering Montmartre into Paris’s red-light,  “Hear,” they fall on deaf ears.
This is no Moulin Rouge. We are not meant to be exhibitionists and yet
we yield to their flat appeals.                                                         ­                           

I put my clothes back on, Rags is all they are, and you, you’ve become stark.
I project my discontent through your string and hammer heart;
I slap your toothy face and stomp your sterling feet without relent.
I-De-tach-My-self-From-You. Staccato. They call me Inventive and as they sip their whiskey, their bourbons and their Texas Tea they tell us that
we have Entertained.        

We build our home from the precious stones of foreign countries.
We traverse ages to reach the mines and the rock fields, finding rough Diamonds and sapphires. Naked, we wash them in ether; they luster.
The noblemen come. They smile and applaud as they peep through the Windows and knock at the doors, but We shall not  be moved.