Raise me up, atop the river of oceans,
And baptize me under the wings of the stars;
Soak me in the still waters
Of boundless transience,
And bathe me in the blood of the waning moon.

Raise me up, above this bed of earth
And make me drift above the pillow-like clouds
That trail the skies of black and blue,
And wait for them to fade,
Just as the darkness will,
When the day runs its course.

Raise me up, above the chains of time,
And drop me on the face of everlasting feeling,
Of infinite tides that crash upon the shores
Of fading memories, of translucent pasts,
And let me drink the water filled with
Certainty and guileless candor, pray
That I'll remain here forever,
That the beach I lay atop won't
Clump and fall and sway and tumble
Into the empty pits of
Forgotten promises and unsaid words.

Raise me up, against my will,
Above the plains of grass and roses
Of black and red, steal me away
And tap my eyes with the lucid
Dreams of my seething impermanence,
And sting me with the daggers of
Regret and redemption, of
Begging to remain for just another moment.

Raise me up, and let me soar
Atop the summit of banished wishes,
And let me cast my body away, let it
Fumble down the rocks and pebbles and boulders
On the slopes of passing instants,
But let me, my unbreakable soul,
Stay right there, frozen in the midst of
Feeble remembrances and sprinting clocks,
And let me know, just this once,
That I haven't lived until I've been lost.

I can't write a poem
Right now
It's killing me inside
I can't write you a song
Once more
Forgive me, it'll be alright

I can't sing a tune
Again
My voice is all but gone
I can't paint a picture
Today
My fingers are stiff and wrong

If I could see your face
Once more
I swear I'd strum a chord
I'd dance around and click my shoes
And slide across the floor

But now you're gone
And I'm still here
I guess they call it fate
I eat alone in this empty house
Surrounded by ghosts and crates

But if the stars align
And I keep shining
Maybe the world will give
Another glance, another dance
And a chance for me to live.

He's blind but he sees the roses
She has sight but she's blind to them

He gets calls from the sullen forest
She gets calls from the paper streets

He misses the beautiful people
She misses the dutiful sleep

Sweet words are all he's come to know
Rocky bridges plague her dreams

They live next to one another
But they can't speak in any way

While he lies in a cot made of broken branches
She sips tears out of metal glasses.

Oh woe
Why can't you see
That time will only dance for the trees?

Sunsets will only fade once the day
Has long since passed unnoticed

A shadow crept on your black stained lips
Hoping to cut out your lies

Skies bore flames down on you
And wiped away your sight

You tore his dancing box to pieces
When he claimed his heart was pure

Only to find that you misplaced what he sold
By hand
Pocked with blisters and sores

She flew away today, blew across
The sun and darted through the
Sky, breathed life into the voluminous
Void of space, gave meaning to the unsaved,
Brought upon the Earth clouds and rains
And tears and unsaid words that
Never seem to make it out of swollen lips.

She flew away today, glided against
The winds, drew from them the memories
She cast away, ran adjacent to her
Fading worries, her unobtainable desires,
Spun herself a silk-laced dress that
Makes the world pray for death’s salvation,
Makes God stare at her with an eye on
The trail she’s left behind in smoke.

She flew away today, brought down
The light from the waning moon and
Kissed the sun’s head goodnight,
Shook away the pain of all that’s befallen
Her blood-locked, star-born children,
And brought with her the promise that
Once she arose into the kingdom of
Heaven, the Earth would shine once more.

We are
Alone
Behind the clouds
Somewhere along
The invisible stars
In a pool of void
Searching
For a siren
To call our dearest.

The darkness
That swallows all
That stretches ahead
Is silent
Taciturn like
Falling trees
Somewhere out
In the boundless
Edges
Of unreachable space.

You tell me that love
Is for the hopeless,
That pounding hearts
Are for the loveless.
You tell me that pressing
Your cheek against mine
Would bring forth
A singularity
That would **** us both in,
Only to disassemble
With age what we felt
Lay under an everlasting day.
You say the moon
Is too frightening for your eyes
To see. But darling,
If only you would
Cherish night, you would
See that roses are just as beautiful
In darkness as in light.

Take me away
My body astray
In diamonds I see
Nothing for me
Where shall I go
When the skies fill with snow
I don't know
I don't know

Why can't I stay
Even when I pray
That one day I'll be free
From whatever it is I'll be
I see home in the world
Too far from this hold
In dreams I'd know the sun
But all I see is what I run from

I'm just a spindle of silk
Cradled too close by distant ilk
The seas glimmer bright
Farther than eye's dwindling sight
While grass waits to grow
I wait for wind to blow
In places I'll never see
That's where time would be

Wishes grew with me
Under the mid morning tree
Hundreds of years it wept
Until it broke its roots and left
Tell me why distant memories
Split apart all too clearly
I wish I knew
I wish I knew

We were forests
Evergreen
Rising above meadows
The air scrubbed clean
I remember the fire
Like it was yesterday
Because for you
We were only
Meant for someday

I am not
what I foresaw

Among rainbow-colored
lands askew with fruit ripe and seeping
springs wallowing on ancient forest loam
I used to dream of the sky

Now I lay upon nail beds
destined by shadows demanding
legacies foretold by soothsayers
with eyes clouding against the present

I am nothing
change is something

Was I ever
something

God peers down from towering heights
at the lawless land covered in the soot
of an anarchy so fine

Where dirt and dust
replace oceans of skin

Where smoke and ash
scoff at crystal skies

Where corpses in sheets
line asphalt roads

And musical men strike weary chords
in alleys wet with voiceless bards

Will death be proud to call broken names
while hungry vandals raze bleeding hills

Fear not this time
for there’s proof enough
that you will stand agape at the smoky forests
of concrete trees
in this flustering night

An old man
Lies helplessly
On his mattress,
Covered by darkness
And filled with grief.

A young man,
His son,
Stands next to him,
His arm outstretched,
Gripping his father's lanky fingers.

The son glances at him
Half-expecting his dad
To say something,
Yet all the old man can do
Is close his eyes.

His breathing stops.

His vision goes black.
Yet, somehow,
Through the darkness,
Shines a light, so bright in view,
So welcoming in presence.

He is transported to a green meadow,
Filled with black roses,
That beckon him to move ahead,
To let go
Of the past.

Hesitantly he stands,
Takes a deep breath, and,
Tilting his head toward the sky,
Frowns reluctantly.

He looks ahead,
Staring at his fleeting past.
He takes a step through his childhood,
Through his adolescence,
Through his adulthood,
Through his marriage,
Through the birth of his child,
Through the death of his lover.

He reaches the end,
The future made only of light.
He looks behind him once more,
Unsure about letting go.

His memories become distant.
They dissolve into the fine air
And dissipate like vapor,
Until all that remains
Is the green grass below them.

He looks at the light,
As it becomes more welcoming
Than ever.
He weeps for a moment,
And steps inside.

I smell the wind-whipped breeze of
A thousand sun-kissed days,
Breathe the crumbling masses
Of a million broken stars,
Hear the hushed, blank cries
Of a billion swollen hearts,
And taste the bitter tears
Of the whitecapped ocean
Beneath your chest-hugged legs.

This amalgam of hues on
A blank paper page is
Nothing but a wistful image,
A reflection of a dying moment,
A passed eon in the midst of
What’s left, gone, seen,
But I faun over it, dote its
Tacit candor, glide my
Chilly soul over it,
Disillusioned, unaware of
The face behind the blue eyes,
The dark, flowing hair,
The slender figure hunched over
A granite island in the midst of the
Green and gray canyons,
Like a perched hawk over
A boulder-faced mountain,
And I find that I’m falling
In love with you,
With the scent of the past,
With the novel sagacity stuck
On your cherry-licked lips,
With the sun’s golden fingers
That caress the water’s surface
Like a silken stare at the
Edge of a lush green meadow.

But tell me, my thorny rose,
Am I not falling in love
With your unproven allure,
Your fixated transience,
Your deceiving honesty?
Can I truly be in love
With an image, an obstinate replica,
Without having felt the loneliness
Of longing, unblinking glances
With your impalpable reality?

Tell me, my heart,
And don’t feed me bitter lies,
Can I love what’s but only a wish,
An enigma that visits me
When I drift away with the rising tides?

I've been sitting
Atop this lonely spot
For as long as I can remember.
But time does not affect it, for time
Is a pure abstraction
Of my ephemeral presence,
My waning consciousness.

I drift like a cloud,
Sway like a stray hair,
Waiting for the dawn that won't arrive.
The day when you'll grab me
By the soul, scan the pages of my heart,
Look me in the eyes without
Innumerable distraction,
And treat me as a human,
Treat me as a mate,
Treat me as a love.

I'll wait while you take
Solemn breaths upon the
Dying waters of ignorance,
The calming tides of playful banter,
Meaningless discourse,
Wait while you run
Through mud-stained plains
Expecting to stay clean,
Wait while you cry tears
Expecting not to get wet,
Wait while you speak words
Expecting nobody to
Remember what you said;
I'll wait patiently, obediently,
Hoping, praying, that one day
The tormenting clouds will part
And reveal the omniscient light from above,
That it'll cleanse the world like a rag,
And soak up the raw injustice
That stems from opportune circumstance.

But until then I'll sit here,
Unbound by the tribulations
Of passing time,
And I'll watch as the last
Grain of sand stays dormant
In the hourglass of our time on Earth;
But until the day you achieve clarity,
Until the day you feel what I feel,
I'll be picking flowers that
Sprout from the infinite soils,
Waiting for the dawn that won't arrive.

The door up the stairs,
It eludes my conscience,
I'm ignorant of what is to wipe,
Across my thoughts.

Come here, they say,
Sit down, they say,
We have news, they say,
Stage 3 ovarian, they say.

How could it happen, I ask?
That so innocent a person,
With so much life and vigor,
Can fall into such a void of hopelessness?

She arrives in the door,
70 years young,
Sullen and tenuous,
Her tears fall caustically ,
Down her face.

The older man, hit so hard
Falls short in his strength;
His arms fall numb,
To the pain of occurring loss,
His tears fall caustically,
Down his face.

Hugs are thrown left and right,
As tears shed violently,
The shock kicks in,
Where will she be in the future?

I suddenly think, as quickly as i see,
Their willowing visages,
How long will she last?
And my mind drifts into the unknown.

I see her face covered in sun,
Illuminated by the vigor of health,
Her breaths cease to exist,
Yet she is more alive than ever.

She turns to me and says,
Isn't this wonderful?

My mind snaps back to reality,
The cold house chills my body,
The tears still feel caustic,
And the pain still feels unbearable.

But in all of this misery,
There is one thing,
We can look forward to.

The thing that we can't predict,
The place we can't imagine,
The experience we can't escape,

The Future.

Long green stalks
Uprooted from the soil
Wither into dust
And dissipate into the air
Above the meadow.

A seed bursts open
And its stem
Creeps out
Of the ground.

Time passes.
The stem now a stalk,
It sways in the wind,
Lonely and solemn.

Time passes.
Iridescent blue petals,
Closed, isolated bud,
Just shy of consciousness.

Time passes.
The bud is now a flower,
Grounded only by its roots,
Fragile and ephemeral
As it dances in the wind.

Time passes.
The petals shrivel,
The stalk bends,
Yet it clings on
To its fleeing vivacity.

Time passes.
Its petals now black,
It wilts to the ground,
Unbound by its constraints.

Long green stalks
Uprooted from the soil
Wither into dust
And dissipate into the air
Above the meadow.

A seed bursts open.

Ran the world's belt to step outside
And breathe crisp air so fine,
To mount the seas of emerald green
And kiss soils poured with wine.

Stepped upon a thousand grains of sand
Buried deep within the crystal snow,
To find some clarity in a looking glass
But where it lies I'll never know.

Treaded on rocks to touch the sun
And stroke the moon's white face,
To pray for time and not for sin
And bask in silence's grace.

Past the icy peaks and tumbling rocks
Where avalanches bring news today,
It's hard to keep spinning with the world
When there's no path to walk the way.

Too much has come and passed before,
Yet too little has been seen
On riverbeds and meadows of green
And mountaintops with lustrous sheen.

In canyon creeks I'll lay my head
To rest through this quiet night.
Though the wild is dark to open eyes,
The songs it sings will bathe me in light;

It whispers,
Carry me up these stairs
Hold me against your arms
Let me down on the ground made of clouds
In the way marked up above.

Iridescent glow
Whiter than black sunlight
Translucent rays of
Incoherent ire
Burn like molten heartbreak
As a feeling
Redolent of regret
Chars my skin
As though I were
Desolation incarnate.

If, when we die,
We choose our
Destination,
I would travel
Into the night sky
And become one
With the stars.

They lack judgment,
They lack wisdom,
Yet they are animals
Of infinite spans of
Inherent mystery.

As my body would
Materialize
And drift slowly
Through the airless
Darkness,
I would close my
Eyes,
And listen to the
Cacophonous silence.

I would let my
Eyes
Rest upon beds of
Black nothingness
And let my vision
Focus only ahead
Of me
On the supernova
Of my own fleeting
Past.

I would let my
Troubles
Become simple
Memories
And let my
Petty body float
Away
As my mind would
Drift
Far into the boundless
Void.

And, as I would
Near the end of
My journey, I
Would not cry,
For that would
Insinuate
That I wasn't at
Peace
For a single
Moment
Of my voyage through
Time and space.

I remember, however long ago,
My friend called me an unsung hero.
And he said it in a tone of voice
As if to comfort me,
To console me for not being played
In the ballads of far-gone legend
Or in the soft-spoken stories
Told solemnly around a fire,
Smoke billowing in the air
Like immolated lost dreams
And falling, wistful pride.

And I just looked at him,
Unsure of what to say.
In those moments,
It's rather common
To be gracious, to be humble,
But I didn't respond in any such way.
It's because I didn't feel like the title,
Didn't feel as if I'd earned
Something to be proud of, since
I'd just been me for as long
As time had coddled my existence.

But when he said that,
I felt the world cave in like a tunnel,
Felt my ego dissolve as if it were
Being bathed in acid, and I realized,
Maybe too, late, that being a hero
Doesn't entail boundless wisdom,
Doesn't entail haughty accomplishments,
Doesn't entail inordinate hubris,
Doesn't entail selfishness like he believed.
No,
Being a hero, an intricate warrior
Is being a dragonfly soaring
Across a meadow of lava,
Is staying silent but
Loud enough for all to hear,
Is defending the passions
That bind your soul,
Is standing on two feet
When one's been broken,
Is guarding your heart
With a well-oiled pen,
Is fending off harpies
With an eager chuckle.

And I won't ever pretend
That I'm an "unsung hero",
For that would mean my path is destined
For a hero's end, a conceited flaw,
A predetermined death governed by
What I'd been trying to hide from all along.
And if I have to sail across glacial tundra,
Trek across scathing plains,
Dig my feet into caustic quicksand
Or walk along the surface of the sun
Just to prove I'm not the hero you perceive,
Then so be it,
I'll pack my boots and papers
And meet you at dawn,
Atop heaven's summit, somewhere
Far out in the distance, beyond
The twinkling stars and mystifying blackness
That swallows everything whole,
That makes heroes tremble in fear.

But I will not shudder, not falter,
For I am no hero,
But a well-heard whisper.

Upon the hilltop
Far over the golden horizon
Where the sun peeks out
From behind the blue crystals
Lining the cloudless sky,
There sit gray
Obelisks, towers of fractured stone
And gleaming silver flowers
That chant the distant melodies
Of those who lay below the grass.

The obelisks line in circles
And weep silently for what age
Has brought upon their faces;
Moss and cracks, dirt upon bouquets,
Names weathered down to pebbles
Vast plains of unturned soil.

At nightfall, winds break
Upon the hilltop's gates
And send forth siren calls
That plead for silent harmonies
Somewhere deep underground,
Below the grasses, below the tombstones
That rise and fall like waves
That sit silent, immobile,
As time strikes its silver chisel
Upon the forgotten markers of those
Who have been locked
Inside its ticking crypt.

I have tasted
the nectar of love
that spills out of wildflower stems
and creeps out of caves into
light

It sleeps in every vein
I can track on my arm

It is sweet
like aging wine

Warm
like summer sunrise

Loose
like my father's chuckle
like the crescent
always dangling
on my mother's lips

But for the life of me
I can never hold it
long enough
to remember what it feels like

Opulence is a whisper
In a forest full
Of clouds
Subtlety is a shout
In this city
Of waning light

It’s too late to go back,
My love,
To when you said time
Would stand still,
When the sun sat behind
The trees at dawn,
When the leaves fell
For the autumn
And drank the dew
Off the sappy grass meadows
That rolled out beyond your toes.

It’s too late to go back
To when you said
Always,
Always is, always will,
And now it once was,
Red moons and black petals
In distant sight.

It’s nighttime now.
Although your face sits in the sky
Like the moon, twinkling gray
Somewhere beyond the stars,
The day is much too young
To wash away the dust
Or guard your eyes against
The lips of a dying love
Like a raw cut waiting
To scab, to mold over the memories
Lining the blood you tried to stanch.

But it’s too late now,
Too late to lie in the trees
Red with sweet clay
Sometime in the mourning light,
Too late to count minutes
As they’ve wrinkled past years,
Too late to tell yourself
That you can still stitch together
The broken seams below the patches
Of the skin you’ve shed.

Time bought you long ago,
My love,
And sold you
To the wardens
Of burgeoning eternity.
Their horns wail loud
And only you can hear their sound.

Is there a God? Will I have a happy life? How old
is old? How is paper made? Will I die if I drink
ink? How will I die? What will I think
about when I am sixty? Why am I nervous
to speak in public? Why doesn’t everyone
love each other? What is the solution
and how can we monetize it? Why do apples
grow on trees? Why do I need to pay
for water? Why doesn’t the sun
set the world on fire? Why doesn’t God
do it for the sun? Why does God keep coming
up? Why do I need to calm down? Is everyone
around me calm? Why does grass turn
brown? Why do leaves tumble from trees
when it gets cold? Why does it get cold?
What is light? What is dark? What is
love? What are lists? Why do I feel the need
to write questions down when I can’t
answer them myself? Why am I here,
and why do you care?

Along the cracks lining
The spaces in between
The bark of this tree
Sits two carved halves
That break along their seams
And curl into the shape of a
Heart.

I wonder when
The knife was plunged
Into the tree-trunk’s chest,
When the blade carved
Out words unspoken but
Seen in an image from
God.
Has time aged it so
Quickly, or has death
Taken over the supple, clenched
Hands of the
Lovers
It stitched together?

Have these moments been
Forgotten
Along the years that
Wear into the gray bark
Like ebbing tides
Along sand-dotted shores?
Have these remembrances been
Lost
With the swaying serenades
Of the plump green leaves
That hang like a canopy over
The shadows cast across
The dust-kicked soil?

Where has the time gone?
I can almost hear
The black heart wail,
Where, oh where,
Has the time gone?
Has it been washed
Away
Like the rain glistening
In the the sky that
Has cradled the branches
As if they were sleeping
Children?
Has it wept like the
Glossy roots
That have upheld the trunk as
The days have worn away
The etched heart entrenched
Deep within its core?

Where, oh where,
I can hear the leaves whisper,
Where have the moments gone?

In meadows of supple leaves
and sands of crystal grass,
long-lived fears
of a life lived long have passed.

Still, cradled in the veins
of another person’s heart,
you cannot help but bleed.

On days of untold
ire, your eyes wet and red,
you rue the day you took a breath
from the old ocean sun.

Yet salty waves of green
could never hold back
your swelling song.

I have watched you grow
and have watched you drink
water from the riverside mound
upon which lay
the dreams you have held
since you were a child.

I know not where you belong,
where years will place you then,
but sirens wail upon your hearth,

Wherever you end up
you will be beautiful.

She is a felon
Of time in check.
She punctures
The seconds, minutes, hours
With thoughts, fantasies
That elude her own eyes.

She bleeds passing moments
And drinks them like wine.
She bleeds me, too,
For I am but a collection
Of years at a time.

Momma says you can't be old
When your days are much too young
And old is far too often
Too much to be enough.

I keep replaying songs
Etched into the bible of chords
That older days recalled
When time fell ill in sickly wards.

Keep your hands in mine, we'll run
To the sky way up above
And we'll sing along forever more
While time just rolls along.

Hold them back, the sun creeps out
And the days pass right along
You close your eyes just once or twice
And the light is too far gone.