A whispered
call to prayer
across the pillow
my muezzin
your adhān
awakens me
to the sun
a new day.

I rise and kneel
in worship
in supplication
I hasten to you
my confession
in adoration
I vow, I bow
to please you.

r ~ 6/23/14

Pull up a chair
and rest a spell.
In your glance
I can see a tell.
Your heart is not here
when he's in town.
Your home fire
is burning down.

Come sit,
let's talk awhile.
I won't ask you
for a smile.
Here, now,
just take my hand.
Let us watch the sun
sink into the sand.

It is getting cold,
but the night is young.
There's still a fire in me
that has not been sung.
We can watch the moon
creep o'er the hill.
I'll sing for you
and warm the chill.

Pull up a chair,
let us talk awhile.
The night is young,
I can make you smile.
Take my hand
and make me feel.
There is a hearth here
that's burning still

r ~ 6/25/14

ripples in the pond-
  fat toad on a skinny rock
  i wish he would croak

r 6/26/14

i.
i feel you in my bones sometimes,
on those nights when the silence screams almost as loud as your lingering words,
when the portrait of you is stitched onto my aching eyelids,
thrown together in a mass of lazy brushstrokes from a dark palette.

ii.
i light cigarettes,
but i don't smoke them.
i just watch them burn out.
fade.
crumble.
like we did, endless eons ago.

iii.
it's clear to me now that,
like the land and the sky,
you and i were simply never meant to meet,
never destined to touch.

iv.
sometimes,
i can bring myself not to feel so hollow,
if i think of the better days,
when your smile wasn't a façade
and your love for me was a looming oak
in this great big forest of daft, dying weeds.

v.
but it's not worth much, anyway,
because the truth
is that your smile shines
just about as bright as the stars in the big city,
and your love for me
snaps
like a silly little twig.

vi.
in all honesty,
we never were,
we just tried to be.

vii.
you know,
i walk endless roads trying to forget you.

viii.**
it doesn't work.

(a.m.)

The memories are there
In a crafty serpentine position
Slithering and winding
Waiting to constrict the present
Fueling rage seethes within
Spitting fire