How can one ever describe
The evenings in the ice
When troubled smoke billows
From heat that does not suffice

The radiance of beauty there
So much stronger in the mind
The glittering little branches
Whose birds you cannot find

The world's afire tonight
Don't pray for that moon
Take cold light and hold it close
Endless dark will come too soon

Somewhere the city is screaming
Afraid but clueless as of what
Has set it to these underworld blazes
And spotlighted its icy cut

But here the quiet forest
Has only music to play
And as the maples dance in the light
The sun departs the day

And I'm curled in your arms
That last ember in our hearts
The brightest scene of fading
That ever graced the arts

I dropped my pocket four days ago
I hardly noticed at the time
But when I went to find your note
I found it had been left behind

Along with every untossed penny
And clumps of tissue and twine
Although in truth it was no great pocket
Somehow I’d lost all that was mine

I want to bite the feathers off your back
Rip away your veins and settle into mourning
Like your blood tasted of pain
I want to tear you, tease you all the day
Pull, punch, rattle, shake and leave you all in bones
And break, brake before the hurricane
I want to teach you how to hear my name
Shudder, tremble in fear and release into hiding
Wait until your ghost appears
I want to freeze your face in that position
Expression twisted out and drop your wings before you
Shout, shout but to no gain

Cat sits behind cage
Bored
Man comes in
Cat leaps up
Tries to catch his coattails
Snags his heart instead

Cat sleeps on couch
Content
Man comes in
Cat wakes up
Swats away his gentle hand
Signing it in red

Cat hunts in field
Brave
Man comes out
Cat pounces down
Returns to comfort of house
Victim having fled

What beautiful little words
You spread across the page
As if this call for empathy
Could dispel your rage

What dainty little lies
You whisper in my ear
As if this pause for apathy
Somehow negates your fear

What delicate little souls
You lead onto the ice
As if your hindsight sympathies
Could currently suffice

A breath of whispers
Cast me to your depths
Rolling in that thunder gulch

Midnight, why respire?
Wake me with a splash
Dawn and passive cry for mulch

This excessive erosion
Secret me your protections
Trip wire designating unintended fault

A dark of dream scare
Toss me in your undulations
Sapphire coagulating in that salt

In the ocean I saw her
A frail wisp of a wave
A silver bodied dolphin
That I forgot to save
I saw her in the ocean
I wish I hadn't though
A blackened hollow apple
Frozen in the snow
In the ocean I did see her
I swear it to be true
A golden haloed angel
That fell into the blue
I did see her in the ocean
So many miles away
A dingy brown eyed gypsy
That I once turned away
I look for her in the ocean
The part of my soul lost
A sickly whitened memory
That to the sea I tossed
In the ocean I look for her
A fallen shooting star
A purple midnight aster
That I left on the tar
In the ocean I found her
A crimson coated shell
A keepsake from a rainy walk
That from my pocket fell
I found her in the ocean
Grey she was to my despair
My bright lightning beauty
That had lost all her hair

I cannot touch your fog people
They haunt me every night
Sad smiles slipping from their faded lips

There’s a moth drowning in the candlelight
The velvet flour of its wings
Dancing in the flames and casting shadows
Over my sunken eyes

I’m searching for your breathless
But maybe that’s my problem
Perhaps all they are is smoke and air

There’s no moon tonight in this sinkhole sky
The blackbirds have smothered her
In their charcoal feathers as fireflies
Pretend to form stars

I can only remember your voice
Ringing like elk-song in my ears
When their dew point fingers brushed my heart

There’s a silence that is pulling at my soul
The soft glow from my chest
Is being dragged over those unlit fields
I walk alone

I cannot touch your fog people
They are not mine to see
Sifting in between here and eternity  

There’s a scream echoing in my memories
The desire to touch your mist
Leaving hopeless footsteps that end abruptly
And do not exist

I dance along the terrace
That sits outside your soul
On a perfect summer evening

I laugh with the voice of daffodils
That grow up in your garden
And drink the blood from your veins

I leap across the meadows
That lie outside the wasteland
You like to call your heart

I cry with the boughs of willows
That ring around the skull
Where all your dark dreams spawn

I swim through the memory
Of a starry-eyed girl
That is only found on cold winter nights

The forest has been waiting for you
Patient but forever it has
Been quietly pining for you to return
Its heartbeat's track of ballads

The doe appears out of nowhere
There's a screeching of wheels
That's how I think of you
A beauty the world is always narrowly missing

The sky has been calling your name
But  you forgot how to listen
Long ago you once joined feathers to clouds
And in sunlight made them glisten

The cat lurks in the shadows
There's a midnight cast to her back
That is how I think of you
A haunting spirit with grace but no definition

The sea has been forever taunting you
Its crashes add to your fear
The knowledge of that waterlogged creature
Somewhere deep down there

The breeze catches your hair
There's a soft roll of thunder in the twilight
That is how I think of you
A gentle storm to rock a child to sleep

Move down upon a hollow road
Dreary wind’s gentle tap on your door
The grey bird’s path in willow lanes
Skeletons for evermore

Or lest the snow falls on the ‘morrow
And quiet drapes winter its sheet
Keepsake my sparrow in the morning
In memories ‘til spring we meet

So intricate, so pure
Tell me, did you put this here?
Oh sorry, I forgot
You are not the spider
That's her

Look at the beautiful water
Droplets so precious
How can you resist such melancholy?
See her blue?
Is that my grey?
Oh sorry, that is you

So fragile and insecure
Now really, what can she mend?
My paper lined heart?
Oh sorry, my mistake
It was you she did break

Look at the shadows there
So deep and morose
Can't see what I mean?
Her yellow gutted spleen
That your foot?
So sorry, my misstep

I miss you
Such simple words
Full of pain
Causing pain
Shattering
Like crystals upon
A cold stone heart
It’s simply
That I can’t stand
To be here
So all I want
Is to be there
Logically
****
What am I doing?
So convincing
The truth is
The truth is
The truth is
I’m lost

Won’t you let me in
Dear friend?
It’s rather cold out here
And there’s a frost that’s beginning
To bite onto my ears

Won’t you open the door
Kind sir?
You are passing right by
And there’s no great difference
In the tolerance of you or I

Won’t you come this way
Sweet madam?
Take pity on a poor cat
And hold me in your fur-coated arms
Give me a gentle pat

Won’t you let them know
Dumb dog?
There’s a king at their door
And he will not take being treated such
And will ask kindly no more!

I found God in the heart of a mustang
And he begged don't show me
To the rest of the world
I'm not the man they think I am
I created neither the universe nor the earth
I'm sorry I just am
The spirit of a wasteland
Just please, don't let them find me
They'd **** me if they knew

And his eyes shone out his fear
Too wild, too innocent and vulnerable
And he quivered knowing he was
Alive only in his unbroken freedom
He pleaded once more
Please don't let them know I'm here
They would hunt me down
Rope me in until I could neither
Move nor breathe any longer
And they'd bury me ignorantly
Beneath their fear and false crown

I found God in the eyes of a mustang
Hiding in the desert canyons
All skin and hollow bones
Waiting for the world to end
And he screamed as I roped him in
And tried desperately to warn me
This will never be the same again
Keep on dreaming I whispered
We both know that God is already dead