Tranquility
     Coalesced together
          From the morning:
The gulls sang -
     Screamed out, really -
          Seeking out fish
Where the vultures
     Poached roadkill
          Before autumn faded,
Where the sun's rising
     Sets the lake alight
          With a smoldering glow.
With each step taken
     Away from the threshold
          Of our little hearth,
The aura of your heat -
     Clinging as best it can -
            Fades and admits the chill
Of a winter morning,
     All its bright potential
          Wreathed in spent breath.
I wonder at each of them
     Spent stepping on, away
          From warmth waiting behind.

...It sprawls to the horizon, all this sea,
This blue-green brine all mirroring the sky,
The deeps devoid of light and charity,
Adrift and floating...
                                        What's become of me?
The waves still lap against me, no reprieve,
But fear and treading steady me a while.
I can't imagine how I'd ever leave -
I cast my gaze across the empty miles,
Revealing...
                        isolation, chill and grim
Until the dawn sweeps up above the brine:
A glimmer lighting up the ragged rim,
Then sea-foam verdigris gives way to shine.
And still I float below the gelid sky,
Adrift, a castaway within your eyes.

As melancholy seeps across the sky
Like sunset bleeding orange into blue,
The days to come all seem to pass me by,
Entrapped in reverie - I dream of you,
My wandering attentions yearning still
To hesitance and lingering, to slip
Against the feel of you. A bitter pill,
No less because it still evades my grip:
One wanders into winter absent fear,
The better still if warmth awaits at home.
It stands to reason: I can bear it here
So long as you'll be there. Perhaps we'll roam
The wintry wastes together, hand in hand,
All wreathed in summer, dearest firebrand.
Though summer quickly saps the will to move...
They languish in the sun's recumbent gaze,
All subtleties and whispers, naught to prove
And naught to do but bask away the days...
Elsewhere, the birdsong decorates the air,
A harmony from discord - life abounds -
And elsewhere still, the bees are buzzing there,
Alighting, tracing circles, winding round...
Elsewhere. But here, the summer glow remains
And furtive touches summon halting tones -
Then tones to murmurs - whimpers - soft refrains
Inviting - then demanding - then a groan...
The bees will call to bees, the birds to birds.
As summer comes again, I offer words.

How to begin?
A prison made of rock and chains; carrion birds hunger on high.
Fear demands an uncertainty which cannot be, here.
Distant crashing salt-spray wears away weathered cliffs,
inch by inch,
and with them it wears away...
There is no fear, not here.
If I should be seen running, it is not running away;
it is the slipping roll of a Sisyphus's rock,
the rattling snap of a Prometheus's chains,
and the headlong flight from the summit.

Silence wraps us up,
shoves us into the corners.
Winter's not this cold.
There might as well be a wall
for all the miles between us.

My hands have always lingered close to tools,
Each yet another means to cheat an end,
To ward away a break, to build, to mend.
Discarded carelessly, absent all rules
Or sympathy, their care makes me seem cruel.
But as I reach my desk, again to bend,
Again to pour what thoughts may condescend
To slip from mind to pen, my hand their mule...
I wonder in the silence as my thoughts
Go still and stiff without your drifting gaze,
The blooms of inspiration withered down
To bristling hedges in a maze I've wrought.
To know abuse, know Muses: when they frown,
Their tools quickly become their castaways.

Orlando furioso, in your name
I dare not raise a violent hand in jest;
I’ve learned too well that pain is not a game.
If I’ll be guided by a candle’s flame,
Its light compassion, you’re a shroud, darkness.
Orlando furioso, in your name
And mine, on your behalf, I’ll carry shame;
I’ll chant a eulogy some might attest
I’ve learned too well. That pain is not a game
For two, for any number. What's to blame?
What burned away your wits? What was your test,
Orlando furioso? In your name
I can’t duck out, no hiding where I came
From, where I’ll die before I go. I’m blessed
I’ve learned too well that pain is not a game,
Far more a lineage I’d hate to claim,
A leaving I’ll revile within my breast,
Orlando furioso! In your name
I’ve learned too well that pain is not a game.