They make their entrance—
She in lipstick red, he in black,
A beacon and a shadow,
All eyes on them,
Where whispers collide
And lower boundaries break.

Jealousy blooms—
A ripened fruit, **** and swollen,
A secret bite beneath his skin,
An angry itch crawling inwards,
She, the *****, the sin, the blame—
A ***** temptation,
An addiction burned into the flesh.

Strangers move among them,
Faces of mirrors reflecting her shame,
Eyes refracting his rage,
Life stretches thin,
An LSD trip spiraling,
Searching for meaning
In symbols of truth
Without faith to anchor
The screaming void.

Why the waiting?
Why the blame?
She—
The failure to society’s equation,
They—
A fleeting beautiful façade,
Polaroid shots and pixelated likes,
A collage of nothing,
Of no regrets,
Of red smears on broken mirrors,
And the scent of smoke lingering
Long after the fire dies.

Lost:
Her
   Wedding Ring
         in the ashes
  of a fire
  Home burned
            to the ground

       Firemen dig
        Where the bathroom
           used to be
Now 2 storeys deep
      in charred rubble
           for the drawer
          where the ring
was last secured
~~~~
  
        Somewhere in a different
   state
   Another wife was
   praying that
          all who lost
           their homes to fire
              might find some
       family treasure
                           in the ashes to hold onto
     ~~~~

        Something  sparkles dimly
    as the ashes are removed
    Is it the wedding ring?
      It is.
          Black and crusted, yes it is
    Still round and every stone in place
   Such joy and celebration in
the midst of tragedy                                ~~~~

Miracle:
            
    A prayer has been answered
        for a Christian
       in Nevada
             And a treasure been
    delivered
   to
         a loving wife
       in California
              who may have lost her family home
    but now has faith in miracles.
ljm

pocket full of pennies
rolling across the kitchen floor,
down the steps, out the door,

pennies running into the street
(and i'm right behind them.)

"where do you think you are going? and
I m feeling a bit embassed, so i whispered.
"you belong to me,

to keep or to throw away." and

there s a light tap on my shoulder,
and the policeman tells me,

"better find them soon
before they turn to rust,

I couldn't find mine
and I'm sure they turned into dust."

and the echoe from the hole
in my pocket shouts,
" his dreams are
trying to find the waterline."

i did find a few of them, a handful,
(I had swiped my hand as they tried to roll away)

I did grasp a few

but some of the other
pennies i threw into the air
where they may have fallen,
I know not where.

this was a song that lingers in caverns and
caves, scented by sea rose and anemone,
lost kingdoms where we dream of the sea.

this was a song like a whale shivering
through the water, diving into the
impossible dark, with its huge tail
waving, flag-like and star-hungry,
its skin the moon's lips, in a world
with no moonlight, no brightening pools,
and only echoes of a forgotten sun.

how deep do we dive, seals of ink
and overtures of unanswerable
dark? our eyes have been betrayed
many times and the water buries us
whole, takes us to the staccato rhythms
of a ghostly tide, takes us back to
a womb woman whose prayers lie
like whispers on the water, who tells
us to hush and we hear our mother's voice.

these are wild notes that press into the
waves, and i am frightened of this song,
it is dissonant and gathered from the
rivers of night, her tombs overgrown with
wild flowers and the bones of the sea,
and she cries for the lost,
for those that were taken from her,
and she will cry for all eternity
and her tears are like breath of ice.

I am the voice of the wind
The one you've forgotten
That sang lullabies to you as a child

Now I am singing a song of despair
Begging for some grown kid to remember
The soothing melodies of the sleepless nights

I am the song of the moon and the skies
The child who asked the cosmos all why's
Hear the wind's desperate cries