it's getting scarier by the HOUR
OUR world will never see PEACE
PIECE by piece we're overpowered
overpowering us as our fears increase

we sit idle as hatred BREWS
BRUISED by the war torn SCENE
SEEN as only pawns to lose
losing all of our hopes and dreams

He loves
with rapt attention
his nearest neighbor
an unattainable beauty
a temptress
veiled in aquamarine
and evergreen
she has forever been
his only muse

he reaches
invisible fingers
across the void
seeking warm earth
against the bone
chilling blackness
for he cannot
turn to face
the sun

she is breathless
beneath his fullness
her every landscape
willingly unfurls
his forceful touch
swings her tide
from crest to ebb
she can only spin
in ecstacy

she memorizes
each scar
on his luminous skin
for she is wise
to his lunar ways
love that borrows light
to show its face
is surely meant
to wane

why do we think love will fix us and make us whole.
when in the end it just leaves us more broken than before...

The finest clothes turn into rags
And she's cautious all day long
Any leak in the boat
Can be plugged with her tattered silk
Peril sneaking in
Be alert and prepare for crisis

Beautiful clothes becoming worn out
Beautiful clothes becoming rags
She is on guard all the day
-- she is in doubt about something.
symbolizing Water and Peril
--she will be cautious and prepare for evil

This silken gown is tattered and torn
The girl is wearing rags
There is a hole in the boat
The water seeping in
Peril sneaking in
What was thought to be secure

The semblance of brilliant attire
The lowliness of ripped apart rags
She is on guard all the day
-- she is in doubt about something.
symbolizing Water and Peril
--she will be cautious and prepare for evil

hiding inside the darkness
peering out into the light
only to find
that my soul hates the bright--
too much to comprehend
too much to grasp
the dark seems safer for me
and I keep wanting just to clasp
its safety and its comfort
for darkness brings only quiet
and light brings all the sound
'make it stop!', my inner voice screams
as I fall in a heap onto the cold, hard ground...

He held some Romantic notion
His years of love and devotion,
The exposition of emotion
Could overcome the troubles.

He tried to be meta-physical,
Raised his crucible to the celestial,
Prayed to move the unchangeable
To overcome the troubles.

For years he toiled in his realism,
The jobs, debts and persistent requiems,
The slugging burdens of their tediums,
To overcome the troubles.

He was Dada, then Grand-dada.
She was Mama, then Grand-mama.
Once an in-law, now an outlaw,
Yet always there was trouble.

Now he's lost his generation,
Learned the cost of retribution;
Still sourcing out his frustration,
Considering the final solution
For dealing with his troubles.

Boots were all we had in winter,
Wellingtons made of a slice of rubber;
Turned down to show initials,
That bled upon the snow.
Between skin and cold,
Coarse wollen socks,
Sometimes they matched,
They'd criss and cross.

In from the boys' yard,
The slide and frost,
The boots were heaped
In backroom closets.
The sting of chilblains
On sock-soaked feet,
The line of footprints
Led to our seats.
We had one pair at school,
No other cover
Sliding across the oaken floors.
Drying on the radiators,
Our pungent odor,
A synaptic recall,
The unschooled smell
Of winter schoolyards.

The mirror above the washbasin
Reflects a lonely face,
Eyes sad cheeks shaved clean,
They tell of an inner wilderness.
A space that you alone traverse
There's none but yourself to converse
Outside the teeming world roars
You are shut within closed doors.

Soon you compromise for a sleep
No dreams to soothe no relationship
No lullaby to douse the heart's fire!

You embrace the dark, slip into its mire.

She reaches on tip toe
through windows and tries
to take hold of the outside
and gather it in,

for to feel the wind
and the pull of the tides
on the shrinking inside
of a life growing thin..