silence moored like a boat in the harbour,
and you flew against the horizon like a bird  

until my mouth was the night with its hungry stars
and you were the sea wind.

you were the night flowering, a ripple on
the surface of the water, the dreams of the ocean...

your eyes told me that history is made of a
a thousand bleeding wounds, your lips that

kisses are petals falling from a rose
and that we wait like old moons for night

to melt on the shore and set us free, we wait,
unquestionably free, for her gathering of

iris and blue bird, for her beautiful
and melancholy song.

The young wizard set down his staff upon a withered old tree that was somehow still standing. Like the old tree the young wizard endured through the time of one night of terror that seemed an eternity all together.  The dawn was here. The sun sang of song of rest and reassurance that "I will be your guardian of light and keep all the dark madness away." The young wizard then sat next to his staff and fell into a much-needed slumber. His staff begin to glow acting also like a guardian of sort alongside the sun in the sky. An old protection spell once cast by the young wizard so that his staff may be a watchful sentinel-like eye to warn him of evils that may be coming for him in his sleep.  The spell sometimes spilled over into the nightmares the wizard may have also protecting his sleeping mind as well as his waking body.

The young wizard begins to dream and is among friends and family.  Dreams of eating chicken and potato soup with his brother and sister.  Hearing the fire crackle while his grandmother read to him. The dreams turned like a wheel in his head always in constant change of beautiful memories and scenarios.  The wizard slept on through the morning until one of his dreams was disturbed by a strange growl in the sky.  The young wizard walked a trail of round pebbles through the forest.  The growl became more intense as he walked on through the forest. He came upon a Y shaped tree with no leaves at the center of a glade in the forest.   It reminded him of his slingshot he hunted back at home with.  The young wizard grabbed a pebble from the trail as it transformed into a large boulder to load the tree slingshot with.  The growl was more intense as he slung back the large boulder in the direction of the growl and released it.  As the boulder landed the young wizard awoke to his stomach growling as he had slept through breakfast. The young wizard stood up and stretched his arms and legs. His hands reached into the leaves of the withered tree an felt something round shape among them.  It was a large apple like fruit.  Seemed the old tree still had enough youth in it to bear fruit.   The young wizard smiled and set his hand on the withered bark of the old tree whispering two words.   " Thank you."

There's a spring in my mind, and we sit near it together
and there's a silence between us, charged with the memory of winter and summer and pelicans on the shore.
You close your eyes in prayer, but I keep mine open and watch you
in this eastern light, thanking someone.

The ocean, the lake, the water is lapping with the phrase
moments in time, and I hear you next to me.
We stare at this expanse and are next to one another. I don't have to look at you, to say a word,
just this moment is like a well in the earth, springing with fresh water from the dark, into my arms,
fulfilling me.

M. G.,

It was years ago in the A-frame,
beside a cold bachelor's lake

that was clogged with reflections
of raving burst-headed trees,

that we laughed as Jake threw up
the Genesee river in the midnight sink.

When you caught your breath
you told me how you had traveled,

how you'd found a woman and gone to her,
it was the most you'd ever shared with me.

But this letter cannot reach you, friend,
because Jake just told me that you died.

My head fills with the numberless times
I drove by your long-lawned house,

or knocked beers in a rampant yard
while fires fractured dull dark.

I consider that love is a terrible thing
when I see what it's done to my friends -

it didn't rise as sweet slow dough,
it wasn't a shyly signed valentine -

it was a Petri dish of troubled sleep
that bred malformed dreams;

it was a crocodile's jagged jaw-drag,
it was the dross of unwise prayers.

Well, hell: let this letter remind them all
of that barking laugh amid the stray pines

as Jake birthed a twilit river from his teeth.
Your Friend, Evan.

~
the night starts here,
the night starts here
in the dunes,
fixed in time;
incipient waves falling into place,
their subtle purpose
to roll over and sing;
the fountainhead above us,
like it's above the shore,
attaching softness to a shell.

we blew on a dandelion
and the whole world disappeared;
love is a mysterious shape,
love is a remembered rhythm.

I have trembled
my way deep,
I'm a guest in here,
drinking at the stream,
seeking bliss in
the plural homemade kiss:
peppermints and orchid rain.

we please the night,
we please the night in interlude,
and it merrily leaves us that strand
of pearls called "good morning."
~

On my walls hang two pieces of art;
large canvases boldly splashed
with colour, stroke upon stroke formed vivid arcs.

I wish I had kept my father's paintbrushes,
they were tools of masterpieces.
From them, my strokes could have made faces flush
and inspired songs and poetry; love?

*
But, perhaps ‘twas a blessing to create with unique expression and freedom.