My past lies
  like a deep
    still lake,
a record of
all my mistakes
swimming
  within its soul
& I want to burn
them all, but
   how do you
take a flame to
water?
it just stays,
    forms ripples,
sometimes small,
    sometimes
biblical, all I can
   do is wait for
drought, for
  clouds to move
& sun to come
    out; the day
I will wake
   & not see a lake
but a clean slate

Losing physical weight as my
Mind expands.
I have been mouth for as long
As I can remember,

Now let me be hands. Hands, so
I may release you and hunger on.
Blessed be all things un-eternal.
I can only sleep in burning houses.

For Helene.


Ashes on the water, now.
Love's bones like dust downstream.  
At least it got to see itself in our eyes,
Feel itself between hand holding hand

And whispered caresses.
From pillow talk to fists raised at
Concerts, glasses of Portuguese wine
On her balcony to the sound of magpies

We named our neighbours.
We were beautiful.
Began beautifully.
Ended gracefully.

I open hands that held hers and see
Nothing but skin worn by labour,
And air.
Ashes on the water, now.

Embers without a chance against rivers  
Cold with melted mountain snow and
Unyielding differences.
Some loves drown with lungs too full

To cry; others float like a funeral-pyre-
Longboat into the night, ablaze.
King and queen, hand upon hand.
Crowns tied from fresh flowers,

We were beautiful.
Began beautifully.
Slid apart the way a glacier parts from
The hills; slowly, but with the force

Of its thousands of tons.
Ashes on the water,
Where the ghost of our union rests
Underneath the surface of our memories.

I will remember you.
Until the stars burn out, raining the
Dust of themselves like snow upon
These waters that always are moving.

Silence is the sharpest sword of all,
for when it cuts you -
you'll not hear its fall.

Words cannot compare,
to cold silence;
its blank and hollow stare,
its muted violence.

Silence is the sharpest sword of all,
for you can't perceive its call;
it kills the thing that it loves best,
and puts all final things to rest.

All the love is silenced in one stroke,
all's been said and all's been done;
and life plays out its quiet joke,
underneath love's setting sun.

Silence is the sharpest sword of all,
for when it kills you,
you'll not hear its fall.

Sunday morning,
the air froze, the dahlias
once bloomed angry,
now they shiver and sigh.

Autumn breeze, faint but still,
the padded ghost-steps
of your laugh, running wild,
like vintage photographs;
scattered Polaroids of
my memory - a smile here,
a grimace there.

How the heat of
emotions buries itself
in the clothes of yesterday,
How difficult it is to
fetch from the seams.
The needles only *****
at a faint feeling.

I wonder; do you forget me
as winter forgets the living?

Because once an old man
told me I had sad eyes

Sunsets melt to chalky lines,
like cigarette stubs, they died
when you met her.

These days only my fingers
remember summer,
I touch the hearts of others
to warm them too.

My voice wind chimes,
the eulogy of the storm,
when I breath your
name I shudder...

And listen-
because I am in
the echoes
of her, of us.

I was there with her
the day she went to Glory
What a tender moment
What a beautiful love story.

Although she'd been in pain,
it ceased to mark her face
when she saw her savior coming
to take her to his place.

And though she could not speak
I watched her reach above
You could feel His warm, sweet presence
On her face, a glow of love.

And in that quiet passing
from this life to the next
there was comfort just in knowing
with him she'd get to rest.

There's no doubt about it
His presence there was known
He came to care for Mother
and welcome her back home.

He blessed me with my mother
compelled to share the story~
Of the peace that fell around her
the day she went to Glory.

she misses him most
early mornings
and right before dusk

the scent of his pipe
still fills the air
                at times

his chair sits vacant
and she finds herself
staring at it in longing

she still makes the coffee
strong
because that's the way
he liked it
and she can't seem to
break the habit

sweeping the floor
one morning
she finds a worn penny
   1912
smoothed to a bright copper
in color
his lucky charm
   must've fell out of his pocket
   the day they took him away

he was the love of her life
   they had grown old together
had more time than most

but the ache in her heart
and the emptiness of her arms
tells her, that still
was not enough.

I was a child
I was a raving maniac
A raging lunatic
A prophet
Who saw god in all the symbols
And the symbols in everything
I made connections to the plants and the soil
The moon and the stars
To the times I read your mind
Knew the deeper meaning
Or just what was implied

I was a child
A selfless lover
A bitter fool
A dreamer
Who looked forward to every new day
I didn't know
I couldn't grow wings and learn to fly
I knew I could
My heart was pure
My love was innocent

My world was a vibrant dream
Full of wonder and opportunity
And color
And love
I didn't want to believe in pain
I couldn't
I was a child

The Stardust Inn had no sails of silk.

The wooly sheets chafed his sunburnt face. He couldn’t sleep with all those demons glaring at him. The ***** maids never washed the blankets and they stank like dead goats. Nobody ever cleaned his room, or bothered to replace the soap, or replace the dead lightbulbs, or fix the faulty ceiling fan.

The potpourri made the goat smell worse, somehow.

Dead goat. Dead flowers. Dead people. Dead tired.

It was hard to mend a broken soul, surrounded by such paper-thin walls. He’d lay listening to men and women shuffle horizontally, sweating and thrusting themselves raw beneath the scratchy sheets in the bed next door.

A cockroach scurried away across the carpet, over the bare foot of the Ghost where it sat crooked upon a chair in the dark. He always wanted to tell that Ghost, if it’d just fix its posture it might get some rest – but instead, never said anything at all.

The woman next door out-moaned the wind. He looked up at the Ghost, and the Ghost at him with large black eyes. He could almost hear that tortured spirit say;

“Now you know what I’ve had to deal with.”

The tourniquet
That staunches the onslaught
Of thoughts is precarious;
Sometimes running it's course
And becoming so soiled
That things leak through the cracks.
Those days are difficult
Two hands and a will of steel
Mean nothing...
He slips out and around my fingers
Staining everything with bright
Poignant memories of another time.
My hands, on occasion, are enough
And I'm all I need
Holding the edges tight
Teeth gritted, waiting for the sides to knit
Into something strong and new.
When the tourniquet is fresh though
I remember why I need it so much
Remember the softness of cloth again my
Bruised flesh and sign in the heady relief
He offers.
I don'twantdon'tneed everything hiding behind this flesh
Seeping out constantly

Should I keep on fighting, or give up and let myself go..