Maybe something simple will suffice
I can see a lot of light
But I love even your darkness
My fingers spell your name
In dead languages
I can't read, but I can sing
Even louder than your demons scream

Maybe its not as simple as I would like
I can see a lot of life
But death in your hair I want to hold
My fingers draw your face
There's no color, but every line
Becomes the reason I will live
Even the pain you feel is my hope for tomorrow

Let us sail, hand in hand, off this cliff towards the endless azure
The fresh air, a soft caress, lifts us up towards that circled warmth
I see your light, brighter than the torch above, shines not for me.

He scoops sands in baskets

then balancing neatly on the shoulder
carries to where needed
through bone breaking hours.

Upon his footprints is there a name
or a home
where he goes back for the night
lands featherlight kiss on a woman
awakes her sleepy bones with her hands
forgetting his days sinking in the sands.

Dave was the kind of guy to always talk about leaving; we have all known a guy like Dave and we have always wished he would go, not because we didn’t want him around but because we knew he was one of the few who could go. Sometimes he would work up the courage and leave this suburban drive by; he even spent a few months out west, Portland or something. He never mentioned it much, the trip didn’t last long, more like an extended vacation before he was back working the same job, drinking at the same bar and kissing the same woman, well not the same exact woman but she was always close enough to the previous one, the difference seemed insignificant to us. I'd look at him at the end of that bar, sipping his beer as he wore the face of a man who was often late for work because he lost his keys. He found them once before between the cushions of the couch, so now every time he misplaced them, he would check their first and check again six more times. Always looking for what he needed in the same place he found it once.

A stolen glance a
Playful wink
Love eternal sworn in ink
Teacher confiscates the letters
Forced to read
Out loud
Beautiful sonnets that would
Make Shakespeare proud

I took the photos of you off
My mirror today
I came to terms with being fifty
You are not too young for anyone
And I may or may not be too something
It's not about a difference in age
It's about living a different life
One of happiness or
  
Escaping darkness
  
Not in this life
Not for me
No more trying

through art, it conceals
through art, it reveals

I speak symbolism,
only eyes and mouths that bear the fruition of my words can seek for truth

let the wind blows, let the storm howls
be it a fault or a foul,
only those eyes and mouths that bear the fruition of every truth I hold
could seek for clarity within them all

I was born for agony, not harmony
I was born to ride the waves, not streams

through art, it suppresses
through art, it unveils

My daughter says
every tree has a soul.
Some are good, some are bad.
But always, a soul.
My daughter is young enough
to know these things.

My daughter says also
some trees have a spirit.
(But only the good trees.)
People, too.
She is old enough
to say these things.

Guided by spirit, we can grow
from the crack in a boulder.
We can lift sidewalks.
We bend and yet are strong.
We flower, we bear fruit, we give seed.
We are where the raccoon sleeps,
the hawk nests, the monkeys play.

Without the spirit we twist,
we wither, we break.
With the spirit our roots take hold.
My daughter knows. So young, so old.

I think of you in words that don't mean anything.
I think of you in places that don't exist.
To believe in reality is hard because reality is brazen and I've always been meek.

I see you in all the faces I see,
Some have eyes like yours,  some have your hair.
Nobody has a smile like yours,
A perfect melange of shyness and mischief topped with genuineness beyond compare.

I hear you in all the voices I hear,
They all talk like you yet they don't.
They don't make sense to me,
Your voice made me feel like home.

I catch your fragrance when someone passes by,
That enticing smell of cigarettes and cologne.
Now she smells it everytime she hugs you,
It fills her head with euphoria and inexplicable bliss.

We are but two roses in the same vase
sharing the same water
same light,
but our leaves never again touching.
You've grown colder
we've grown apart
separated yet together dying.

Tell me, why do we, roses, die so easily?

Our scents fading,
but our thorns getting sharper
in a world where all the flowers bloom
we are the ones to be wilting.

Tell me, why does the moonlight darken our colours?

I know
I will love you with all my thorns
and with my fading shades
until the last petal will fall
until the sun upon me
will stop shining.

*Tell me, why is there blood on your thorns
and why is my heart leaking?