Remember when
every touch
      with all its intention
was a kindness
      Tender like our lips
      at first kiss,
deeply
in one another's eyes

      seeing with feelings
      discovery past the weight
      of fevered flesh,

a dervish flight
through those walls
      layered with doubts as heavy
      as the stones
we now turn our hearts into...

Remember when
every word
      was lovingly spoken

uplifting wisdom
like feathers, wings:
      the soft music of our mouths

      when life is floating
lanterns
and we briefly are a/part
you still have me
soar...

And when we're finally as one
whole, a hearth warm,
and ****
      those wet silences
      become undulating music
                      the times we demure
our mouths still drinking, singing
instilling lessons
      within depths : the heart's thirst

which only absolute certainty
      calms and quenches...

keeps alight and so on
carrying on
      knowing tomorrow will come
      yet when I'm with you
I am new...
even in the dark
your star is born.


Remember when
in the break of morning
      when eyes open from trenchant sleep
      (better than adrift or hollow)
remember how stunning the view

      inhale surprise to waking life's wonder
a/part as the wars pain and riot

fearlessly I say
                depart and drink
the rain
         freedom love
sky and eyes
         will awake...


And if we have yet to meet
since I know
      Truth and believe in Love,

when I fall for you
      Thank all the heavens, vast
I fell for you
                                              I will fall up...

Because I remember
now
it's you
      Lovely      loving       love
who fills my very cup

floating in the drink
of us.

*(God how I love you.)

To mull about

The haunts we are bound

Foggy cemeteries of cubic square feet

The days of purple haze

Of sallow street cars, street lamp, lamp light

Loss of desire

Pop another oxy-hydro-fire

To be able

To muck about

With abandon the abandonments

Numb battlements   / "Hoorah!"

Numb the pain

With derivatives

From ******* plantations

Lingering ghosts on our minds

So many now we prey

But with a side affect of try

Holding in your **** for three plus days

So as not to feel

Not at all

Not even the rage

We keep and hold inside our cages

Proclaiming to hallelujah

Freedom

We fight for the countries

And mystic kingdoms' reign

Because nothing takes away

The pain

Like Hydro Oxy foxy pills

Self medicate down wind of will

If unaffected "consult your physician"

At the edge of the stage making it rain

The business of death

If you still feel -- and war will

Give you bad dreams and migraines

Pop another pill

Jagged not to feel

The muck-about days of

Constipated steel

Numbingly unreal...

This is what it's like : life on the toilet.

Get off the ***

Can't give a ****

Like this bowel movement

My heart has called it quits

To all that unholy *******.

All you have are bones,
our flesh once giants, lies, dust,
my feelings extinct.

At times I need
to glance at this

When you go,
I'll think of
all our summers in your smile,

you are so beautiful ...

and as I look ahead
at the times I'll need this
to rout the insufficient days
without you

my eyes will fall on this
thoughtfully
                       A glossy paper memory

You're so perfect ...
                              that smile that's mine
I keep  near & dear

     with me.

*without you.

It's a Kuerig

Not a cure all.

Since every workday morning

I have mistaken as weekends

Like those Indian summers

At nine

Over-sleeping-in

My little white pillow cloud

I piggy back rode

Since then mistaken my dreaming

For Heaven (in the Nth

degrees)

Far from myself.

Here now,

MidLife.

Grind...

How dark roasts have that

So similar in aroma

Bitterness

And caustic ash

After

Taste.

Instant is cheap.

Coffee.

The bowl of a glass ashtray
on the night-stand
is brimming with cigarette
butts and burnt tobacco.

This is what wasted
time looks like.

Grey songs
of a caged bird:
*ashes and cigarette butts

"And all I have are the embers of your fires..."*


A Tambourine, and the evening is beckoning
through the distance
of time : a serpentine road / echoes
the colorful blouses and silks
the memory of love's fire
casting lithe shadows outside the starry nights
fat with celebration
merely a breath from the walls
of this weathered tent...

You were a storyteller on my skin
your lips like fireflies igniting the dark
where only the cold unseen
had gone untouched
until the blaze of the starlight horizon
engulfs without consuming or burning us

you are wildfire magic
the emperor stag or wolf or stallion
and the world is one kingdom
with many heirs
and bright castles

There is a fire for keeping warm
and a fire so hot to shape iron into swords
you are both
mines in minds of wilderness

Every camp we make
a home to hold the embers glow

perchance we stay and mold stronger roots
claim the dirt and dig for gold
place a hat and dub a crown
nothing lifts like wind on embers

when love is not around
life is without fire
no warmth can be rendered....

when your love is not around.

Listening to the ***** din of Sin

City streets

inside the concrete weight of dark rooms

the window ajar

to let the outside air in

while chain smoking to the Metro sirens'

soundtrack

of harpies' in heels

clucking and squealing

(laughter as sharp as their stilettos)

this & midnight overshadowing

black rubber tires burning on black boulevards

vehicular collisions'

sounds stalagmite, metallic

crunch

against the hum of sleeping traffic

signals

hollow city like a wide amphitheater

with the occasional Harley motorcycle's

thunder

waking car alarms

               a choir of infants' high pitch wailing...


The desert night's sirocco hiss

outside my 2nd floor apt. window

in a dark room

where my silence is a deep listener

and my mind a curious wanderer,

where the walls

not only keep out

but carry every conversation.

in such a cryptic void

a spark is gleaned,

a firefly wisp of an epiphany :

we are not separate

you and I

        city and fly

        burrow and groundhog

        dam and ******


we are unread books in dark rooms

waiting for the absolute truth

we find

in one another

to be known

to be seen


as we recite the past horrors

of loud pains

from a city that strips us numb

our pages open like Window panes

ajar...


no matter how ugly the chapters

we will have known

joy being

held within your hands

the story with you

is also mine /

we are

north & southern

swamp & willow

breath

sultry kiss  

Arriving,

humidity on skin

Sweat the nights awake

Until we're dusk

And it drains the sinew

of screaming city

Steaming shadows

shattering length wise

On bright carpets made of morning

Green grass and still

our day yet written

new

Our flight is departing now...



once a firefly in a dark room

a simple story

                a night sky full of stories.


each light

our eyes touch



fireflies

in dark rooms...

Panacea
            Predestined
                        Predeterm­ined manifesto

The Mother’s womb where spirit blooms
Instinctual wonderment


Yet the kind are almost extinct
Wish and their screaming wings
To stars moon dreams…

The loneliest finds wisdom
Northward believing
So gains his willful strength

Being
            A “Self” beginning
                        Un-scrawling secrets

Once lauded in lament
Gone are its notes
And perforce coins’ anarchy

Collects in its place pockets full
Full of glory beauty
Accounts rather for star gazing,

Advice with considerations
Glow
Knowing now a purpose
In the Truthful

Journey
         Destined
                   Fulfilling

The lesser roads to constellations
Worthy of ghosts memories din
Renderings from every heaven

                        In evenings the stars destiny is written...

The impetus
Of being
      Always on the run
               Through pinwheel eyes
                              Those standing by
                                          The mystic roadway

                                     River

Blues yet to be brushed
                           or in blush
                           Of evening chill's breathing
a canvas like windows dreaming felt

All mindful
And chockful O'
                          Wonder
Then ponder
           Yonder "window breaks"
                         Past the wilderness' sleep
Bone heavy wood
                             Umber earth

         Past the rush of liquid

Folding in itself / as a soundtrack
                         Listen
      Pedestrian be
Mindful
                   of the cautionary whales
                                                  Ahab's yell
                                  Obsessions
                           Fears
                      Or loathing

One's drowning in one's sleep

Look wildly widely
                              Blithely
                                    Down river
                     Or up there beyond finger's point
                                   Sidewinder snake journeys
                                                  Until sky and below it
                             All meet
The distance

Now only a line
                      Coalescing what is beyond        
   Our ability to see

               Far and away
Evanescent
       Effervescent
                Ever after      
                             River. Life.
Do not leave...

And
here
               We are now
                            The spirit fluent
With the rapid rivers loud
                            Always on the run

Currents like a child's curiosity ...

When or why does it end
                Where do we go?
                    
Like most things existing,
                              Will lead to the high art / love's deep oceans
           We often forget to seek
And mind
                                     the sublimations ...
                                                            d­riftwood.

Begin with a dot, a line
                     A speck of dusk
                     A burst of light
                                        A starry sky,
pieces to mastery
                   Raging fragility of water
Liquid undulations  
                    Folding itself in / volumes
Or falling from on high
                    A droplet cry
Then lightning
                   (crash or bloom)
From the heavens
                                       like electric rivers
So brilliantly
                   Festoons

Where do we go
       There and here / underfoot
                   Over north / southern sleep
                                To oceans twilight deep
Go wrapped or map-less
Or no
            Up yonder
There up there
                       Everywhere
                                    All without fear

My heart like the river yearns
                 To go toward the sun
                       A flow / the beating drum
Always on the run...

And
           Yet
                   Still
                            Here.

                                                          ­                                             RIVER.

I find sleep quite amiable

less resistant

after touching timpani and tiger

prowls

the other wilderness

that is yours

and my undoing

after we have done did the climbing

second skins held close

with tender cooing

the miasma of life's (bowels)

howling

bowdlerizing

the sensations of our

everyday heaven

I find sleep more pliable

after a swim

in you

and I taste myself

in the salt of our comingling

skin

swathed in mouths

and prim

rose

fragrant waterfalls

thunderclouds

and rain

in the aftermath

of the climatic victory

within and about

our dance of skin

I am washed away

a tiny death

a cry to heaven

I am naked

when you're not clothed on me

how strange to need

you to swim

I find dreams much better

aloft

my second skin...