There is a forest near to me
Be it a wooded way within my heart
Which I often wish that you could see
And stand beside me here beneath
These ancient trees
That way no photo I would need
To share its likeness in such a way
As to create certain a memory
And even then if you’re not within
Such a settling scene
I would make it still
Because you simply have to see
The way these ancient roots run deep
And dig into the empty earth
The way that there is a sea of green
Perched just above the best of me
Like a consortium of ill doomed leaves
Which will fall without fail after every summer
And perhaps this year
They will land upon us both for once
As we stand beside here amongst the leaves
Just you and me
Beneath the trees

How quickly she forgot
How poorly I expressed
And either way
We are run away
With the feeling of want which may not keep
And will not if you ask the likes of me

With heavy parchment and parted ink,
My pen calls out to your wandering mind.

Breathing in the dark of night,
Your oxygen keeps me alive.

Like a fire burning in the dark,
I cut the heavy fog of time.

If only with purpose would beat my heart,
Your oxygen would keep me alive.

Before our dawn could even start,
We reach the end of this cotton line.

Although in time we're torn apart,
Your oxygen keeps me alive.

Like a fleeting wisp you were to me,
Like a curl of smoke from a bed of pine.

Yet until this letter I complete,
Your oxygen will keep me alive.

Press my chest like the pillow
Breath your love back into me
Until I can see your hair swaying with ease
Softly like the whims of the summer willows
Would you resuscitate the lover in me?

Would you find me a girl with the bravery and boldness of a Coraline Jones's heart?
Not someone who demands my attentive love or the backing of a musical score.
But someone real.
Someone who knows every deep and dark and shallow fear.
Someone particular and peculiar.
Who perhaps I can make a cheese omelette for.

As I lay down here beside you
I will pull you in tight
And set your head upon my shoulder
To rest your fears for the night

And soon we'll venture on a journey
To somewhere only we know
We'll visit many distant galaxies
Where no one else goes

And then I'll tell you that I love you
Without saying a word
As if my holding you in silence
Showed my love as a verb

And yet within this perfect moment
There is silence between
With only heartbeats in the dark
To prove our souls aren't asleep

So would you speak to me in silence
Using those lovely eyes
Because I want to share my secrets
Which I've hidden inside

And as I hold you I'll be waiting
Hoping that you have heard
Because true love is beyond feeling
And we do not need words

It bends its back and cracks its spine
Out of sheer frustration
Much like a whip
For as it is, it seems to be, and ever will be
The unchangeable, and the uncommented

Much like the silent birds which breathe, yet are not without their own beauty
How they never sing, and will never speak of such things
Because this is how, and this is when
I know why the willow whips do weep

For as we are one and from the same
How they cry in silence, not out of vanity, but out of frustration
Because you, in stay, know no other way
Than to pass them by before they can speak

Of the way your footprints tread on the teeming dandelions
Leaving only the meadow left in pain
For you are so invested in your own sunshine
That you neglect to see and hear the same
That the willow whips now weep in pain

I love when colored salmon spawn
And leap with ease over towns on high
With rippling waves and glistening sheen
How they bound between these rocky outcrop clouds
And spread their whispy tendril fins
Across the cascading pinkish sky
I love the night just before it breathes
Quiet as waivering gills unseen
When the salmon color seeps into the sky

God
Please hold her
As only you can

Would you curl her up
In the palm of your hand?
And be with her
When I cannot?

Would you attend to her most every need
With efficiency
And make her well when she is not?

Because you know how she is
How she has these beautiful wandering dreams
And occasionally such restless thoughts

Would you speak to her now
With an voice unseen?
And reassure her that you are indeed the king
The creator of time and everything

Would you curl her up
And keep her more closely
Than ever she would've been to me?

Will you do this for me, my dear Lord?
Have you heard my prayerful repetitious plea?

If so I will stop until tomorrow
And finally try and get some sleep

Would you comfort her with immortal arms?
From a prayerful, tired version of me

There is a cave
Within a cliff
Beside a great waterway

And I don't know
That it exists

How the ocean moves and carves it's way
Without me watching it every day

How the caves of mind turn ever in
In their unexplored and unannounced way

The gentle quiet of a hollow room appeals to me
Turn off the lights and let me think
Turn off the cost
It's not at all
To be an introvert is cheap

Look outside with the brightness that is within my eyes.

Taste the tea that is warm and sweet. Vanilla flavored.

Hear the song playing within my ears. It resonates.

As the songbirds fly in the Cloudy skies overhead.

The leafing trees waving eagerly, bidding that we both step outside.

Into the woods and wild lives of other eyes.

Don't be afraid of the unborn seed. It germinates.

Growing us both taller than the trees.

For love is in the sights and scenes which we both have seen.

What fire is this?
Within your eyes
Like a ball of light
Gently caressing the ominous skies

Are you an omen to match my sign?
Or mere bones to cast in an empty cask?

I only ask because so many heads
Have turned away from this overcast
Just because of your fire

That hopeful passion
Which pulls each sailor slowly on
To survive another night until the dawn

To wonder if this your purposful fire
Is meant to bring us back
To the very thing which we ought to desire

Away from the devouring grave of the sea
To a house made of stone on the inland maybe?

Where are bodies would find the true solace of earth
And just might be at peace far away from the sea

Perhaps Saint Elmo
That is exactly where you wish us to be?

Everywhere I go
She’s in the corner of my eyes
Like a fly
But I don’t mind
I don’t mind

The other day
I felt it suddenly
The well of rhymes within my chest
Depleting fast

Like the tides abound
My mind running out
And my words stretched out across the floor

At rest again
In bed again
A mind to start and test again
To beat the passion into a winded horse
I am running like a fumid man

Without a muse
What is a heart?
But a fickle clock to wind and twist

And the temperamental time which takes
Forever still to announce amiss

How powerless am I to keep
The well within a brimming full
For without a willingness within my chest
What is the wind in which I test?

Myself a kite
A puddle out
A museless man in I must invest

When the waves come crashing over you...and the saltwater fills your mouth.

When you've turned like a towel in the washer of life...and your thought is nowhere to be found.

When it seems almost hopeless to surface again. As your fall was predestined from birth.

In these moments find self in the memory of WHY...as each wave knows its place on the earth.

My memories are not special
They are not unique
But they are mine

And though imperfect
They're all that I have
To reference these more confusing times

And after I’ve lived them once or twice
I store them away within my mind

Not just for me
But also for you

So that one day you can look back and see
All that it once meant to be
Alive within the eyes of Me

She is starlight cold
The kind which radiates me
And I am mere glass
Formed by timeless sandy days
And iridescent are we

The kind of flakes which catch your eyelashes and make you blink.
Obnoxious yet beautiful things.
The dragonflies of a December night on an April day.
Yet as close as we are now to May,
There's no delight in dragonflies of frosted ice.
You catch my eye,
And land upon my windshield just to be scraped away.
Goodbye spring day,
Let us welcome back the winters bite of a dragonfly,
Which flew away.

-SS

This place is not my home
It's just the first place that I chose
A quiet corner of the world
A noisy hall of brick and stone

My quiet comfort is in you
A window seat, a quiet room
A place to eat beside a fire
The distant sound of passing shoes

You are both safe and insecure
Much like the students here before
I am a mark upon your wall
I am a figure behind your door

Within assignments I am tied
Within this desk I find my mind
And though my memories will fade
I hope these words surpass the time

-SS

The desire to be a creator never burns out
Like the immortal flame that it is
It may waiver, it my wane in the blowing wind
But it never dies, completely becomes extinguished or unhinged  
Just so long as you keep it calm and still
And close to your true heart within

Because the essence of desire is the creation which will linger in a state of wonderment
Wishing only that the original thought could be
All which you could've hoped and dreamed
About and for*

Mesmerizing isn't it?
The flame unseen

No weatherman warned me
About the downfall of you

About the pouring out of emotive soul
Which encompassed the morning

In a matter of seconds, falling
Like a haze of pensive dew

And now I cannot unseen the sight
Or the falling skies of you

When words sprout limbs
And grow as trees in the summertime
Steadily until they bare their fruit
Then my thoughts will be hanging within reach
Would you pluck them as you'd pluck some fruit?
And take a tiny bite of me
At least my thoughts?
Would you, would you?

You think I fear you?
Glorious dusk
And the turning of night from the clear of day?

My dawn arises with a hush
And with a quiet whisper there I find
Amidst the new light narrow way

Afraid of you, I’m not today
Not today
O’ Glorious dusk

For the winds of change
Pick steadily up
And blow you like the chaff away  

Afraid of you, I’m not today
Not today
O’ Glorious dusk

My fears the light has whisked away
Far away from every fright
I fear no glorious dusk today

I wander alongside aimlessly
Floating down a path like a half of chaff
Wondering what it means to be
As tall as the ivory hickories
To be as weightless as the leaves  
Or lost within the present pause
Where I am more often than not
Considered to be me

As I stop myself and start again
In wonderment of what I find
Alone in this and thought amiss  
I disconnect myself from the moderneness
And find myself here standing out
Tall and alone amongst the trees
In place where I need not create
The peace of mind which I do seek

If I were but a falling leaf, I wouldn't care for anything.

My life would be played out on the breeze, and falling short would not be such a shame.

If I were but a falling leaf.

I'd leave my parents lengthy tree, and fall to the ground, yes I would leave.

And during the fall I would flutter with glee, as I descended down, and just before I hit the earth, I'd look up to the sky and see.

If I were but a falling leaf.

I would mold my edges to catch the wind, and drift upon the gusts of change, most happily.

If I were but a fallen leaf.

I would greet the Earth upon the ground, and curl my corners to the sky, to soak the rain and drink so deep.

If I were but an autumn leaf.

The sound of the wind would not mean change. But that another journey has just begun, and that I and the journey are one and the same.

If I were to fall like an Autumn leaf.
I hope that I would be the same.

Today I discovered
What I already knew
That our friendship will go
Only as far as our memories can carry it
Which is kind of sad really
Because I cannot
Will not
Should not
Anymore
Adjust even just an inch for you

Keep your distance,
Don’t get too close.
Enjoy the pure unfiltered happiness.

Soak it in from around the bend,
And imagine once more to begin again.
With someone new…

So many eyes, so few to see,
The future as it unfolds before you.
The want, the yearning,
The most basic human need.

Close your eyes, but do not blink.
Imagine yourself already there,
Yourself within in which you think.  

This scene you see,
Couldn’t possibly be,
Someone else’s life passing before your eyes?
Or potentially your life just passing you by?

Calmly, slowly, most beautifully.
Are you to be sight within this scene?
  
Eventually your eyelids blink,
Though rare enough for anyone.
A wink and smile just might be seen.

When I saw you I knew,
I belonged in your scene.

We are not entitled to exciting things.

Neither sunrise, nor sunset waits for any human hand.
It simply is, and you must be there to capture it, if you want, and you can.

Lest you complain, that you have been given a lesser chance than another man.

To live your life without the sleep you need, and sacrifice your hands and feet.
In pursuit of something far short of eternity.
I call that a distraction.

On your game again, you cannot help but play again.
Obsession mixed with practice, is but a single means of expressing passion.
Which may or may not be, for you, a form of extraction.

Pulling yourself from the reality of a dissatisfactory life.
Softening the blow to take, and heading down the wrong direction.
Time and time again, for goodness sake….

This life, this journey, will always be full of such mistakes.

But to let your doubts drive you away,
To let your fear of the unknown, leech the very passion of your life away,
By means of distraction.

That my friends, is a failure of action.
A surrender to the reaction of taking a check, and spending your small fraction.  
When every day, you’d grow in spirit, if you'd only renegade with your your passion.

Staggering home after half a day, while trying simply to escape, the prior day's’ inability and inaction.

But I digress. Remember this.

We are not entitled to live exciting lives of interaction.

We must first create and encourage, not inhibit,
The excitement within others,
Which motivates them towards their own action.

This my friends, is the very nature of passion.

Pouring rain,
Heavy hearts,
Human minds.

Falling down,
I remind,
You of me.

Puddling,
In the streets,
Of Aberdeen.

Scottish eyes,
Over me,
The North Sea.

Split apart,
Come to meet,
Locally.

Heavy clouds,
Pouring in,
Out of me.

Would you ever,
Meet with me,
In Aberdeen?

Be as one,
We would be,
Don and Dee.

The old names that I used to know
Roll out no more, like curtains old
Like a theatre in the lesser days
When more was sung in older ways

As I sit here in the mirror room
With lenses quiet as a tomb
Just to think of names I once had seen
Alive, a thread, in poetry seems

Would'ya close the curtain, lock the doors?
And stoke the candles inside no more?
Because the poets heart is quiet when
He life is brightest in the eyes of men

So be it showmanship deceived
Would you show me the name of a friend indeed?
And I'll read and read until bygone age
Until all the lenses have passed away

And the stars become the only screen
Where the heights of poetry
And the shallow depths of the human soul
Can be ere seen

For as the old names that I used to know
Quietly pass away
Only words remain like fallen snow
In the masterpiece of a city day

You want to know a secret about me?
I'll share it with you and only you
Some days I wake up on this earth
And question nearly everything
That I'm trying to do, that I'm trying to be
Every feeble minded song that I sing
Which's created by another set of strings
I question it, I question me
Not to try and fully understand what I see
But because I'm constantly redefining the self
And trying to better understand this man
This amalgamation known as me

You are snowflakes dancing in the draft of winter
Upwards and yet with all the warmth and kindness of the hands behind the window

You are springtime in December
Let me climb my way through you into the coolness of an April day for just a moment or two

Don’t waste words on a hollow breeze
You have feet, have you not?
Use them against the wind
Walk or run as you please

Orion stirs my soul to write
To look into the eyes of the sky and see
To hear the distant howling moon
To reach beyond the silhouetted trees
Until I stand above all this
On either side of the pinnacle roof
Oh yes, like you
I've climbed my whole life to reach this height
To stare back into the stars anew
How you look at him, would look at me?
Orion in the sky so high
Though no man is a burning star
But a constellation
For he is connected to the flickering flame
Which burns for you

Endlessly...
With perception ever turning through

Listen to the howling wind
Not a whisper in the voice of it
An embodiment of all the aimlessness
And the chaos which was once within
This heaving chest
And beating heart
Which is now outside
Cold and lying bitter still  
And howling like mother nature had tanned its hide
Listen to such a wind as this
And you will understand what it is
And what it means to be trapped inside such bitterness
As the howling wind does speak of it

Rest your face in these hands of mine
No grasp or claspe necessary
As steaming whisps escape your peppermint lips
I realize this
That you aren't even close to a distant memory, no
You are just as clay
A white lipped cup of herbal tea
Intoxicating and soothing
Dulcetly flooding all of these cold November senses in me

The steel inside my forearm
Has bent beneath the tremendous heat
Of the forest fire burning in me

How it roars and screams a passionate plea
Not of agony but of fury
Both in might and out of sight

With hands outstretched
Over top the sea of burning trees
And temperatures boiling over uproariously

You’ll hear the howl of this wolverine
As it drowns out the earthly screams
Of a forest fire

Insurmountable and unquenchable by any stream

Your honor is written on my arm,
It walks with me through every day.

Beside and through the sharpest thorns,
Your ink will never be stripped away.

Engraved within, beneath my skin,
Your color my veins a certain way.

For you are the honor upon my arm,
And on my arm there you will stay.

-SS

This sunrise is very beautiful
With a hue of pink and a rareness which
Befits the weariness of red eyes

As slowly over the Catskills she
Rises and resides
Until she can be seen within the sky

Pure as almond and ivory  
Backed by the dawn and the day alike

Who am I to stand here in her way?
Who am I to say that she shouldn’t try?

I can only trust and occasionally wish
That she would honor me with a simple kiss
Of morning dew, and a smile wide

For that, in this, my morning eyes  
Would bring great joy to me in my life

If I could show you the depths of my heart. The softness of my voice when the trees are in ears, and my thoughts aligned and unified like the stars.

If I could share with you just an hours time, I would give to you...no, grant you this. A passage through the valley of mind where the still light shines.

If I knew you better I'd still be afraid.
If I knew you less I wouldn't be scared.

Because as confusion, and wishes, and unspoken thoughts rain down like the April days which fell away. So also does my head now fall in earnest hope, that your words, however few, will never be stripped away.

Insignificant own
Comparable to that
Of many stars in the night sky
Glimmering and I just one
Burning out slowly
Like a distant light
Ignite

We are but stone stirred ripples atop the lake of the all knowing.
Ever flowing, ever moving, always steady, always growing.

Stretching out like the limbs of an overhanging tree.
Reaching out like the hands of the lovers lost at sea.

Desperately, we being again, in the shallows we are saved.
And yet I am cautious to advance upon an overlapping wave.

I am in awe to understand, that I am asleep, and I am a wake.
And no one ever knows the impact of the ripples they create.

Time stopped and stared back then
With eyes wide in disbelief
And you couldn't hear anything
Because nothing dared to drop from the trees
In the presence of such quiet uniformity

I am as calm as water with a corpse underneath. Because something is submerged, but I don't want anyone else to see. What I am struggling with, here within the murky waters I call deep.

Volley with the moon
A ball
.
Stretch as horizons
Stretching out
..
Leap until the stars, your ears
Are all about
...
And never fall
Push back the creeping ground
....
When you’re tall, be tall
And strong
.....
When your voice is alive with song
Sing loud
......
And when they say, your hammer strike has lost its might
Pour down a rain of blows like a bursting cloud
.......
Showing all the might and rush of youth
In a Springtime unexpected so soon
........
No anvil ever lived without a thousand strikes
Or snowfall ever cared for open eyes
.........
Because where you see them looking up
Strike, with a forceful meaningful down
..........
As if we were never meant to be
Anything but alive
...........
Arise, and find your former self
Awake alive, your hammer rise

It is a heartthrob’s way
To say
“I’d rather have noone than to not have you”
When really
The truth is
That unless the other person
Wants you too
Then you're just spending time
On a beach by yourself
Watching the waves crash on by
Never surfing yourself
What is life?
If not lived
While you still have your health?
It is a heartthrob’s way
So I say
Nothing else