Looking at an author

It’s in the cheekbones
Below the eyes
Beneath the subtle shades of truth
It lies
To hide the self
Hiding itself
Yet worlds
Worlds are presented as such
So as to think
That they reside inside

And sometimes they do

Curled up like a cat
Atop a spinning world of responsibilities

Don't wake me from this weekend dream
I can bear the nightmare occasionally

Instead, cut the lights and turn the fan over me
Breathing one final breath into this lifeless beast

You can expect me not to hear so much as a single sound
When the new day comes with an irksome, early, alarming scream

Like a can
I desire to open myself up
So that someone may taste
And partake in the difference
But none can see
No none can see
At least I believe
In the difference in me

One God is
E n o u g h
In my life
I do not
Wish to worship
Her as well

Poetry is
The earth we see
When its tumultuous and green

And syllables
Are the rivers
Carving out valleys deep beneath

My head it aches, like a Halo wrapped tightly around my head.
Like an angel who tried to pull the wool around me, but now I wear his crown instead.

Pressuring me, my every thought, pounding beats out like a drum.
Oh metal band I bind with you, to make my wandering mind go numb.

Pull my attention back to you, you show me a hue of blue above.
On such a day when skies are gray, I crave the Raven not the Dove.

Just send me to a quiet room and remove my Halo from above.
These former halves no longer two, the pain humanity hates yet loves.

Pulling attention back to you, demanding time and time again,
That I lose sight and sacrifice my focus on the task at hand.

Depart from me oh aching head, let me for a moment begin again.
To see the morning without hindrance, and be the mind I've always been.

By green in water
Blue in eye and mind alike
With gentle shimmer
Gleaming is the ray above
This, your autumn crown alive

Like the luminous points beyond the sky and on the screen
I see the stars just below your eyes
Winking quietly back at me

The rain unsettling shakes more than me
It shakes the summer out of the pensive trees
The quiet out of the evening still
The confidence out of the newfound skill
And more so than the colored leaves
Which newly rest on dampened ground
As the sorting of the rain gives way
Resulting in a plethora of familiar sounds
All merging beneath and moving fast
Like a symphony of cicadas in the summers past
Known only to one in time as the same  
As the parting whisper of the trees in rain

The real question is not
“What will they do for me, once and when?”
But throughout the years
Throughout the struggle and the turmoil
Which is this human existence

I ask of you

“What instead have you been doing for them?”
To prepare yourself for this honest moment
In order to give something back
Instead of just having hallow words
To send and rescind

What then will you do?
When you finally understand?
And stand alongside this  
The deepest realization known to man

Good scrambled eggs can find
More competency in hand
Than that within mind

I am a bubble fluctuating
On its way to the surface, evaluating
How it will be to be one with sky again, once I am out of the sea
I’ll be bursting free and culminating into a timeless cloud
Into the air which was always meant to be me
Yes, towards the surface I go to be free

Time is suspended
Held in place and to be examined
Whenever I’m there
Within with those people
We are yet somehow still animated

After the newness of this new perspective
Clears like a fog in the mountain pass
What will you want then?
Soon after the end of this or that?

I wonder...

Where will you stand?
And have you since realized the value stored within?
So much so that it might make you want to go back?

I cannot pull a star out of the night sky for you
But I can
With an uncupped hand
Coax every living firefly alive
To glow for you

When you decide to fight
To battle back against the night and it's dying ways
Having seen the light which comes anew
To trump the lights of ever eave
When you've decided no longer to RUN but to BE
You will become as one
With every memory and hopeful dream
Which your childlike self ever dared to dream

Someday I'll walk down this dusty road,
And you'll never again see the likes of me.

Amidst my flight I won't turn around,
I won't even be tempted to take a glance back at you, my history.

Because you are nothing more to me than a memory.
Which is stored away inside the cavity I call my mind.

I would pass you by in another life,
Because you do not value the values of mine.

I lied, I tried, and sacrificed the important parts of me to try,
And complete the whole of you inside.

When really this wasn't my place to stay,
And the soles of my shoes were just passing through.

At the end of this road, I will keep my word,
I will walk away, slowly from you.

Firm collar
White as snow

Crisp and with an edge like steel
Cutting, not cold

Unblemished is he?
No

Considered rough,
Perhaps

Although in a certain way, he walks
Straight past his friends and his foes

Not aimlessly though

For where poise meets focus
There is also dignity

And a calming aura to be found
Amidst the calamity

With a hint of conflict
Though he speaks

His words are bound
To fairness and justice
To the law and to love

And though he spoke once
Not arrogantly

This is the sound of a constant man
Who is capable of change, and yet, is found

In a pattern which drowns out the breeze
Like the whippoorwill that’s lost its tree

By this you'll know, that you've seen
And crossed the path of a pensive man

Intent on this, to understand

Her
Him

And all around

A silent heart calls
Along wires out humming low
Like power lines hot

On days like this
With heavy flakes
Tumbling down
All around
I wish I had another set of eyes
To lose myself in
One more time

*Mirror me
And also you
My mind

Downfall ever sharp
Rainwards on the steeple tall
Propped up on one arm
The building farce built of old
Refuses to fall down cold

There are girls who smell like spring...

And there are girls who smell like books...

And there are girls who paint a trace along the lines of your own family.

Which are most to be avoided.

Brush your hair back behind your ear
Pull my blankets to your chin
And kiss your cheek
Most gently
Just before I let you drift off to sleep

Because this is where the long day ends
And my loving care for you begins
And renews again
Over and over
Just like all of your dreams
Which my unbroken heart always wanted to mend

For as long as you need me here to sleep
I’ll wait for you most patiently
Be it by your side or a distance away
With a cup perhaps in the hallway
To sip until the break of day

Because I am yours
As you are to me
One meant for the other
And purposefully made
This way to be
Like coffee and her beloved tea

Yes I am your tea
And pleased so to be
Dark and rich like indian spices
Warm and soothing as a bubbling bath
To cut the edge of the winter's night
And to warm you to me

Oh dearest future
See only me
And know that I read not just for me
But for all of the stories which are yet to come
And for all of the secrets you may wish me to speak

How I wish that this sound could be more like me
Like the last lingering note
Of the lullaby we’d always sing
And I’ll sing once more one day to my kids
Which I hope one day you would give to me

And so in this momentaneous rhyme
I give you what's left of my lifetime of time
My eternity
My everything and all of me
With every sentiment and subtle though
Which ever passed through this imperfect mind

As well as this comfortable bed of mine
How lonely it's been
Here without you within
Oh dearest girl
Oh darling of mine

You're the future that I
Most every day desire to see
But must stop myself from picturing in mind
So goodnight dear future
You're far to beautiful to begin to describe

Descriptive that is you
Intensive that is me
Smithing you could be my steel
And I the bellowing breath beneath
To coax the coal until it bursts
And explodes into this
The burning flame

These trees are older than myself
And only half of them see the sun
As it sets beyond the distant ground
They're taller than me and I am tall
They've been reaching for the sky for far too long
Long before I could even crawl
My only brother's are these trees
And yet I've never acknowledge them as they are
As tall and faithful
As my slowly falling family
The kind of trees which stand to be
Such are these looming trees to me

I cannot help but wonder,
About you and where you are.
A person who sees truth in me,
Behind the mask and scars.

You're someone who speaks in silence,
And someone who knows the sound,
Having heard another heartbeat,
Be it simple or profound.

Yes you have heard and you can listen,
Even if it’s just to me.
Because of who you are in earnest,
Apparent truth within your plea.

That is your words are wise and waiting,
Searching desperately to find,
Another pen another heartbeat,
To match your own in ink and mind.

-SS

TRY ME
Like swimming in the sea
I am a wave crashing over you
With a current too strong
And too deep

TRY ME
On the side of a cliff
With arms outstretched and fingers clenched
Reaching for everything
Be it far short of eternity

TRY ME
When I’m standing tall
Like a pendulum
Rocking in the springtime of youth
Until my stride becomes a bitter fall

TRY ME
As the wicked winds are howling
Having carved their way inland
Ever trying to push me off the edge
Midway through my own decent

TRY ME
If you dare

TRY ME
If you will

AND TRY ME
If you'd like to see

All of the *TRY that is left in *ME

Don't Lose Yourself
Remember who you are
You have things and you want things
You've become things and you're becoming things
Beautiful, good and decent things
Which bring great joy to the one true ruler
And honor to your rightful king
So don't lower your gaze or piercing sight
For ANYTHING!  
For anyone who has no claim
Or cannot understand the way
That your eyes tend to see such things
Designed as they were for such a struggle
Born and bread for such a fight
For such a sight
Don't lower your line of sight for anything

It is raining, you must be crying.
I left you on the dark side of a broken highway.
Just outside of the intersection of time and change.
You did proclaim that you were afraid that I wouldn't stay.
That I wouldn't live to see the light of the following day.

And I didn't.
You were right.

I got in my car and drove away.
But not because I wanted to.
But because I didn't feel at home enough to stay.
How could I possibly find our way, when you were without a map everyday?
Once alive and bright like the dashboard light.
I faded away, into the dark of this good night.

Yet you never saw the sadness which I kept when I did drive away.

I've seen the golden light of Summer
Fading into the September black

Born like dawn in the daunting Winter
Warmer than the Autumn solstice splinter

Caressing my cheek
Like a long lost lover

On such dusklight
I will never turn my back

On this tabletop we sit, soaking bodies weighted down.

Overturning back and forth, arm in arm, alone in town.

Rushing water pouring in and spinning round, pounding down.

Inside of this house and out. Turmoil rises up, and gathers all around.

Listen to the hallways hum, and hear the words escape my mouth.

Like a song you sing aloud, speaking of a hiding place where you belong.

Echoing, my old guitar is crying out.

Asking if within the flood we ever will at last be found?

When the only whisper
Left in loved ears
Is wind
Then all will fall and flow over itself again
Yes
The final whisper is wind

In the clutches of envy, or judgement, or denial
With eyes turned outward at another life
Don’t hide when the inkwell turns up dry
But accept the death which comes to life
And lets you pass by this windowed world

Fly
Fly into the perfectly natural
Die

The wolfing theif who howls aloud
A ravenous young man with just the essence of beast
Who wears the forest on his back
Who dashes down the rooftop steep
Just to bridge the gap from far away
And land, ever so slightly on the precipice sway
Just to reach up gently and pocket the moon
As a souvenir to take upon his way

Rolling hills
Golden fields
Left to right
Feet to feet
With every step
Through the wood
They stride away
Towards eternity
Into the deep
The unknown scene
Away from home
From everything
They’ve ever known
Or hoped to be
And with this step
One more has been
Further away from home before
Than he’d ever thought he’d been
God bless your feet Samwise Gamgee
Step onto the road and you will see
The greatest adventure you’ll ever keep
Burning alive within your mind alive
Until the in Havens you reside
And therein find the eternity you seek
For alive and well
You’ll ever be
And beside the bearer
You were meant to be
As a friend against all enemies
And the second set of sturdy feet

My heart is like a snow laden car
Freezing in the bitter cold

Left to stand in a parking lot semi-alone

Clearing my windows I depart
Most anxiously to feel the need

And yet as in each morning, each winter
When the days are dreary and quick to dark

There is a frost to be found all around

And so my hesitant in heart
Is to turn over and start

Warming only by this, the end of this drive

For my heart is like a snow laden car
Covered and only to be seen in part

When cleared away the beating heart
Is too warm too late and frozen still

That moment by a windowsill when you're looking through a shade

At a different world outside yourself and yet inside remains the same

Do not wonder about what could've been or worry about the other way

Instead let time and seasons pass, good memories come, and bad memories fade away

Stashing them everywhere
I store such coins to pay away the could've beens
To keep my bones and alabaster skin covered until the rainy day need not appear

At which time I can and will, take you by the hand
And show you either the former Winding Way, or create anew
By pulling coins out of the thin air, like a magic man

For this is how I make my way into the world of words

And here
Settled like in water
I am going to sink into you like a falling stone
Like a tree half buried in the peat moss slow grown

Into you
I will seep anew

You should expect no human to satisfy you
To meet the need or the needful want
You will only find a distraction there
Be it a beautiful or a most handsome one

But instead look up to beyond the sky
And find yourself there in he who will not fall
Because when you wake from a distracting dream
It can certainly make you question it all

I'm a professor who professes to teach beyond the textbook lessons. To approach the very essence of the creative self-expression,

Known as man and known as woman. Call you to a higher ed concessions, to appoint the very purpose of this presupposed oppression,

Of your eyes, and of your mind, I wish you to the other side, of the unguided and unknowing creative self which lies inside.

Cause what is life without perspective, and what are trials if you do not try, and strive beyond your own horizons, and slide down the back of the other side?

Will there be shadows on the road, yes, will you trip and stumble, a couple of times, but never let yourself be doubtful of the potential you hold inside,

To create the future, sculpt the present, and tread the clay where it resides. Because in class is where I see you, but in this life you use your eyes,

To see the self-inside of others, to recreate what's on your mind. To be the difference and the vision, you have the tools to go and try,

And share your view of the horizon, survive the frustration in stride. Become creative in your endeavors, and you’ll bring joy to me and my eyes.

Mountains take an eternity to tear down and build up, and yet confidence can be drawn from a well within minutes.  All one requires is time, while the other requires the desire.

Skies too small and colorless
Waters too calm and chaos intent
The earth too round, too bound and true
Too much my hopes for you

God is good.
He uses all things for good.
I trust in him when things are good.
And I will trust in him when things are not so good.
It's a good thing to know that he is good.
Or else I would be good and stuck.
A good-for-nothing vagabond or a good for little son in law.
Yet I am good because God is good.
And though I'm not always so good he's so good to me.
It feels soooo good that God is good.
Makes me feel good so many times.
It's so true, that God is good all the time and all the time God is good.
So good for you and good for me.
Even good for God in his complexities.
He is far too good and gracious to be.
And he's far too good for the likes of me.