I prefer imaginary over reality,
whispers in stretched-out corridors
stand more stable in my mind
than the marble columns
stacked in rows like dominos.

I love the ethereal thoughts that glimmer
like a dream right before or after
I wake up,
and then pass away,
fading from flickering thoughts
to concrete decisions.

Oh how I wish fact was fiction,
and we all lived in the fantasy of inky words
scratched onto a reality
thin enough to see right through.

Their lips carried words
like songs through some corner café,
with jazz lingering among the aroma of fresh coffee;
beckoning me into their eyes,
as though the street was far too cold
for me to stay outside much longer.

Some memories are tears frozen
on your eyes,
like frost on a December window.
Life through those lenses may be blurred,
but time will clear your sight
when warmer days bring a thaw,
and roses to view in spring.

Some moments can be felt
as though they are written
into a chapter of your life.
The intensity of an event piercing
through the thin paper of your being,
bleeding onto several following pages.
Pull out a book and write
in the margins,
the words only matter if you
ponder them,
and let their meaning drip
from your mind.

Wind whirling around prairie fence-posts,
a few weeks after winter’s last frost
was melted away,
replaced by white flowers that whipped
and flipped in spring’s fresh breath.
Like waves frothing in an ocean bay,
the fine, flirty song of a Meadowlark
is willed into the world,
and frolics through the windy hills.

Stillness surges,
each moment washing into the next
without pause-
no rest for ceaseless waves
of instances indistinguishable
from one another.
Books only mean with other books;
and pages within a community of others;
words connecting to other words.
So the same is with then, now, and next.
Snapshots flashing by,
time framed,
so that it only starts to make sense
after the film is played for a while.

You are all your yesterdays
and tomorrow you will be that
plus today.
What will you speak now,
that will echo in a self
only one sun rise and set away?
Extend your hand into precarity,
and meet a new you
who has one mysterious day
up their sleeves.

Our last night together,
with streetlights shining in our eyes,
and the evening fog glowing gold.
The coming morning dew
rests first upon my eyes.
Each hour rushes by just as fast
as each year we’ve shared our young lives.
Our fleeting embrace breaks,
falling into enduring nostalgia,
as I attempt to grasp the past fully again.
One last drive home,
rain falling on both sides of the window.
Days fly by,
a new me,
a new you.
Hours become years until we meet again,
our shadows greeting each other,
past and present-
meeting once again,
and for the first time.
You’ll always be that person I knew inside and out,
one night beneath the streetlights.

Memories prickle your lazy morning thoughts
as pine needles remind bare feet
that mountain trees have lost as well.
Here,
you run hands through meadow grass
to rummage through a treasure chest of texture;
to root yourself into the Earth,
and not let go of your soil.

But when we do this,
rain pours,
and we soon take hold,
until the seed in our minds sprout like dandelions,
and those memories float away on cotton sails,
off the mountain,
elated to grow somewhere else,
to be picked by someone else,
in a different time;
hands softened by youth
and the innocence required
to see not weeds,
but flowers.

As a young swallow learns to
frolic between the clouds and verdant fields,
so learns my heart to wanton
in the rosy scented air.
No matter time flowed by,
or places left behind,
my past fades into obscurity
as the light you bring floods my life,
and carries my heart out upon uncharted seas.

Moments are touched only once,
held in our hands like a water droplet
under the July sun-
then quickly depart to join the clouds
far beyond our reach.
In such a fleeting world
sometimes it may seem as though
we sculpt our lives in sand.
Meaning is difficult to see
through the fog of futility.
Yet we carry on knowing blooming flowers wilt,
but their scent lingers among our memories
until a new spring comes.

Come with me to see the world,
I'll miss not one bit of it
with you in my company,
for you are my world,
and each new expression feels like
a new and adventurous place
that has just been discovered.

The arms are melting off the clock face,
as you rest your arms upon my shoulders,
and kiss away the marks of time from my lips.

Inhibitions are burned by candlelight,
and resurrected by daybreak.
Let us map each other
like the mountains and valley's of these sheets,
so that our comfort has risen
before the morning phoenix
that so intends to banish our touch
from each other's bodies.
Capture those candles in your eyes,
and I'll spark our fire,
so that the harshest sunlight
could never force us to forget the moonlight
upon our skin,
and those phoenix ashes.

So sweetly is she disposed,
that my teeth start to decompose
from just her lightest kiss.

When I'm buried beneath the dirt,
I hope it's caused by playful flirt,
without her there's no world to miss.

When my mind is weighed in the balance,
and found to harbor the dark,
a death-like guilt falls like a sheet
of starless night upon my thoughts.
Although the sun will want and rise come mourn,
and stain the clouds with astral wine,
that crimson rain will only drown me in light,
and wash forth that blackness colored the saddest shades.

Affection sits on a knife,
and is cut
as simply as it falls.
Frivolous love-
sugar-sweet fruit
that rots more quickly
than it grows.

Chasing significance grants meaning to the hollow,
only such a pursuit is a journey with a destination reached every step.

Join me in a watercolor world,
let the lines between us blur,
and the light mix with our skin.
Such a surreal experience as our dance
only deserves obscurity.
So rid us of burdensome borders,
and sip this moment of art,
as time goes down the drain.

Milky morning light pours
into the space between us,
illuminating your snowy hair
as though beams of moonlight
flow from your head onto your shoulders.
You sleep silently,
like your astral acquaintances the night before.
The tide of my heart is pulled in
by your lunar attraction,
although my body longs to mingle with yours
beneath the moon,
in all the base and natural ways
lovers have mixed for eons.
Let me sip your light from a teacup,
while your tongue twists all the lovely words inside your heart
into birds to fly through the air.
You're my untouchable constellation,
strung over the nights dome
like the string lights you look so beautiful beneath.

I could build a monument to your features,
sing your name to the forest creatures,
lay you down on canvas like a painting teacher,
but all will fade with time's ******* curse,
so live forever among immortal verse.

Upon the table of our evening feast
grows a lush and verdant sheet,
from the ashes of the Earth I'm born-
blooming flowers on the dirt you kissed,
laying dormant in the spots you missed.
Seadrops from your tongue only deepen
my thirst for your lips,
and that stormy touch makes me believe
you hold thunder in your fingertips.
The midnight grass gathering dew upon my skin,
grows from the starlight within your eyes of sin.
Our garden lies so far from Eden,
sweetly grown by my guilty maiden.

She wore the night as a small black dress
tight across her olive skin,
and when she twirled,
the stars swayed as though
they were sequins stitched
on the fabric hugging her waste.
She drifted down the street
as though it were a river,
and she was walking on water.
Her eyes blinked and shut
those glistening sable curtains
that made my knees grow weak.
The sun will only rise with her permission,
that mistress of the night and lover of the moon,
who blew kisses my way
carried on starlight born in streetlights.

She's the one wearing heels,
and drinking strawberry wine,
yet I'm the one who's tipsy.

Roll the clouds off your lips into the blue sky,
your breath will glow red and gold,
when the sun sets like a kiss on the horizon.

Honey lets drink the nectar of downtrodden ancient gods
until your limbs fall to ruble
like the temple of their lost worshipers.
Hold loosely to my numb hand as we loose our minds
in the fog rolling through our heads.

Let's escape.

All the legions marching through our veins,
doomed to death and resurrection,
oh how familiar we will be with that destiny
having practiced so many times.
When that fate reaches our time,
and we melt once more,
busts of ink onto the page in blissful atrophy.

Let me stain your magic majesty;
sick a tempest on your tapestry-
tear those flags of modesty.
What is wine but rotten fruit,
and disguised euphoria that follows suit.
So let innocence fade,
cast in each other's shade.

Soak me in the city light,
let me be drenched in life
that could only be so vital
when fueled by a never-ending day.
Each bulb has a story,
of who walked beneath
and what transpired all those shining nights.
Let me add one more tale
to be written in neon light.

The sound of poetry slipping from my tongue
sings the same tune as her dress
slipping from her shoulders,
as the midnight bell rings a sweet goodnight,
although sleep is far from both our minds.

Her cherry wood hair,
and rosy blossom cheeks,
combine to make a dear so sweet.
Moments with her are cherries of time,
nectarous instances,
an oh so fulfilling fruit.

Her eyes bleed tender light
into the fabric of my soul,
I have never seen a gaze
so steeped with depth,
as the moment my heart
was plucked from my chest,
and pulled through my mouth
with a moan.

Tender is her light
that radiates from her marble skin,
except for the dark of her eyes,
so deep that light never escapes,
but only builds greater beauty
within her spirit.

The space of this room is impressed
with your former presence;
footsteps in the sand that refuse
to be washed away by time.
It's as though the air flows in accordance
to the memory of your breath,
and the light bends in a bow
to your absent beauty.
You have left this place in love with your touch,
as every trace of your hand is recounted
with the tock of the clock.
This place will never forget you,
and as I sit,
left alone from your leaving,
I toast the room and its close resemblance
to my own mind,
the other place that is unmistakably
touched by once knowing you,
and is left empty of all but your memory.

I long to live life
like the birds who fly not through air,
but on sunlight itself.
I wish to become like a butterfly,
one who blooms a flower
by spreading its wings wide
to show the world its beauty.
Like the grass, I will turn green come Spring,
wealthy in life and company,
learning to dance in the wind.

Her poetry was stitches of gold
that held her together through the tugging of life,
and portrayed the best
of her dazzling inner beauty to the world.

Hello, my name is Universe,
but I have gone by many names.
Whether they call me cosmos,
outer-space, the abyss, …
or love, … it is all the same to me.

By “they,” I mean the voices in me
of course, with lives all their own.
I suppose I’m a bit schizophrenic,
but isn’t everyone? We all live
with the voices within us.

They don’t often think of me, even as they go
about their existence within my vastness,
yet I’m very self- and/or other-aware,
and I know them all;
every hope, dream, … and fear.

I have fears of my own you know.
“But how?” you may ask,
as every frightening thing is already in me,
as if that weren’t scary enough.
Yet something is even more daunting.

That’s right… space is afraid of time.
That wing’d chariot haunts me everywhere,
I know no corner of myself outside of time.
You could say it’s my second half, and what’s scarier than the ‘you’ - you don’t know?

I’m fourteen going on forty… billion.
During my life I’ve done a lot,
I’ve painted nebulas and lit stars ablaze,
but most moments are spent thinking,
and boy I’ve thought, and thought, and thought.

Some call my birth the beginning,
but who really knows or cares about beginnings.
I’m more concerned with endings,
and in true Universe fashion, I like endings
to go out with a BANG.

And yet… that’s not how things always work.
Some deaths are hot in name only,
and even for someone as old as me,
some endings last way, way too long…
like the pain of a light fading and flickering out.

But I digress, because even after so many
have gone out, I still love every burning candle,
and sometimes I mourn the ashes of a flame
that only lived to light the darkness,
and draw constellations across the sable sea.

My end is destined to be the same.
An eternity will seem like a moment,
and all I hold will become but a dull glow,
and I’ll be left alone with time,
both weary and old- dying together.

After that… I don’t know,
I guess there is no after… or where.
My name is Universe,
and I’m just like everyone else,
afraid of the uncertainty of death.

Your voice rings a gilded laugh,
from the rich happiness you posses and spread.
The halcyon air blessed by your bells
toll and chime my salvation,
for I am near the treasure of your company and pleasure,
which is far more lavish than gold.

There are some things
that are poetry without ink.
Such as a sunrise and sunset,
with amber rhymes of light.
Also, a flowers gentle growing,
as it blooms vibrant vocabulary.
Then there is you,
with flowing cherry wood for hair,
and pearls for eyes.
For you there is no description,
only the whisper of beauty,
written between the lines of poetry
etched in my heart for you.

I do love you,
                         but you not me,
                         this pain is quite distressing.

Emotions rush,
                           my face will blush,
                           yet your eye's gaze is chilling.

I have no writ,
                           my heart's in fit,
                           I hope my soul's not dying.

I swear Spring came
with flowers along the ground
and among the trees,
all in the hope
to become a crown upon your head,
for no beauty could be as natural
as the one grown within you.

How I wish to fall into her dreams,
and land amongst them like satin sheets
as they pose like April clouds;
snowy towers in the sky.
Imagine all the wonders.
Her inner light has always been bright as the sun,
which is why her eyes always shine,
as if they paint,
                            "I love you"
between us in strokes of light.
Above all,
perhaps I'll meet myself,
and learn if I visit her dreams
as often as she inhabits mine.

Her walk told stories of places
I've never been,
but suddenly felt homesick for.

Entangle me like vines,
in the entrapping gaze of your verdant eyes.

Time spent with you falls moment after moment,
onto the fabric of my soul,
as tattoo ink is irrevocably embedded into skin.
Even in your absence,
your late night whispers can be read on my skin
in all the places your breath once touched,
as fingerprints show on fogged windows,
longing once more to be touched
by the hand of a celestial lover.

The tinder that fuels
the fire of my Being
are letters scraped from
a log of your love,
grown by the vast tree
of your endearing words.

We are twin moons
twirling around the same world,
and shining back dazzling light
from the star we call home.
Let every pair of lovers
falling into each other through the night
look to our example;
two moons,
dancing in love.

A raging river
of conscious thoughts
breaks my minds dam
rushing
Love
(pain)
AllThoseDaysGoneBy
flooding
all I am
sweeping away
the present
pouring me into
the vast ocean
of all my
unthought thoughts
still to come

My cigar smoke rolls into the
tranquil night sky,
tumbling through the constellations,
forming a nebula from my breath.
The glow from the cigar
lights up a little corner of the cosmos,
burning a hole in the universe-
a small escape for my pains,
because sorrow can't float to the stars-
light years away,
like the feeling of spirit,
separated from my celestial body.