All these backyard stars are sailing, sweeping, spinning over me, still the ground is calling. Lay, stay, stare in awestruck wonder at the infinate diamonds as they dance thier ancient waltz. Who else stared at this beauty before these were my backyard stars? Farmers, ranchers, lovers, they must have stood here, on this calling ground dreaming, wondering, kissing. Now they are mine, my ageless lights. I give one her name, though it probably has been named before.  The earth moves and still cries out, but it is too cold. I take my last drag blowing the smoke like a goodnight kiss, someday I will sell this house, stars and all.

Guttural screams and the ****** beating churns all the more.
Walking west into the dying light, shadows linger about waiting to seize the Earth in their pseudo claws.
Twenty three miles to the next roadside solace, oasis of vending machine illumination,
the sickly sweet scent of ***** and pine trees, tall in the valley.
A symphony of dusk plays all around, echoes drive the wanderer ever forward, beyond the thin fabric of the known,
just outside the small town, big city, back yard chaos.
Letting the cards fall, jack of spades pops out his proud visage, lays in waiting to slay the king of diamonds and run with his rusted red crown. These are the dreams that stalk his mind, the arrowhead of onyx stone, seeking out the stag's flesh...
Awakes beneath a jagged tin roof on a bed of dead brown needles, damp from the night's war...
shadows are losing their grip as new life rises, standing with creaking joints, sore eyes.
Healing blisters in his worn down dime store boots that cling once more to the asphalt ,cool with the morn's wet kiss.
Nicotine courses through the veins alongside interstate twenty, as the faint remains of ash float over the lips to open air.
Once more the chatter falls silent, the invisible waves of a billion words gone as the road stretches out, mountains rise in the distance and there God sits, waiting...

Thomas O’Keene, like most little boys,
imagined great things when he played with his toys.
In the big room that he shared with his brothers,
he would make a big tent with all the bed covers.
Inside his great castle, he played and he dreamed
of far away places and fabulous things.

He played giant robots, who came from the stars
with swords made of lasers and dinosaur cars.
He’d pretend to be the hero from his video games,
who ate yellow flowers and then shot out flames.
Thomas would tell tales of all that he saw
like the one-eyed stink monster with the big yellow claw;
a noisome creature to others unseen,
but was always around when Thomas ate beans.
Or how purple aliens had taken his juice,  
it was to fuel their invasion, of this he had proof.

“Thomas stop telling stories,” his mother would scold him.
Oh, how many times had she told him?
She sent him to bed,
and away slunk poor Tom hanging his head.
It was only ten past eight,
and he never got to stay up late.

Then Tom had an idea; he knew just what to do.
He’d show them that all of his stories were true.
He would build a machine so they could all see
the wonders thus far known only to he.

He found a box,
some stinky socks,
parts from a clock,
and a few small rocks.
Some peanut butter,
a toy boat rudder,
a number 2 ,
his brother's shoe,
and about two bottles of school glue.
A broken video game controller,
wheels from the baby stroller,
some batteries from the remote,
a rubber ducky swimming float.

He pulled and stretched,
pushed and vexed,
hammered and rammed,
and ******* and jammed.

Finally complete,
though not very neat,
he sat down for the start of his job
and slowly turned a big red ****.

But nothing happened. What could be wrong?
He didn't know why it wouldn't turn on.
The machine was no good, and this made Tom sick.
Frustrated, he gave it a great big kick.
The machine came to life. It sputtered and whined,
and up rose a wisp with a faint scent of pine.  
Then, came a rumble that shook the whole room
followed shortly by a great big kaboom!
Thomas covered his ears and shut his eyes tight,
and what he saw when they opened was quite a sight.

There crouched down in his room
was a giant robot from an alien moon!
Then right beside it, as big as a could be,
was his dinosaur car, the T-Rex X3.
But this was not all that came from the machine,
other strange things began to be seen.
He had done it, they were all here,
here in his room so perfectly clear.
“You stay right here,”
he said with a cheer.

Now he ran to get his mother, father and brothers
to show them that these were not make-believe others.
Then, he heard a loud crash that came from his room.
He stopped in the hall and then came the boom.
Thomas rushed back and found a giant hole in the wall
almost 10 feet wide and 8 feet tall!
His robot was gone and so were the others,
and then he heard a call from his mother.
“Thomas O'Keene! What was that noise?!”  
Thomas thought quickly. “Um, just playing with toys.”
“Get back in bed!” was his mothers reply
to what was not really a lie.

Thomas was scared and didn't know what to do.
How could he fix this, he was all out of glue.
Then he saw a blue crayon and snatched it up quick.
He hoped this would work, it must do the trick.
On the cardboard box side he scribbled "reset."
then drew a big circular button and pressed it.
Thomas held his breath and thought as he did,
Why, oh why had he not built a lid?
He waited there silent for a moment or two,
then opened his eyes and just saw his room.

No holes in the wall, no great robot man,
just bunk beds and toys and the lamp on it's stand.
He looked down before him and beheld his machine.
"Never again..." thought Thomas and went off too his dreams.

Angelic form descends to the water's edge.
Slowly the porcelain skin is enveloped by the cool dark,
until only golden locks rest on the surface with head tilted to heaven.
She glides through the emerald's embrace, perfect form rise and fall
rise and fall in the tide.
and all creation holds it's breath to watch her bathe.
Winds grow still, and the great star slows to grace her lovely visage .
She is the object of attention, the mother, the vision of woman made mortal
Venus, Helen, Cleopatra, Marilyn, she has so many names and none of them are worthy her.

Spread the word , the Machine is coming. A circus of steel springs and combustion all grinding to the drums. Watch them waiting, every color, every clan; all wanting to be part of the system as it begins with a roar like a turbo charged engine they rush the door.

Inside, heads swim in a new found sea, unconscious are the dancing sparks and gay revelers in their glitter coated world. Limbs pumping, pounding pistons running full blast through the night. Up creaking stairs into the radiator, cooling chamber, thick green haze passes over innumerable points of light; oxygen restriction. Drums persist pouring down white rain on melting minds. Thrilling, rushing euphoric rhythms flow like wine from fine crystal. Speak and you will not be heard, listen and you will hear no voice, for the machine stops for no one until morn.

Wasting away in the exhaust of a comatose state are some, eyes open seeing new worlds in clarity are others, while a select few crawl through Hell blinded by visions of terror. Still the electric pulses have yet to slow, numb to the deafening watts as they are now winding their way to the surface of a sleeping city. Whimsical youths will lay until afternoon, their internal timing chains hours slow, yet only eight rounds of the gauge have passed. The beating motion is still lingering as weary heads fall upon waiting pillows, headlight eyes switch off near six am. The last sounds fade for these who now dream anew, yet still worshipers of the dance rage against the coming of the light, would they be consumed in the warehouse flames before they saw the dawn?

Spread the word the machine was here and they called it the Rave.

Gently soaring against green sky,
white world above.
Glimmers pass just under each crest.
Starry reflections mesmerizing
the eye of the beholder.
Soon begins the dance.
First to cross over
bursts free
shattering planes to open air.
Gliding on warm sea spray,
a brilliant spectrum off
silver forms taking shape.
The pinnacle moment,
poised the dancer holds the world still,
and bows.
An angelic descent,
merging back to the old world.
Murky cold envelopes the winged dreamer.
Now in pairs and trios they come.
Each shuttling into a similar pose,
stopping time,
only to fall again into the fathoms
of the emerald abyss.

He is ethereal, gliding through the vapor curtains in rhythm to the music.
His father's gift, memories of the big kitchen where he made the cherry strudels. Here part of him moves the hands that paint laughter and the chime of crystal. Too much, not enough, herbs chopped and sprinkled on the sizzling stainless steel. The blade flashes it's silver grin upon the butchers block. Boil, stir, simmer, mix the colors on the pallet and brush on the final coat. Peaches from the stand down on the highway, ***** from the bay just a  few minutes walk down that dirt road. He works for there is peace here, he paints for that one girl's smile, and it is enough. Pour a glass of red and sit. Let us break bread together.

Face down in the mire, head weighs three tons.
Ants marching, he longs to be among their
shimmering ebony ranks.
No morality, no war of will.
Only repetition, only eye and jowl, red and black,
simplistic nature.
Love lacking, spiritless life, bearer of the stone
always East of Eden.
Outcast.
Cyst of society,
unknown.
City walls crumbling, tears crushing their noble courts.
Ten thousand limbs pressing new earth, as the innocent scream at the sun.
Beautiful this unseen inside,
the coursing lifeblood below sand skin.
Steady chaos, as drones rise about carnage,
unscathed on whipping wings.

Dawn fades to day, wilts the orchid's bloom.
Questioned light of coming Spring; of clouds spilling cool waves creating innocent hours.
New midnight sight, colorless worlds caressing remembrance, washed ashore, pulled back into the waves, evoking silence from the once chaotic weaving of a dew drenched widow's web.
God watches all with omniscient eyes, peering through time, beyond all conceivable beside the quiet looking glass pools of drowning baptism, leaving lack of redemption and edging thirst.

Spirits gather around the roadside death indefinitely finished.
His cruelest masterpiece, the waving fields of Gettysburg.
Rain blankets the cracked soil where Christ's wine poured out.
No existence without this, moon fades to sun and man denies his ******, even though the ground felt Abel bleed, and the ***** of Nod still rages,
Earth fades to dust, and the War ends in silence.

Mountainous billowing towers of ivory spill over the upside down ocean, swirling black in the far west.

The emerald sky pulses with life, still the shifting shapes dance in perfect fluid motion unaware, of the ants marching.

Push and pull, light and dark collide in ecstasy, Hephaestus’ hammer falls, as fire flies to the woods above, burning the sky.

Some have graced the lowest tips of the stone their forms broken in it’s jagged granite hands or swallowed by cavernous mouths.

As dusk draws them into the dark and breaking horizon; we will rise in the east and dance again from one end of the blue to another.

Breeding new colors in our ranks at each beginning, the star rages beneath us.

We weep, our tears pulled to the sky, blanket the valley heights and return to us like breath.

All of this by the Maker’s hand was designed, even the life of a cloud.

He lay back down from personal disturbance
of otherwise pacific rest, nothing scholarly knowledge has
conceived could cure a nightmare, or a conscience.

Clerk in the worn store
walls breath stale transparent stories, dreams
merely another day in the old man’s shop
until it burns to ash and cinder
smoldering what was once youthful aspiration.


She is waiting, clutching a lackluster gem encased in fool’s gold.
So many nights alone with tears, now again
as the steel beast breaks it’s sleep and
lumbers forward on smooth copper glazed tracks
15 karats fall from car #7 with hardly a sound
or a second thought.


Plains people drink deep the strong whiskey.
Smoke curls from the edges of dark cracked lips
as gray stone eyes peer out on what was once freedom.
The setting sun warms the red brown Naugahyde skin.


Prince of the Dane, sweet protector of truth in a world of
falsehood, what truth did he find? Plato’s truth, Christ’s truth,
Freud’s truth only two choices for a fellow,
so Hamlet died as well


So many dead end alleyways,
calling all the cats from their garbage cradles,
slouching drunkards from their endless revels,
all victims of Fate’s angry fist in the eyes.
Clawing their way toward daylight
from sewers to sanctuary
Hades to haven
or just another...

Milk, bread, butter, juice, jelly
cereal..

My life is my grocery list,
seems like it doesn't change much even though the prices do.

Like when I was around eight and unaware of our one bedroom room apartment being meager, but hated the liver and onions
that I was supposed to be "thankful for".
It was hard to be thankful for that iron filing bile in the back of my throat, but I understand now what it means to be hungry, and thankful.

Eggs, cheese, grapes, bananas only if they aren't too green.

I remember when milk was less than two dollars a gallon. When I had my first one bedroom castle where the one true queen came and cleaned my bachelor's crusted kitchen.

Pasta, red wine, romaine, chicken.

The first time I made a girl dinner I was 12,
she was golden in the candlelight.
When we walked outside in the firefly fall air,
she showed me how you could eat a Honeysuckle
and we kissed with petal soaked lips.
I have not made my wife dinner in a while

White chocolate, cream cheese, blackberries, shortbread cookies

The Monkey on my back is named Apathy,
He doesn't like bananas, he likes Pall Malls.
From one long filtered smoldering to the next,
we sit wasting hours. Just me and my diseases.
I say “ lets go to the store, get some coffee.”
He just raises a furrowed brow and shakes his head.
When all the shows are reruns the days merge into
one
long
commercial.
Here everything is cereal boxes and
laundry detergent,
is there enough in the world to remove my stains?
I need some magic lye powder that I can scrub this ape away with.
There are things that need fixing
cars, dryers, windows, the walls need painting,
but I just need
a few minutes more and I will get to it...
Somewhere I am a hero, somewhere I am all the things I long to be.
But not in this universe, here I am just sitting,
smoking with Apathy.

Scarlet clothes the dauntless titans in rippling pools of glory.
So many idle dream of such a prize as man has made of his
spectacles since first bone on bone struck, still the unsung
war on, as Jacob with his angel, waiting for blessing. Gaining
a new name for the struggle, the wave of voices crashing over
the only two in this world of the ever turning tempest
each hoping to last the storm, only to steer his ship back
in for for the sake of another story, another tale that might
make his name live a day longer. Every man in his own
battle falls, triumphs, weeps in joy and shame, but this
trial is of the unseen beyond this frail flesh doomed to dust
Here one sees the war of truth.

Words of the lesson droned on static in the background,there was only the the lined paper. His fingers gripped the yellow #2, tip blunted, eraser nearly gone.
It had to be perfect, every word a symphony of color and light, eyes pacing the smudged and wrinkled page for a hundredth time it seemed.
The blue steel lockers gleamed in the high stone halls like silent centurions guarding some ancient secret. He folded the creases with his best dexterity as rustling of assignments were passed around the class signaling that the hour was at hand, restless eyes glanced at the unforgiving clock by the door.

Three chimes sang  change of classes, he scrambled to locker 4A with a burning blood, the small square clutched like the world's last precious stone in his sweating fist. The echoing corridors flooded with faces and clamor of boisterous youth as he slipped it between the cobalt metal's narrow gap, breathing in deep with a hope that her perfume might come through and with it all dreams of her visage, and the words that he would tell her softly in some far away room where only she would hear them,  responding to him with lips unspoken, pressed to his in the warmth of all that is or ever could be good.

It was finished now with quivering hands and heart, he sidled through the throng to end of the iron hedgerow, where 4A was still in view. Pink polished digits twirled the combination lock,  then bent to retrieve with careful curiosity the parchment at matching toes. Her gaze lifted and combed the area, panic rose with sudden tornado force that whirled him unseen, then glancing again across the fading chorus he watched her reading. All joy swelled to fill the world as bubble gum glossed lips curled in a smile, her cheek glowed strawberry.

Her name was Alexis, she never knew his, for he did not sign the note.

These are the stitches that fuse together wounds,
made by words,
made by mouths,
which cannot perceive what truth is,  
why it is, where it lays it's hands
in this putrescence we call home.

I am full of sinister self, ego wars within,
making my own Golden Goddess to worship.
Praying for faith
and still longing for pods of swine
in this flesh.

So where is the line in the sand?
My queen dresses in the guise of rags
which she prefers to a royal gown,
and I in pauper's cloth am none to chide her choice.

Streets are eroded and slow in  the heat of a Texas Summer.
Garbage piles up on all sides of the neon glow outside the dens of revel.
A noxious scent rises from the guts of the downtown chaos.
The last notes of the night become faint as the barkeep gives a last call
and weary youth stumble home on rusty wheels and
fresh memory.

Still there is a hunger
unsatisfied.

I want to feel, like the wind rushing through a canyon bed feels, like I am unbroken.

Yearning for freedom, the kind worth death, as I spill pains and dreams upon the floor.
Where is the garden gate, and will it be locked if ever I come there?
Locked to the stiff necked, sad song liars, the painted ones whose color seeps onyx stain.
Rain saturates the screaming earth, and in the drowning soil, exposes the true roots.
We are woven likewise, we who grip at the core, the ever seeking, same as saplings crying to the sky, with branch of arm stretching and clawing upward.
Then came the roar of floodwater we call Truth sweeping away every hope we had made in the muddy ground full of soft caresses.
When you were a child did you see with wide eyes the world downtown, parading with stainless steel insides and confetti eyes?
Now I long to see once more with wild wonder, to pawn this knowledge and buy back my unknowing days,
to run once more with flushed red cheeks in the deep drifts of the Colorado Winter...
and know nothing of the war...
with eyes of a dream you never fall in...
mirrors to purity..
to see pure. .

The floor is piled with tattered,
age washed images.
These faces breathe again after years behind the glass.
I never knew he went there, did that,
met her, and a subdued laughter joins the somber air.

My first memories of you are like these dusty pictures.
I remember my tall, wind blown,
cowboy uncle from Texas.
You had to be a 1980’s cigarette poster in my 4 year old mind, there in my Colorado world all the way from
the home state that I knew nothing of.
We rode a train; you bought me stuffed animals,
your mustache reminded me of
a bristly broom,
and I stared at your
cowboy boots of legend
as you and my father talked
leather and Cadillacs.

I see a little of myself in your faded eyes looking back.
I wonder which of these you look like now.
What are those eyes beholding now?  
We have only
a feeble grasp of time.
I refill my whiskey glass.
I play the slide show again.
I smoke a cigar much to my wife’s dismay.
I cry, I laugh, I remember.

Playing Battleship with you,
When you gave it to me one Christmas, until you were sick of it.
My first real bottle of cologne,
your museum of a house with a real suit of armor,
eating hot salsa to impress you,
petting the dolphins at Sea World,
you teaching me to draw , my high school graduation
my wedding, and I remember…
Not wanting to see you suffer while holding your hand.
You were happy to see me even though it hurt you to talk.

I am not writing you this for closure or maybe I am.
Funny the way we lie to ourselves.
I am writing to remember.
Because I need the words to go with
the pictures,
I need to know where your were,
was it Morocco, Istanbul, Rome,
The Caribbean, Korea,
Germany, San Antonio? What year was this? When did you have a Camaro?
Who was she? Did you really get a date with Doris Day?
You left me with too many questions, so I need the words to remember,
for the sake of memory.

There wasn't much in there, the ancient lawn mower a few other forgotten things. In came a few rotted chairs pock marked with holes, and the transformation to a palace was complete. We held court in green cloth robes all around like fairy wisps. We emblazoned our names upon the rusty sheet metal ," this will be here forever." I said. Forever is a cruel joke, 20 years or 2000, it makes no difference. and now in the palace where my fathers tools lay rusted and ramshackle, do I reminisce of days gone by, scrawl my name upon the wall anew. Oh my kingdom, my kingdom for that shed.

Black cats waltzing under ladders…
The mind tends to jest this way.
Left a choice, not today.
We twist through our dreams
like silk worms weaving.
No stars grace our
dead zone sky there?
Do you ponder the life
inside a rain drop?
Do you sweat in the
Nightmare of your soul’s Shylock
“Never the same! Never the same!”
cries the old man atop his
scrap yard shanty, with broken voice.
Time in it’s callus hands presses
86’400 times from sun to sun.
“I can’t find the moon anymore.”
She cried, for a lover gone
before the river dock
was dried of the salt tears.
What you see is human.
What is seen beyond these
feeble orbs, refracting bits of adulterated light,
those who dance in the storm’s finest hour, and
laugh at the days gone by,
as the stage spins quietly on it’s axis.

The moment is near, anticipation  grips like a vice ,as I tense my legs to spring into action.
A worn out plastic blaster in one hand and a cell phone flash light in the other,
they will never know what hit them.
Still when my attack ruins the day I am at a loss.
I regroup and try again to enter
their world,
where colors are brighter and the hours of play with out end.
Finally, I get my battle,
fight until I am out of breath from laughter,
and die happily in theatrics beneath the blow up mattress
currently serving as a Jedi star ship.
Precious few are the days,
and ever closer the battles end.
Our fields of war are exchanged for
ever spanning phone calls,
visits at Christmas.
For now I will regroup
and attack again at dawn.

Your dream image dances before my closed eyes.
You are the empress of my emotions.
My Spirit entwines yours and we are one.
Euphoria runs deep
though pulsing crimson caves.
Elation, and your velvet touch,
don't you see I am breaking.
Let me fill my arms with only you,
we will lay here until hunger drives us out.
Until then drink of one another in sweet embrace.

Listening to jazz around 4 am and the otherwise silent room shudders.
The soft amber lamps dance and then mood shifts down a gear.
Somewhere between the faint smoke swirling in the brown glass and the
late arrival of perception crashing down.
"There are other worlds than these."
The dream was lost, there was some break in the links and time
has given us nothing but faint recollections.
Song remains the same,
men still war,
lies still breed,
serpents still wait in the garden.
So here I sit waiting to cross over,
to return to what I have left in that other place.
The record spins and this world fades away.
Melt away what I see everyday and replace it with
the parallel.

Losing my breath, heart is cannon thunder as tall Pines scream by leaving Arkansas in their wake.
The machine roars over the red earth like some other lonely planet's surface. Slightest touch is death or at minimum a really bad day.  Still the sound of my older brother's coffee and cigarette laughter makes it hard to focus as I push harder in the wheel. It doesn't matter now I can see the road we lost up ahead and I bring my foot up slowly from the last slide, I needed this or some part of me did, to tempt fate's scarred and timeless hand, " the channel locks are in my bag." He reminds me for the 29th time today, but I am braking now, leaving the rallied road behind. I will never in my living days let this moment slip my mind. My heart slows as the muddy wheels glide effortlessly onto the asphalt once more. Oh my brother knows everything about black top too, let me tell ya.

Familiar tale as round and round goes the illusory carousel.

The faithless dogs snarl and snap with jagged tooth at the Master’s hand.

I am brooding inside, churning a hatred for this borrowed paperback life,

this wide path leading to the shattered uprising.

Then come the cold nights where you don’t have any answers,

and fall with weary spirit upon the tiles, full of self.

Here a faithless prince seeks a queen who is not yet born,

and finds only ghost and shadow of what once was vibrant life.

Sidewalk below the neon glow, slick with misplaced ale.
A prisoner of self, unable to run from what he ran to.
Now lay here, sick to the marrow, as the blurred faces
congeal in their laughter, only to become obfuscated
once more in the whirling street. Images at random
come of the naked, bleeding form of Christ’s final hour.
Branded from the metamorphosis, the scars gleam
on the paste white skin, and stir the dusts of memory.
Why this tragic stage? Why this prodigal’s second rebellion?
The old world ties stringing up the marionette, familiar song,
disparate man. These marks are clear, there was once
severance, and now again. Crawling behind towering stones of refuge,
and resting safe within the pain, free in it’s reality.
Wailing like a newborn, spilling cleansing streams of saline,
so stands the fallen.

Curious is youth’s passion darting and flitting in and out of the spring rains.
Runs the chase down by the willows where a small brook
whispers sweet sonnets to the lovers lying juxtapose.
Skin to skin, pulse on pulse, as trembling hands touch with
shy smiles, and no regard for time, only this.
Only to know each others eyes, as they recite their lines on a stage of sighs,
and fumble through their roles in adolescent euphoria. Finally sweat drips cold from smooth brows
laying spent in the soft embrace of the night’s breeze. Celestial onlookers tread invisible to gaze
and ponder these sleeping mortals cleaving in the tall summer grass.
Chests rise and fall in the pale light of Luna, rise and
fall, as Venus begins to stir in the east, rise and fall
full of the vineyard’s sweetest press, waking to drink deep again before dawn.

Blue is the color of this music, weaving looms of silken poetry all around, but right now it is just mine.
My own stone groove, my embellished improve layered over it . breathing with the rhythm, leg twitches the off beat like it has a mind of it's own. Open the left gate that way we can dance through to joy, or is it the right?
What?
What is?
What is right?
What is right now?
Something Blue in these notes
just shut up and dance.

Sometimes it is all talk show host and other times it is floating, if there is a distinction would you notice? Numb is good for a time and then it is nothing. Laying down to waste the days in idle chatter and used up coffee cups. Sometimes there is an angry door, or a sad chair painting in this upside down illusion. What is the core? What is there twixt the dusk and dawn that call unto the beast. We long for the base needs, mate, sleep, hunt not this convenience store loving hoard, give me TV and give me death. Plastic ,prepackaged, sterilized shipped to my door in pristine cardboard. Why am I the way I am?

My senses reel with every beautiful memory of shining summer days when I see her face.
There is nothing magic about the sunrise in perspective. Hours like stones tied to my back, and I trudge up this hill of regret, trying to fulfill some penance. The venom lies spill into my ear. One more hour, one more stone, and I am breaking slowly. What balm can soothe this, for I would go beyond the sea to find such. I would lay it upon crushed velvet at your feet and cry pardon. But I have nothing, just one more hour,  one more stone. I will look to the east and dream of days gone by, of your laughter sweet and the dawn, and hope that once more the star will rise.

I dreamed of her again last night,
so real I could feel the satin of her skin,
smell her floral perfume and taste her lips that pressed softly to mine.
We danced in that dream,
falling and fumbling into ecstasy,
then I opened my eyes and breathed in the morning’s damp air.
She should change her name, was the first thought I had.
Leave behind her history and all of the pain and shame written upon it.
Some things are just not meant to be.
Too long in dreams have I stayed.

The Star glimmers, turns and shines my eyes out.
She is a quasar,
melting sadness,
radiating His beauty.
Her voice is here with me.
Her song lives in me all through
the night.

Only that I can breath in deep the warmth of her beside me. Surrounded by fading dawn and perfectly pillowcased. I am lost to you, hopeless to move. Eyes beg to drink in just another glimpse. Somewhere you are walking in the painted sands of dream near the shores of the waking world. And in this crumpled sheet embrace we will waste the day. Only give me this dew kissed moment, the light, and her to keep forever.

Sterile room full of falsehood drains the youth from my face.
The mind drifts away but the prison remains.
Can, I recall all of the wasted hours. Always in a line march the drones, but this is our prescribed life. The laughing clock points it's hands as if ridiculing my very thoughts. Lunch, traffic, store, phone,game, bathroom, office so many moments. Someone will wait for my funeral to start, and wait again for the burial, wait to bring flowers to my grave. And some will wait for the new babe to be born, others for messiah. I am waiting for the nurse to call my son's name, and I will wait to hear that he is in good health, so that we can have a brief respite from the all life's weights and waits and laugh once again.

Let me twist a dream of her
from glistening gold and sunrise silver
breaking in the East.


Once woven, I will call her Eden,
of only innocence and eyes to see pure,
with no knowledge of the war.


Still hasten I to the land of Nod,
still trod I with head down,
staring at ****** hands

Where is our remorse for love lost?
For a promise broken, I will forever
trudge this hill
as this stone slowly breaks my back.

Run river wild, flow over me with your jade deluge.
Sweep me across your ancient stones, babbling secrets.
Let me join in the course of your life’s blood
Through the Earth’s capillaries.
I am free here.
The icy Arkansas my father knew in Colorado,
you see mountain water is in my blood too.
You envelope me into your emerald caresses,
carry me away like a lover to your oldest oak’s shade.
Your beauty reflects the Maker and
I am enraptured by the sight of you.
Run River Wild,
break my sorrows and weary burdens on your bluffs.
Where the north wind blows strong and your
white caps crash without a siren’s song.
Who can tame you River Wild?
Who can know all your secrets?
You know a few of mine.
Of moonlight whiskey kisses,
and dreams shared with only you and a cold one.
She is like you River Wild, I can’t tame her, and would never try.
Oh but to know her secrets and feel her warmth, reflects
just as when you are most still and mirroring the world
in your green glass.
Run River wild, you will be here long after I am gone,
but you won't be able to share my secrets
with any other lovers
as they sigh unto you their own.
You rush through me still
Calling me to stay with you, to let you carry me on
further from home, away from the real world.
You are my escape if only for an hour.
When the rain falls hard and you rise and rush,
will you have any memory of me?
Run River Wild, someday I will let you take me, and
we will be one.

She is the ember, glowing amber in the ebony.
The promise of warmth, of home.
The air of her lingers on the pillow.
I want to hold it somehow.
Memory won't be enough.
I need a to stop time’s ever cruel hands,
to find the marrow and hold fast.
These ghosts dwell in my mind,
promising every sorrow.
Merely faceless shadows of childhood fears.
Latchkey kids will forever wear their
shoestring chains of being alone.
She returns with the ruffle of the sheets,
banishes the banshees to some distant land.
It will be days before they can return.
I take in her scent and smile at the knowing of it,
for now I have my Queen to gaze upon
transfixed in eros.
The heart’s fire
keeps the demons away.
She is holy,
mystic without knowing what she is,
only closing her doves eyes again,
only trying to find her dream again.
What do queens dream of
as fools gaze in awestruck wonder?

Even he had forgotten about it.
The green glass dressed in years of dust..
Some things are better with age.
The color is old motor oil, and the scent
a crushed velvet dress, damp with her sweat and
perfume I can't remember the name of.
Yes, some things are better with age.
The stemmed glass swirls crimson in the tinkling laughter.
Now the magic of twelve years sleep passes my lips.
It is better with age.
Deeper, more mysterious and sage, the way I should be.
Savor every drop of sunlight from this bottle.
We only had the one,
a gift of days gone by,
and memories that fade with age.