As I looked out
into the great beyond,
I, the voyager, trapped in doldrums,


Found the soul that had slipped away from me.
My quest ended, I discarded
the gravity-encased form my mother gave me,
Trading it for the light,
The soul had always longed to be clothed in.


And my soul danced,
on the dihcotomic sea of what is,
and what will be,
waltzing across the waves of dreams,
as light is want to do,
whenever it meets water.

'Today, I should be happy.'
I told Myself, as Myself and I
stared into Our mirror of thoughts
contemplating the day's ensemble.

'There are too many sad things here,'
said Myself. 'We've worn black every day this week.'
But I paused, and smoothed the wrinkled raven skirt
across Our knees.
'But it's grey today' protested I,
'and red makes Us look garish.'

'No one said We had to be all happy,' Myself mused,
'We'll wear the red scarf with the black coat,
a little happy, but not so much as to drown out the sad.'
I nodded. 'A little sad never hurt anyone.'

When a star burns black,
But no one is around to hear it,
it screams the last, lingering, piercing note,
of a symphony
written for a dying wish,
and a lost dream.

Finally imploding into silence
where even the brightest of lights,
is lost in hollow darkness.

I don't believe in soul mates but
I will fall for the man
who can read my poetry aloud
translate it properly, from page to voice
without compromising rhythm, or sound, or rhyme,
With a gentle poet's brogue.
The man who sees the notes of my soul
I tucked between the lines,
and finds he made the same notations
in the margins of his own.

I do not think Hell will be
fire and brimstone, and sulfur geysers.
No medieval, halloween demons
ripped from Dante's manuscripts.

Hell will be in our minds,
our introverted, bleached brains
where we are doomed to watch
the lives we can no longer live,
over and over and over again,
While they play across the white coroner's sheet
as Satan's projector hums.

The beautiful spirit of life
lives in the spaces between people,
between the interlaced fingers,
of two children
who stroll down the sidewalk together.

I will forget you.

Well, I can't really,
first loves can't be forgotten,
and my memory is too good for that.

Besides, I will be writing your name
on cheap website security questions
for the rest of my life.
Who was your first kiss?

I can't forget,
but I may curse
The folly of a a gentle, blind, ******, heart,
who fell for a wounded one.

In truth, I'm angry,
at myself, and you,
my heart's dying embers glow red,
I always treated you with tenderness.

I'll clean my wound, let it drain,
let it heal.
But if you want to let yours fester,
there's nothing I can do to stop you.

Give it up,
relinquish those thousand thoughts,
the thousand hopes,
no one ever wanted to know.
Keep only the things they wanted to read,
the ****, the gossip.
The secrets shared between you and your lovers,
whispered in hushed tones
across mascara scarred pillows at 2am.

Bury the dreams,
that had no meaning.
The happy ones, full of lavender and vanilla,
But keep the nightmares,
the ones that left you screaming at 2am
that will make the hair stand up on the nape of their necks,  
and give them nightmares of their own.

Starve your soul,
till all that's left is the shell of a body
that they will praise, then critique.
Who needs souls anyway?
Without a soul, you remain forever,
undamned, unsaved,
alone, in the dark, at 2am.

I fell in love with a Marine once,
Broad shouldered, strong armed,
With a voice like sunlight’s warmth,
And tough, battle--scarred  hands.
He was always quick to smile
Laugh his loud, boisterous laugh.
But his eyes,
Green as beech leaves in spring,
Bore depths that could not be fathomed.
Scenes that had played before them,
Replayed as pain across the iris,
Sometimes hazy with tears,
When the scarred hands would grasp mine tightly,
The voice like sunlight’s warmth
Deepen, storm clouds gathering,
And drop to darker times and days
Of sand and blood and a beating sun,
When the head I cradled in my arms
Found rest on a lonely desert stone.
When the gentle hands that caressed my cheek,
Caressed a rifle,
But with less fervent tenderness.
When the lips that kissed mine,
tasted of sweat, caffeine, and nicotine.

I loved a marine once
Tried to bandage the wounds
Made by war and a hard life
But I was only a salve to numb the pain.
And when he left me,
To chase long deferred dreams,
I let him go, praying he’d find the peace
Which had eluded him for so long.

I have learnt the pain
of too much tenderness,
of ingratitude, of impatience.
The pain that comes when you can't identify
the material of the casket,
you kept a gifted heart in.
I though it was love,
that preserved your misshapen, scarred *****.
But was it sympathy, inlaid with gratitude,
For three words uttered (though falsely)?
But I returned yours unharmed, when you requested it.
No gashes from harsh words
only salve, from caring hands- though the wound's wouldn't heal.

I don't know what you kept my heart in.
A bag of lust, tied with pride?
Cheaply made, so when it tore,
you sent my heart back, raw, unprotected.
At least I left you with sympathy.

A thousand words, never to be written,
too many moments to translate.
An unnecessary task, but a preferred one.
It should be easy, I am a wordsmith, as you said,
but my fire is merely embers,
my hammer, lost,
The billows need patching.
Discouraged, I sit by my dying fire,
a pile of horseshoe memories by my side.  
Broken plough hopes,
iron backed words.
All once glowing red,
now solidified in time,
by the cooling tears in a barrel.

The scratch at the back of my throat
will not go away.
It aches, burns,
In the same way my chest aches,
my eyes burn.
I miss you.
I know we can call, I can hear your voice
on the other end of the phone line,
tired, gentle, soft, but still distant.
As though it were a thousand miles
instead of a hundred.
Our words are muted, conversations short.
Full of "I love you"s, "Please don't worry"s, and (I'm afraid overly) hopeful "I'll see you soon"s.
But somehow, the voice doesn't seems like yours.
I've always equated your voice with your touch, I suppose.
It's strange for them to be separated.
I expect your chest against my back, your hand to caress mine.
But it's still that little light- the tiny candle we hold for each other.
The candle of hope. Lit with the flame of love.

I have yet to bare my soul to you.
I've seen some of yours,
beautifully ragged and torn and patched,
but still strong, gentle.
Like the old quilts my grandmother made.
Only you're not half so old as they.

Our souls are old, regardless of our mortal age,
they've known much, seen much,
staring through copper eyes into a spectrum
of past, present, future.
Mine linger in the past,
yours glance back now and then,
but always know what's behind.

I was going to write a poem about you,
but I can't.
There's too much to say,
and besides,
I can't think of anything that compares to you.

"Define life," he said, "In under seven words."
Several gave their answers,
cold and scientific, their wavering hands,
hoping for good reputations.

I had an answer.
The word leapt to my lips,
struggled to part them,
but I clenched my teeth to hold it back.

"Love." My heart whispered.
"We have not life,  if we have not love."

But love is not in the textbook.

Child of earth,
With your muddied hands,
Half-moon fingernails black with soot,
From digging in the ashes
Of your forgotten playground.

Child of earth,
With your star-crossed eyes,  
Deep as sorrow, black and blue,
Look out to silver spires,
Sparkling in the midday sun.

Child of earth,
With your weathered feet
Armored in calluses, black from tar
Stumbling along familiar ground,
One with the rocks and soil.

Child of earth
With your sun-scorched skin
Darker than leather, black as midnight
As tight as a newly made drum
Holding your soul in tight embrace.

I dare not let you unlock
the clasp I cannot undo myself.
For what should spring forth,
from that Pandora's box,
amid pain, uncertainty, shame,
would tie and bind us in a thousand knots,
I know I could not untie.
And though you would cut free,
I know you would still have one, as a reminder of me.

I am the stream,
you are the dam builder
with gentle, work-worn hands,
you guide my free waters,
but do not diminish them.
You embrace me with
the caresses of smooth river stones,
till I am transformed from placid lake,
to tumbling rapid.

They closed our eyes,
with the fluorescent lights looking on,
and helping to stuff things into the cracks of our minds.
Filling up the spaces,
where imagination used to dwell,
in quiet villages of thought, all colors and shapes,
we hadn't thought of yet.
There were no more rolling hills and streams of ideas,
only strait backed rows of facts,
that expanded day by day,
stabbing the mind with iron fence posts,
pounded in by the hammer,
of crowded words on glossy pages.
Imagination shattered, and faded,
with each stroke.
They told us they opened our eyes,
but they closed them,
as tightly as their own.

We hovered in wounded silence
our briefly exchanged words drifting
around our ears
whispering themselves over and over
in our minds,
and even when the whispers faded,
the furrows they dug in our brains remained.
As our arms unlocked,
arms that had melded over such a short time
But still found release a struggle
And when their bond had broken,
we walked away, shattered.
The last remnants of ‘us’
being swept away by rivulets of rain,
that ran down our faces.

Your eyes are of the ember kind
that sear their light into memory and thought.
They glow and warm, like sun bathed quartz,
Brighter still when our hands meet,
across the canyon of air between our bodies.

As sun-starved leaves in early spring,
my hands reach for the source of light,
like birds, nest on your shoulders,
basking in the warmth of your being.

And I am enveloped in such bliss
My heart has never fathomed
such depths, as those I find
within your eyes.

Two birds in similar cages bound,
with bleached white staves
a brig of flesh.
The lock unreachable,
as with any prisoner,
but it keeps them not from calling,
to their opposite companion.

The Jailers hear the songs,
block them out,
try to stifle the warbling beaks,
but they know there will be no peace
till the bleached white staves are joined,
and the two birds may nest together.

I thought he was going to **** me.
His eyes bespoke the strength of some strong emotion,
I assumed hatred.
I retreated, my feet treading garbage into dirt,
till there was no more ground to tread.
He grabbed me,
this stranger I had never seen
and stole the token so prized by lovers- a kiss.
A long, stagnant, suspended kiss.
I could not separate the moist circles of our mouths.
He held too tight, I dared not struggle.
Finally, his hands released me,
I gasped a breath of cool dream air,
and awoke as the warmth of his body
was replaced by the heat of my blanket.

Things always seem to wind up, then crash,
Like the tops we spun as children
Winding, winding, winding,
Till it circled it’s dizzying path across the dining room table
Reflected in the polished walnut.
Then plummeting over the edge
Into oblivion.

The happy, ignorant, whirling top,
Not knowing its misfortune
Until it meets the floor.
And rolls, rolls, rolls,
In gravity's death throes.

He stood
chest bared before the mirror
studying
searching
trying to find the heart
that lay within
if there even was one.

He sighed
ran a hand through tousled hair
Wondering
mourning
why he could not see
the heart within
If there even was one.

He sat
on the edge of the bed
sinking
drowning
in his quest and the blankets
He thought he’d lost the heart
if there even was one.

He sank
farther into his despair
wishing
longing
that he had begun his search
A long time ago for the heart
If there even was one.

He slumped
body contorted and limp
feeling
thinking
that he was merely a body
a shell without a heart
he doubted there ever was one.

Men loosened Justice's blindfold
So she could "see the evidence" they said
She protested and tried to fix it,
but her scales fell out of balance.

Peace asked her why?
Justice cried and her tears
wilted Peace's olive branch
the dove drank the salt water and got sick.

Hope tried to console Peace and Justice,
But when she saw the blindfold amiss
and the dove sick
her fragile heart couldn't take it, and she died.

Love tried to revive Hope
but she knew it wouldn't work,
because she couldn't gather enough
of Hope's soul to bring her back.

And for that Peace and Justice
Shunned her, rebuked her
they said she was useless
and banished her to a far northern land.

So Love fled from men's hearts
and found herself with Patience, cast into exile
Patience was happy because Loneliness fled,
But Love longed for her former life.

And with Hope dead
it didn't take long for Sorrow
to smite her.

She viewed the sky as oft before
The dark clouds gathering, grey and dim
The scent of rain hung in the air
And she closed her eyes, and prayed for him.

The rain fell soft upon the field
Where enemies had come to fight
Man to man and sword to sword
Though the sword she knew, helped not their plight.

The dark ash shafts that she had watched
Her man so gently preserve
Drops from hells own thunder clouds
Steel points without mercy or reserve.

The great yew bow of sap and heart
Its elegant curves he’d crowned with horn
The string he’d twined so skillfully
With his calloused hands, so rough and worn.

The hands with which he’d clasped her own
And pledged to love her, as he loved the bow,
And slipped a ring of silver fine
upon her hand, she loved him so.

Her heart now leapt within her breast
As mail clad men shouted hurried orders
“Women to the baggage!” She heard them say
and she turned to join her frightened neighbors.

The men had no time to say goodbye
They took up their bows and off they went
Towards the muddy field below
She knew that most to their deaths were sent.

She took her place with other girls
Beside the carts and extra mounts
A buzzing whisper of nervous speech
Drowned the men’s descending shouts.

Now and again she closed her eyes
The cross was made and prayer began
She murmured to Mary, the ****** Blessed
To guard the life of every man.

She listened hard and heard the sound
Of thousands of throats shout muddled cries
Their words were lost within the wind
And a twanging note seemed to break the skies.

She knew the archers all had loosed
Their fingers plucked at the harp strings of Death
Her man had sent his goose-fledged shaft
On a journey to leave a widow bereft.

The clash of steel and screams of steeds
shattered the note of twanging bows
And she heard the battle rage all the more
As the melee rose in the field below.

The battle seemed to last for years
The noise of combat daunting and loud
Waned and waxed as the day wore on
But her prayers continued, her head remained bowed.

Salty tears fell from her eyes to
tight clasped hands, their knuckles white
Spare him, spare him, was her cry
And then the sun brought forth its light.

The army’s women raised their heads
And watched as their tired, muddied men,
Crested the top of the trampled hill
Warriors come from death’s dark den.

She searched the ranks with pleading eyes
For the well-known face of her lover true
But it seemed that countless men came
Streaming towards her, and none she knew.

Until at last the final rank
In mud and ****** mail encased
Came into the valley, worn and weary
And she saw at last the familiar face.

A cry of joy came from her lips
A prayer of greatest heartfelt thanks
Her feet grew wings and off she flew
Into her archer’s strong embrace.

The wise blood pulsed within her veins
First the sixth sense and then the seventh
Her mind was sick of self taught lessons
The clock struck the tenth hour, and then the eleventh.

Her eyes saw colors their’s could not
But names had she not for their description
The tint of wind and the hue of water
They thought it her dumb and idiot invention.

She heard noise when they were deaf
But she could not record or imitate the sound
The music of stones and the language of trees
They would not listen, for they spoke too loud.

She felt what they were too calloused too feel
But she could not weigh or measure the touch
The texture of thought and the surface of dreams
They said it was madness and dismissed it as such.

She smelled the fragrances they could not smell
But she had no perfume or cologne to match
The stench of pain and the scent of hope
They called her foolish, said her mind had been snatched.

Her tounge tasted tastes that theirs could not
But no herb could she find to imitate the flavors
The spice of music and the tang of peace
They said it was merely her tears she savored.

Her heart had taught her everything
Her mind to see, her nerves to feel
She’d wished for a prophet, a teacher, a sage
To show her that all that she knew was real.

But no philosopher would second her claim
No scientist back her with reasearch and facts
Her teachers all mocked her, laughed in her face
And so she fell silent to cease their attacks.

Her newfound knowledge boiled within
Bombarded, her mind was over wrought
She sank into despair with hardening heart
Lost without a soul with which to share her thought

As the clock struck the twelfth with a deafening clang
She stepped to the ledge and looked to the sky
A last sigh to the world, she drew a deep breath
And in silence the seven-sensed girl leapt to die.

I shiver,
in the cold of yet another winter day.
It matches my mood, sullen and grey
But with the general good weather front
I put on as I go out the door.

Cloaked in false sunshine,
I cast my empty rays
To anything and everyone
They expect warmth,
But feel only the icy breeze
Which has already frozen me.

Youth, my beautiful lie
Forever weaving falsehood’s web
Adding more threads as the years slip by
To cover the frays
Begun by Time
For the work is too delicate to patch.

Death, my painful truth,
You watch my futile fiction grow
Waiting till you can cut
The tapestry from the loom
Your scythe sharpened,
Waiting,
To bring me into veracity.

One day I will find the words
One day
But not today.

Today the words scamper from outstretched hands
I, clawing for one syllable, one sound
as they melt into the camouflage of boredom
Unreachable.

One day I will find the words
pluck them from the branches of my mind
gather them into the basket of a pen
and take them home,
lay them out to dry on a blank page.

I will paste them down,
thought by thought
verse by verse, dactyl, measure, line,
Till they've made a sentence
a phrase, a page.

One day, I will find the words
they will be simple, beautiful, soft
as I take their dry hulls,
and line them up in ranks
on the field of an unwritten page.

One day I will find the words,
but it is not today.

There is pain here.
It swells, drifts,
within the ribbed cage
covered with pale, stretched skin.
My heart, the bird, beats it's tiny, wounded wings,
in fear and aching throbs,
to escape from it's ****** aviary,
but the bars are too strong,
and it sings a final, mourning note
as the bones collapse around it.

Give me the pain, please.
Even if there is none.
Project what you think fit
onto my masochistic spirit,
who waits, open, longing
for the jab.

What I said, I meant.
Always means never ever forgotten.
I will forever bear the brand
of two hearts bruised.
Mine included.
Let me take the blow I give,
I caused the pain, let me suffer it gladly.
If I were to break a heart
pray let it be mine.

I loved you as man was meant to love
Selfless, quiet, as few have said
Three simple words,
And meant them
As I did when they fell
Letter by letter
From trembling lips
To meet the cold stone
Which encased your heart.

Each shattered, a thousand splinters,
The O rolled and burst
The U toppled with the I and the rest
Ricocheting back from whence they came
Sharp and piercing
Their barbed points digging
With flaming points into flesh
While silent screams
Echoed loudly in empty halls.

Bleeding, not a drop, but a torrent
All at once
No single bead, but hundreds
Till bathed in red
I stood before you
Pleading
In my hands the last thread of my life
Offering them, freely
You did not realize
I loved you.

Masquerade

Hollow eyes in haunted faces
Concealed by lead and lace,
Pale as the pearls
They loop around their necks,
Beautiful nooses the hangmen wait eagerly to tighten.

We suffer under the grip
Of corsets pulled to tight to breathe
Pain with every breath we draw,
But force the smile, nod the head,
There’s never anything wrong here.

Blood drops fall from the hairline,
Running into eyes, behind sharp edged masks.
Masks changed too often, too fast, too soon
A different mask for every partner
Keep them strait, the order cannot be compromised.

Pirouette, spin, bow, change
Till you stumble, grab the wrong mask, take the wrong hand
The claws are unsheathed,
Shred the brocade, lace and silk
Cast you tattered from the light,
All a blur, chaos, till you stop, in the dark
Your only companion a remnant of your soul
Which lies bleeding at your feet.

I am letting them go today, all the "what if's".
Letting them slide away, chasing some out
I banish their offspring of Paltry Wishes with them.
Sending the whole lot into the Siberia of Reality and Pessimism,
Along with false hope and innumerable maybes.

They try to come back, persistent things.
Beat upon the door, knocking, crying, begging,
to be let back in.

But I slide the dead bolt and turn away.
They bring only pain, real and projected.
At least I had some pleasure before, I think.
But it doesn't make it hurt any less.

China Blue

China blue and snowy saucers
On the old oak table where you once sat
Alone and plaintive, dusty
I haven’t had the heart to move them yet
There’s to much of your spirit
Still in the house
It seems wrong to clear it away
When you’re supposed to come back
And drink your tea.

I went through your desk, though
It was necessary.
You never were organized
And I found myself buried in mountains
Of old bills and notes and wishes
And by the time I found the will
Paper birds had roosted all about the room
Their inked markings unreadable
Thanks to the flapping of their wings.

Your sketchbook I left by our bedside
Your notebook and Hemingway
Rest under the alarm clock
That will never wake you again
Though it rings its mournful, piercing wail
At 6:00 every morning
It scared me, the day after the funeral
I hadn’t slept all night, screamed,
Clutched your pillow
And threw mine at the foot of the bed,
The Phantom shadows of dreams disappearing
In the light of a grey morning.

The letters I'll never send, dear
that shall never reach your hand,
but sit hidden within my mind
unwritten, unknown, and unread.

The words I'll never say, dear
that shall never reach your ear
but stay locked behind my lips
unheard, unknown, and unsaid.

The things I'll never do, dear
that shall never be recalled
but stay beneath a cloak of fear
unimagined, unknown, and undone.

The letters I'll never send, dear
the words I'll never say,
the things I'll never do, dear
because with you, I could not stay.

You found yourself
in a paradise of strangers
all going one direction or another,
though none towards you.
You stood alone on the sidelines
not sure who to follow
where to go
Seemed everyone had a place
except you.
But then,
you decided to
make your own way
and took off
through that sea of strangers
into the unkown.

Upon the hallowed ground she stood
The wind blew through her hair
A swallow swooped o’er the darkening sky
And the scent of rain filled the air

She heard their voices loud as thunder
Echo over hill and down
And warily she watched them
Ride their ghost mounts into the town

The rain now fell in torrents
Upon the hallowed field
But she moved not from her own same spot
As an icy hand bid her yield

A hand of ice held fast her hem
Though she struggled against its grasp
She begged it there to let her go
Then from the earth she heard it rasp

‘One kiss my bonny sweetheart
the years were long since I saw thee last
It be cold here in the hallowed ground
And I lie and freeze a memory of the past.’

‘I fought here on the hallowed ground
with rapier high and voice aloft
till down the enemy struck me fast
and I lay in my blood on the damp ground soft.’

The hand then loosed its steely grasp
And she saw her true love’s form
A cold and bleeding upon the ground
she covered him with russet cloak to keep him from the storm

As the rain then pelted down around
The long lost lovers in their embrace
His bonny sweetheart spoke to him
With trembling lip and heart that raced

‘My own true love, my only
Long waited I for your return
I scorned the suitors who sought my hand
They said your love is gone and dead, but your memory I would not scorn

‘I waited long for word or news
of thy well being or how thee faired,
but none e’re came to me at all
so I waited, hoping you had been spared.’

‘Ah a truer love man never had
that would wait through tears and time
and keep the hope that I still lived
to find that in the ground I lie.

Forgive me, love, I’ve done thee wrong
To make thee wait for me so
Take my hand with one last kiss
And then my love, you must go.’

‘Nay my only, only love,
it’s here with you I’ll stay
I’ll not go back to my old life
I’ll lie here by thy side, come what may.’

So upon the hallowed ground she lay
Her hair damp and soaked to the skin
And right by his side she lay all night
As she clutched his hand so thin.

The town knew not where she had gone
But in the morn they found
She’s gone to be with her one true love
Dead, upon the hallowed ground.

I watched you in your savage beauty
wild and untamed
You sprang from here to there to here
your garments rent
in splays of silk
trailing like wings behind you.
Your talon hands
they grabbed for mine
digging in deep and drawing blood.
I was no longer watching you
I was with you,
in this savage beauty.
Ignored pain drove through my hand
as you guided me through
your dance macabre.
How I loved you as I bled
my hands about your waist
You kissed me with the kiss of death
And dead you fell within my arms
My deadly, lovely, savage thing
with splays of silk
enveloping you.

From such a gentle spirit
came such a harsh reubuke
and from such a verdant life
Oh, such an arid death!

What hope once bloomed
within thy breast
until replaced by a blossom
of such deep despair.  

The fates did deal thee a bitter hand
such cruelty thou suffered,
to be taken from day to night
and as quickly as thou were.

Thy life, thy soul, such lovely things
how kind thy smile could be
thou were indeed a rarity
in such a dreary world.