I have to admit
I like to see an underdog win.

I know that everyone loves a love story
And they're rooting for the soul mates.

But I must be bitterly truthful
Because love is never what it seems.

So I hope it ends now
So your forever broken heart can heal sooner.

A smile
A laugh
A heart broken in half

A blade
A gun
A ******* the run

A shovel
A grave
A girl they couldn't save

Her eyes speak
the truest words
never uttered
They tell of the ocean
on a lonely shore
Of salt marsh days
and windswept dunes
And love among the ruins
Her habit worn
vow unbroken to the night
She smiles a wanton wish
of summer days
and a fair young boy
among the glades
She sighs
her dreams away
and polishes again
the bare stone floor.

r ~ 7/28/14

I'd like to retravel
The road to here
Straighten out a few curves
Undo some straight lines
Unmuddle some puddles
Shake the mud out of my eyes
Take more time to explore
Those missed detours

The road to here
Has been a long one
Sometimes walked
Sometimes on the run
Sometimes rocky, often dusty
And sometimes fun
But never did I ever
Leave a deed undone

I traveled it in the rain
I traveled it in the sun
Ups and downs and switchbacks
There's no going back again
Can't be redone
Miles and miles and miles
Of tears and smiles and love
The road to here.

r ~ 8/2/14

I am wheat
I cry, I cry
Again
You leave your dead
At my feet
Oh why, oh why

At Gettysburg
We cried
Again, again
They rose and died
Below our stalks
They lie, they lie

From Stalingrad
To Leningrad
One million dead, one million dead
The Panzers came
Wheat fields aflame
They burned, they burned

And once again
You leave your dead
Ukraine, Ukraine
Oh, Putin's shame
The innocent lie
In wheat, in wheat.

r ~ 7/19/14

The yellow eye
of the sun,
like the ancient eyes
of an old man
who's seen too much whiskey,
used to brown my skin
now just dries me out
like an old boot
turned the wrong way
on the post out by the highway.

r ~ 7/8/14

Addicts aim their entire life

for the highest high

only to never reach it

until they one day die.

To the far reach
where the soul is frozen
and the sun doesn’t know
a rise from a fall
dark nights are unsettling
and the silence is cold

but the sun doesn't know
what the sun doesn't know.

Borealis burns
to thaw out a feeling
and you ride with the flow
on a southerly heading
as the sun stays low
beneath a fire-kissed sky

and you ride the flow
to ride with the flow.

Till warm sea winds
and calm sets you down
as the rain settles in
with a comforting sound
evening will fall
on Bocas del Toro

as the rain settles in,
as the rain settles in.

r ~ 7/11/14