Your radiance shall wake me, Soleil:
my lantern, my warming glow.
We'll meet only twice this year
to adumbrate the lapis sphere.
Your luminance shall slake me:
my light, my ball of ocher flame.

Your brilliance shall guide me, la Lune:
my pearl, my gleaming infinity.
Four billion years of spinning
yet the pull is just beginning.
Your blaze shall abide me:
my angel, my celestial friend.

Just before midnight on scant-traveled roads,
the stream of each streetlamp hypnotically flows.
No one dreads the hours ahead
for onward through darkness we silently tread.

Nocturne and noontide, our wayfaring tsoris
dissolves in the preludes of a botanical chorus.
Echoes of muzak crackle in waves
as rhapsodies soothe our youthful malaise.

Over the moorland, into the canyon,
under the silken moon.

Lazing in an unbroken innocence;
a whirled undersea, under me.
Blazing tides taking hold of ambivalence
a calm serenity sweeping through the boundless deep.

An oceanic labyrinth,
rolling in the shadows of the sea.

Gazing past an apparent diffidence;
a cold melody for remedy.
Minding these subterranean incidents,
my torn identity plunges in a swirling stream.

An oceanic labyrinth,
roaming in the dimness of the sea.

Across the sand
there's a well of flame
reaching for a cloudless sky.
I've seen dreams upon the dunes,
I've seen oceans in the stars,
yet the golden realm
remains within my eye.

Mirage, a solitary vision,
manifests before my weary soul.

Across the sand
there's a curtain of sapphire
resting on horizon's edge.
I've seen waves over the mountains,
I've seen rainbows in the shade,
yet my conscience
staggers on the rocky ledge.

Mirage, illusions in the desert,
haunts within the world that surrounds me.

Mirage, my jewel of insanity,
I watch the life of grain 
and stone 
and sea.

Winter rain dissolves the snow
and reveals a hidden green.
Scant lamplight dots the darkness
where homesick phantoms wander
beyond the hemlock screen.

Winter nights put arms around
the shrunken hours of day.
Branches lay cloaked in icy beads
as the moon seldom peers
from the frozen curtain of gray.

Winter birds sleep in mossy grottos
while their cousins make for the sea.
One day I'll be moved by vernal blaze
but until then I'll just let the clouds cry for me.

Haunted winds caressed her pallid face,
bestowed before me in ornamental grace
as I sung an aria for our sorrow 
lilted with silent dreams.

In the dusk begotten serenade,
where spectral lanterns glow,
I found her on the riverbed;
a transparent body cloaked in souls.

I brushed upon my golden strings
to cast a weary strain
unfettered from the pain.

Cool winds caressed her auburn blaze
as enchantment forsook our future days.
I mumbled an aria for desperation
trapped upon the dreamlit stream.

Splotches of sky,
daubs of fuschia and white idle above.
A cottage near the stream, our soft painted dream,
and ripples of blue.

Watercolors,
silver mist blurs the mountainside.
Rows of emerald pine, our hidden divine,
and beads of limpid dew.

Echoes of dawn,
a cool gale of the nearing spring.
Awash in teal blooms, our calm wooded womb,
and memories of you.

I want to keep all of the words
that find me in wonder and fear.

Spectral fingers reach for mine
but slip through my hand into the dark.
I fascinate from afar
as night pulls away their billowing skin
and wipes away their misty faces.

Ghosts ahuddle on an ivied bridge
poised in pearl-white robes.
Empty eyes and trembling hands
brush through the stream invisibly;
nothing to touch, no one to see.

Pebbles stare back as ripples unfold
into reflections of the weak and cold.

Pale gleams flutter
upon a lap of fluttering streams
and in a dream, the sun melts
as the moon sets at the end of my bed

Island marooned, the mana consumed,
and with ancient runes a song is stitched
as love is woven in the white of wool threads.

Early morning, adorned
in a cloak of cerise and viridian,
roams the dark of a seashore
through waves of obsidian.
Summer in pearly decorum,
the harbor blazed with multicolored sails.

Noontide aloft on sundrops
of saffron luminance,
traces the rows of begonia
and shading cumulus.
Summer in amethyst mantles,
the meadow doused with flower-laden trails.

Evening, abliss in the cape
of sunning indigo,
wades in crystalline waters
as the plazas overflow.
Summer in sienna streetlights,
the taverns filled with sentimental tales.

Magenta gown - flares in the stream of a August breeze.
Petals aflow in the grove
that looms on the edge of the seas.
Sweet oleander and the starshine of unease.

Nerium spawn - wade in the flames of afterlight.
Leaves aflow in the grove
where bewitching toxins invite
sweet Pythia and the citadel of night.

Still wandering upon pathways of doom
where the laurel of madness is first to bloom.

Magenta gown - stills in the dark of a dawning sun.
Stamens aflow in the grove
as the shadows of memory are overrun.
Sweet island, the sacred threads are undone.

Echoes of the water hymn
meander on empty boulevards -
I trod this sunken labyrinth on the sea.
I watch silk-clad cherubim
standing near the milky shards
as they join a haunted melody.

The girl sculpts lamenting statuettes
on the sunlit crown.
Countless hours within the tower
nesting angels in her lillywhite gown.

Ghosts of a shipwreck
pour into the starboard garden
and I paint their tears like pieces of an ocean.
They wander on the fore-deck
and sing as the eggshells harden.
I see to the dawn, filled with strange emotion.

She swims in the moonlight
as her body stills.
A winged flight in the fading night
while the chalice of golden wine overspills.

Sunday's somewhere in the teal dawn
wandering on a lukewarm breeze.
Monday pens weary travelogues
with fugal prose of frozen seas.

Tuesday holds a gilded halo
of sunlit cirrus atop the knoll.
Wednesday gathers ornate words
and begets infinity upon a scroll.

Pale gleams flutter
upon a lap of willowing streams
and in a dream, the sun melts
as the moon sets at the end of my bed.

Island marooned, mana consumed,
and with ancient runes, a song is stitched
as love is woven in the white of wool threads.

Thursday hums a quiet tune
and lilts over the azure morn.
Friday trods the afternoon
through blossom and thorn.

Saturday nestles in cool dusk;
a shroud of purple-painted skies.
We'll blot a scarlet streak of stars
and crown the night with your hazel eyes.

I've dreamt your hands painting the twilight
and folding my epistle into a rose.
So many pages stained with black coffee,
so many poems limned with doting prose.

I've dreamt the fragrance of warm linens,
your patterned quilt and sleepy eyes.
Ever so slowly, the pink-clad nimbus
wheels across lavender skies.

I've dreamt the embrace of limpid waves
breaking upon the charcoal shore
and as I'm wrapped within moonlit shallows
my gaze shall cascade into yours.

Cedars on the ice-blue horizon,
lonely hills shrouded in hawthorne groves
curling over the mantle of snowy white.
Tones of a breeze brush through the trees,
like adagio for wintry symphonies.

Echoes of a river
sweep along the secluded forest of gray.
Scarlet clouds streak through the sky
in twilight’s dwindling gaze.
Stones of a glade near the solemn cascade,
entwined in a starlit sewn serenade.

Humming woodland etched in hunter green,
soaks in the glimmer of sunrise.
Amber flower spray softly wavers
beneath cerulean skies.
Coral clouds drift over the groves
painting the morning heartsease and rose.
Springtide madrigal of blooming poetry
brightens the sea in your eyes.

Starlight through the cloudburst
like distant lanterns of jade.
A million years of eruption;
a billion years to cascade.

Instruments of the ethereal,
in a symphony without sound.
Matter hurled into the darkness,
an inferno of majesty unbound.

A poetry of haunted atmosphere
like tears of lavender flame,
pouring from galaxies
we've yet to name.

Swirl within the carbon pool
and climb pillars of gaseous light.
I love your eyes of crimson waterfalls
forever gazing through infinite night.

Silence lain in the shallows,
perched on the stillness of sea.
This moment of calm adorns you
nestled in your ponderous canopy.

While time lay fragmented
in motionless play,
it's a simple beauty
sketched upon the bay.

Your music of emptiness,
constantly everpresent,
shall wait silently broken
where waves come to crash.

Solitude paints your mind
lauding the soundless grace.
Slivers of peace entwine you
within the ocean lace.

Hold
on to
these moments
before the year
fades;

you've
no more
in the vale
of your dreaming
mind.

Like
ripples
aswim in
the vast ocean
wane,

so
to will
your echoes
at the end of
time.

Hummingbird on a foxglove petal
sipping from a nectar pool.
Our watercolor jewel
flutters on a linen page
as turquoise mist and viridian waves
curl beneath an emerald spool.

Hummingbird on a hawthorn branch
waiting for a brush of breeze
from limpid seas
across the stony shore.
Springtime serenades crest the summer door
as sunlight is cradled by sugar trees.

Hummingbird on a pale-white zephyr
gliding toward a wooded grove.
Our watercolor cove
brimming with blue
as dandelions rise from filmy dew.
Hummingbird, in the summer shade,
continues to rove.

Moonset slips beneath a steel sea;
crescent sailing on the starless deep.
I sketch the hallowed sky in my dream.

Sunrise lifts from under the hills,
music stirs as dawnlight spills.

Horizon bursting,
a choir rehearsing
requiems for fallen friends.

Moonchild in the lap of a pine
singing for the wordless divine.
She wanders on the waves of her mind.

February starling on a mulberry bough
it's been so frigid these recent months
but we can hear you now.
Black wings glide on a windy cradle,
nestlings call from the alpine brow.
February starling between the gables,
it's been so long but we can hear you now.

Teal equinox drifting over the valley
tangled in a crystal chain of stars.

Ghosts of the universe spiral endlessly.
Mind in a shell of illusions we’ve made;
iron, earth, and air.

Dawn’s haloed sky stretches over the mountain locked in a veil of silver fog.

Jewels of infinity cradled in our hands.
Knots of wind come unraveled by the night;
salt, sun, and gold.

There I glanced,
entwined within the cool warmth
of a summers dawn,
toward a swell of blazing teal
and its oceanic paragon.

A whirling spray of silver waves
caressed my face and washed my dreams.
I wandered along the grassy rim
with eyes beguiled and mind agleam.

A vision of morning grace
within the blur of misty lace.

Shades of saffron over the Black Hills,
droplets of evening blot the pines,
a whirring zephyr bathes the grassland
as horizon crawls from your eyes.

Pasque adorns the endless plateaux,
while sunset colors the sky.
Bison wander in scarlet twilight
through an ocean of durum and rye.

Her home is between
a dream and consciousness;
old specter of dark quartz.
Cradling her spells in skin-bound volumes,
old weaver of animosity,
the priestess of remorse.

In the amber fens, she's painting ripples
with turquoise glow.
Dancing with her puppets in a hellish glade
with skeletal hands
reaching from the mud and snow.

Sat beside the creaking wheel,
she draws phantoms on her loom.
Stirring murky potions
and studying the architects of doom.

Oft gazes her eyes of jeweled fire
upon the black smoke of a spectral pyre.
Watch her scribbling our forsaken fates.

In the tranquil ocean mirror,
you see you where the ripples clear.
A cool ribbon of breeze
slips across the sand
dancing with your hair
like a bead of flaxen flame.

In your eyes of winter mist,
a field aloft in clouded bliss.
Rainbow's end cascades upon
a grove of swaying palms
as the crackle of waves
whirls over the marigold plain.

Lighthouse cloaked in wavelike fog
which drifts like a silver procession
through the ferns and evergreens.

Spectral rivers of autumn leaves
spiral across the rocks.

Phantoms of white, smoky halos
tremble through a willow
dancing in holy midnight.

Lindworm draped by blackened seas
brewing thunder and hurricanes
to batter the haggard land.

Sunlight crawls through a misty glen,
dawn chorus peals from the canopies,
river whispers lull the scarlet fox
who lies asleep on russet leaves.

Meadowlark cries
from weathered blue skies
and drifts between the fragmented gleams.

Windswept dances
of leafy willow branches
slip upon the surface of a stream.
A secret glade kissed with happy dreams.

Ocean winds drape your isle,
I can see you dreaming,
but when you wake
and find the world has gone
will you remember me
as I was upon the horizion?

Turquoise waves sweep the shore,
I can see you singing
and when you play
your magic instruments
will you remember those
who sculpted the mountains?

It all seems so familiar.
You have a place to return to
but you've never been there before.

Summer tryst to bygone days,
I can see you laughing.
So when you gaze
upon the vast water-scape
will you find a stretch of land
and make of it a home?

A patter of waves,
my hands adrift,
no silence soothes this graveyard shift.

My beacon turns and unveils the night
as I ache for calming in this forlorn rite.
I’ve no shelter from the maelstrom
gathering across the sea.
I’ve known for so many years now
the fate that falls before me.

The ocean grants
a melancholic gift;
a patter of waves, my hands adrift.

Gazing out your cerulean diamonds
past the rippled shore
toward the sunrise bursting on the horizon
and you swear you’ve never felt this before.

A wave-caressed *******,
where sea-winds lift the wailing gulls,
and you’re dancing to the calypso
flooded with ardor
and answering the call 
for voyage on the water.

Another day and the helm is turning.
In the midnight trance, your sails are drawn.
The crew say these clouds are blurring
your painted vessel of this summer's dawn.

The mast is towering in the salty air
and the sun is showering your seaward stare.

Orbs of rain burst upon the shingles;
collapse in rhythmic joys.

They trace along your teary windows;
surveying the black trees,
and clinch to withered bark.
Knotting night and day with the quiet dark.

A burst of ocher clouds in the indigo sky,
and your eyes barely open.
You're safe here;
nestled in cold sheets
in the shallows of early morning.

Solace dwells in silence,
and the brisk summer dawn.
You're safe here;
stepping through the lamplight
and the dew blanketed lawn.

Little pillow on the armchair
sewn with saffron thread,
can your emerald fabric
cradle my slumbering head?

Little pillow on the sofa
stuffed with lily-white wool,
as my body tosses and turns
will your surface still be cool?

Little pillow on the mattress
laced with golden seams,
how long will you embrace me
when my mind is filled with dreams?

Queen of spectral shadows hiding in her mirror
with a gossamer shawl coiled upon her nape.
Where sunbeams drape, she refuses to appear --
a hostage of somber fear not longing for escape.

The waterfall's frozen over,
the river no longer pours
when love cannot show her
the daylight anymore.

Mystic maiden in a labyrinth of graves
clinging to her orisons that go unheard.
The story's blurred by prolix waves --
we could paraphrase but the poets are lost for words.

The canopy's an illusion,
the firmament splits at the seams
when love feels like an intrusion
that stalks in her fortress of dreams.

Mountains awash in a flood of dawn,
solace slips through the silent cavern.
Naked branches beckon to the clouds
drifting in an astral pattern.

Cyan vein of meandering rivers
intermingling with the isles,
while peering from the evergreens
your jasper sunrise smiles.

Morning cadence
dancing on diamond waves
where the cool winds
brush the sills and palisade.

Candle speaks molten wax
cascading upon the burning brass.
Flame trembles sideways
like an ocean's swaying tides
to host spectral ambiance
as the black smoke subsides.

Candle weaves autumn scents
wavering about the tenement.
Tables covered in crumpled paper
where solitary thoughts are marred
in essence, beauty, and fragility
as the black wick is charred.

Candle breathes a mellow light
flickering in the frigid night;
there's winter white strewn
on the pine-shaded lawn.
Lamppost corona hides
as black trees greet the dawn.

Candle gleams like lighthouse glow,
the beacon of my solemn home,
guiding paper boats from wreck,
and luring lost ideas ashore.
Heartbeat holds the harmonic key
yet my weary mind has no door.