The hammer and anvil,
My tools of Creation,
Have yet to serve their full potential.
Every day, I wield them.
From the depths of my heart and soul,
I muster the strength to forge.
The strength is abundant,
But such strength is thunder
Without proper restraint.

The fault is not my loyal tools –
Certainly not –
It is my own.
It is my hands –
My frail, limp hands –
Hands that can hold a gentle rose
Or caress a snow-white cheek.
Strength is unneeded there.
I am safe among the fields,
Comforted by the embrace of the flowers.

Every evening, I took a tulip
And by the stem, plucked it.
O, the beauty!
The beauty I held in my hands!
The same hands of Promethean might
Could too hold a budding flower.

But Master scowled at me.
He punished me for my hands –
My weak, pathetic hands.
“You must be stronger,” he barks,
“Lift the hammer above your head,
And bring it down with might!
Stoke the fire! Keep it burning!
You must be stronger! Keep working!”

My hands would burn, but still I worked;
Master’s words rang in my skull.
And how they would redden and swell!
With every blow, I yearned for the embrace again
As my gears clicked together
And the machine slammed the anvil.

One evening prior, I fled to the fields
And tried to hide from Master.
While among the tulips, I plucked just one,
And the stem broke in two,
Graying and withering.
Now a corpse in my hand –
Hand of iron and lead –
It is without purpose.
I searched for others to place in its stead,
But all wilted in the iron grasp.

Old tears tell long stories...
Stories of memories
Stories of pain
Stories of days gone
One can never regain

Stories of children
born and grown
stories of lovers
come and gone

Stories of dreams
that never came near
Stories of fights
forgotten over the years

Stories of hopes
yet to fulfill
Stories of time
gone over the hill

Old tears fall from dimmer eyes
Old tears fall from hearts grown wise
Old tears fall with knowing glances
Falling now and still she dances.

In the hanging kitchen, the smell-
cut cayenned sausage, ejective tomato slices
the whole thing in the back of the throat, inflamed.
Olive oil. Vinegar. Billie talks about her "girl
friend." She lives in Mayfair. (Almost pretty;
don't look too long.)

At times I feel sick.

American man he
strikes the figure of a half-God
broad-shouldered, burned
he does Not exist, John Henry
split his bust long ago and we
are huddled small boys imperfect
in the dust of his legacy.

Our fathers stood from dinner tables kissed
wives were kissed by children one last sip of old
wines and walked into the night looking
for burned-up lamps, the memories of mountains.
Ate stone. Drank mist.
(A thirst for adventure is close to your heart.)
Fell into the grit, the failure, fell
into everything.
(Little else has taste once the spice of life is on your tongue.)

I have nothing but my understanding.
I want to be swaddled, paralytically blind, shamelessly loved.
Or to go out in the wicker
world, there to find whatever our best
died looking for, tigers or ruins or
a life after adventure.

In the comfort of blackness,
Beneath a veil of wool,
And with eyes without duty,
The symphony of night fades away
Like limestone in fiery rain.

And as I fall into a sea of darkness,
My eyes, still without purpose,
Grace me with fantastic apparitions,
And I hear whispers that echo in the void.

And within my weightless head,
The tumultuous gears and cogs
Grind and turn with speeds unheard,
And in the clockwork, a single spark
Flies from the iron machinery.

The spark is an entity of many names.
It is often a bonfire where tales
Of phantasmagorical beings and
Phenomenal landscapes are told.

There are times, however, when the spark
Takes a different name:
Inferno, a terrible creature
That destroys all life it touches
And ravages Nature’s beauty.

It is a dark roulette at times,
And though I know I cannot revel
In evening’s dusk eternally,
I now dread the blackness,
For fear of Inferno’s wrath.

Maiden, maiden
With locks of hazel
And skin of pearly white,
I beckon you, dearest beauty.
I present to you a rose.

But what is this?
The rose does wilt,
As if smothered by winter’s grasp.
Had I not plucked it a moment ago?
What spell or trick is this?

If only I were to see your eyes,
The eyes of an angel fallen.
I beseech to you vulnerably,
Yet your eyes never stray from your lap.

And what purpose do you have
On that boat in placid waters.
I pray, come, my pet,
For these mists are friends foremost
And undertakers in due time.

And yet not a word has escaped
Your rosy lips, fairest maiden.
‘Tis silent as death, this marsh.
I doubt your senses are dulled.

You hang your head as a holy sister,
But in mourning or not, I am unknowing
Speak of your pain, and I shall remedy;
Your wish is all I require.

Still, my lady, your voice is unheard.
To heal a foreign wound would be, at best,
Foolish, but perhaps, with your invisible lyre,
I can ascertain what is needed:
You, my delicate flower, can be saved
If you, in turn, save me.

I was blind before but not now.
No doubt, my lady, the frill of your dress
Reigns above all else, the grains of wood
On the boat’s hull is what you fancy most.
I see it now, true as every morn’s dawn.

Before my eyes this very moment,
I see but a mirror, and on the other side,
True beauty, beauty admired from a far,
Beauty to tease the poor souls who reach
And wish for something more than frigid glass.