called to scour these transient shores
i am slammed against graffitti'd walls
by winds of hate
and waves of steel
in silent vigil
i caress the promise time has made
the place that fate holds for me
i can see
i can touch
i will find
at the end of this storm

Those hours, that with gentle work did frame
The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell,
Will play the tyrants to the very same
And that unfair which fairly doth excel;
For never-resting Time leads summer on
To hideous winter and confounds him there,
Sap checked with frost and ***** leaves quite gone,
Beauty o’ersnowed and bareness everywhere.
Then, were not summer’s distillation left
A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,
Beauty’s effect with beauty were bereft,
Nor it nor no remembrance what it was.
    But flowers distilled, though they with winter meet,
    Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet.

Your kindness
a sunflower
whose many seeds
sustain the sparrow's
song of joy
and rest assured
do gorgeously
germinate in
thin-hulled souls
the soil is ripe
love yearns
to be reborn.

Hush, thrush! Hush, missen-thrush, I listen...
I heard the flush of footsteps through the loose leaves,
And a low whistle by the water's brim.

Still! Daffodil! Nay, hail me not so gaily,-
Your gay gold lily daunts me and deceives,
Who follow gleams more golden and more slim.

Look, brook! O run and look, O run!
The vain reeds shook? - Yet search till gray sea heaves,
And I will stray among these fields for him.

Gaze, daisy! Stare through haze and glare,
And mark the hazardous stars all dawns and eves,
For my eye withers, and his star wanes dim.


2

Close, rose, and droop, heliotrope,
And shudder, hope! The shattering winter blows.
Drop, heliotrope, and close, rose...

Mourn, corn, and sigh, rye.
Men garner you, but youth's head lies forlorn.
Sigh, rye, and mourn, corn...

Brood, wood, and muse, yews,
The ways gods use we have not understood.
Muse, yews, and brood, wood...

Dead flowers are brittle, break
easy.
Dust covers the things you gave me,
mutes them, claims them, overtakes
them, squeezing the pages of books
together until they choke,
clouding the glass jar that you use
as a vase for the dead flowers.

Dead flowers do not need water, live
easy.
You made
the bed this morning
so if memory failed me
I would have no way of seeing today
that you were here last night.
And when I blink my eyes,
for that moment they're closed
I cringe with the sudden goodbye,
every instant turned away from your face
filled with the graceless empty
of having just finished a book.
No longer able to live in its eyes,
burrow into its spine, nestle
into the crook
of its neck.

dead flowers are brittle, break easy,
please, please be careful
with this–

i swear i write every word just to reach you.
everything i do is to teach you , to understand how i need to be loved, with the coldest distance that keeps me warm at night.
love me carefully, please

I am like a ghost to you
Never knowing what to do
Take this heart and use it to
Its not much good without you

I am like a staircase
I can take you to a place
Never to see your face
But you step on me with grace

The clock is ticking out of time
We stepped out of line
The sun refuses to shine
On this face of mine

Whatever makes you happy dear
I want you to hold me near
Never will you sense my fear
A little longer and I wont be here

tears will fall from your eyes beyond your control,
you'll hate to tear away from his touch for the first time in a month,
his voice will sound like the song of a canary,
and his smell will bring you back home,

but when you don't have to clutch your heart
because you don't feel your lungs collapsing,
or your breath stopping short in your throat,
or your veins flood with anger and shake your body,
you're on the right road.

his eyes will be safe-havens you turn away from,
and you'll want to embrace and hug him
because you never know when it will be the last time,

but
when he's walking away,
and you don't feel your feet trying to follow,
or your hands trying to grasp and hold him back,

know, he's already lost you;
know, he doesn't have all of you anymore
and you're gonna be okay, kid.

NR(2015)