I walked like water into this
Ready to be part of your cycle,
Rain and sleet and hail, and all we would need
Bountiful as light-
I slipped into your bathtub, silently
Caught in your current,
Thrown to the sea
Alone and unwilling to admit
I cannot swim and don’t want to
And all because I walked like water
And you mistook me for such.
Now, the drought has purged me of this,
Left senseless,
I’d have never taken this as the Mojave
Had I not given you my springs.
Now I walk like a continent into this,
I’ve got my own topography,
Don’t need your plains to carve into.
I walk like soil into this,
Now we mix tectonic into bliss,
Never was so beautiful a landslide,
No water, no tide
So you know I fall into this
I will not creep and crawl,
Seep through your rafters in the night
No, I’ll build you bedrooms,
Flowers in my mind,
Support,
Dependency,
Vulnerable
To your touch.

I missed you
until missing you
was the only thing that kept me
from loving you.

You are a warrior.
In the morning you put on your captain’s coat and lead an army of dreams into battle,
Your face set and sealed like the envelope folded in your back pocket,
A list of demands to your king.


You beat rhythms of war into concrete with your footsteps,
They echo off buildings and sneak though windows,
Impregnating the minds of peaceful men with visions of glory,
A gilded parasite.


You handle your weapon like an untamed beast,
You stroke its twisted lengths of steel as if to tame its roar,
Yet you feed it your unwanted sorrows,
And with dry eyes watch it cry your unshed tears.


Your enemy is made of fear and sits unflinching on the horizon.
He flies white flags but you see only ghosts,
His restless victims drifting in the breeze,
Waiting to reclaim what’s long been lost to false obligation.


I see you on the front lines of chaos,
Telling all that will listen tales of combat,
But you need not strain your voice.
For those who care to read them the lines etched across your furrowed brow tell a story older than your calloused hands.


At night you return to your lover,
Her crystal tongue as sharp and unforgiving as the grave she threatens to become.
In the darkness your fidelity goes unnoticed beneath a shroud of celestial flame,
Your promises like marbles falling to the ground, resounding cracks of thunder as they bounce off each other and are gone.


Yet your foe is in retreat,
Be it only for the time it takes for you to slip for a moment into a world where your soul is released from its wooden casket to breathe freedom,
A thought that slows the drum and softens the call,
And allows you at last to rest.

Time is a watery reflection of the universe
give it to me straight and drink with me
hold my hand and walk with me
into the steel-toed footsteps of society
my heart's supposed captor
the director of minds
the decider of dreams
and the definer of happiness
who lead your eyes to my soul's window
and allowed you to see so clearly
what I desire?
was it I myself
when i let slip
through trembling lips
all that was left of what I was
when the light threatened to expire
with words that shook the stones beneath our feet
with iron tones the empty street
with my word rings
and like the footsteps of ancient kings
can be heard for miles
echoed by the voices that dared to speak them again
my words find their rhythm
they don't need me
I'm part of a chain of speakers
as long as the hands of humanity
reach back
and longer still
as heavy as the rain that beats
growing stronger
i speak to that beat
the beat that breathes
the beat that lives
the beat that leaves
traces in our blood
like tracks on a road well-travelled
like a river after a flood
like poets of old I cling to the grass
and speculate on its origins
wishing for a moment to hear the voices
long silenced beneath its feathered stalks
I read immortal words
etched on paper as if on bone
they inspire words like the desert sun inspires thirst
no longer a passing interest
but a necessity
a sonic perscription
I watch those used phrases like clouds
forever morphing themselves into new shapes
born again to the imagination
the waters of diversity rise
bursting through the floodgates of human limitation
I put my stamp on an unsealed letter
and send it in desperation to the earth
I don't know you-
I don't know you.
but allow me to be for a moment
the page that catches your falling words
as you shed them to grow your soul anew
and i might know a piece of you
and take it as my own
I'll add my name to the list of people
who look at the night sky
and in uncertainty find themselves not alienated
but surrounded
and think their eyes too weak
or their souls too young
too see that which
in undue haste
to surpass the insurmountable
has gone to waste
and left us spinning
trying to shove meaning
into the hours during which we cannot see the sun.

Your arms are strong but your words are not
You hide behind colors that stand for something,
But you stand for nothing.
These colors, you say
Took man to the moon
But if they did it was only to retrieve the dreams
They had sent there in their youth
To give them back to their children.
Bravery is not a uniform.
You cannot take it off at your leisure.
It is a gift from your father and his father
And from the monsters under his bed
No different from the monster under your own.
And though I, too
Tremble at the foot of eternity
I will not cower at your threats of equality
Or your promises of freedom.
You say your colors can feed empty mouths
And fill empty hands
But those hands are turned brown
From the land that they sow
And you cannot stain them with your colors of freedom.
And if it is the line between man and god
That you wish to blur
Let this be a prayer to Man-
Your colors are not those that pave the roads of heaven,
And if tonight your gun is left smoking,
Let it be because you've used it
To **** the demons in your soul.

The rain has passed yet we are all still huddled beneath our dark umbrellas
Shielding ourselves for fear that when we look back
Things will not be as we left them
And if this is life let me face death as if it were a silver bullet,
So that I might watch it reflect the young rays of light
Onto my face,
And send me blind into the hands of tomorrow
Have you forgotten that your god speaks to you through your own sullied lips,
From his throne nestled deep in the folds of circumstance,
Built of love and undreamt dreams,
Or perhaps of flesh and blood
If one is not the other,
And that he is often called a soul?
Your children stand alone atop frozen cliffs,
They do not feel the ground crumbling beneath their feet,
And where there should be iron cages protecting their fragile hearts
There is but bone,
So easily broken
Crushed by shoulders holding up the world by its bootstraps,
Or what is left of them,
Little more than what is left after flame has reduced to ash
All but the smallest of creatures to start anew
And we beg them to start anew
We beg them to wash away the bodies,
The open mouths that once spoke,
And were considered wise.
I am tired of running around in the confines of my existance
Your words are spoken,
Speak them not again,
And give all that you have left to those who still believe in magic

Dear Stranger you've shown me the earth.
Not as I see it but as you do,
An ocular rebirth
You asked me if I'd like for a moment
To look through your spyglass
The one you hang on a chain above your heart
And see through tinted lenses
That refract tainted beams of time
The mountains you saw as a child
And thought holy.
Well, I do
I'd like to see that and more,
If you'd let me stay a minute longer
If you'd let me take shelter in your arms
Till nigh on the horizon looms the golden shore
Till the final notes are played
Of the song you heard as a child
The one that taught you how to smile
And quietly we'd keep awhile
As society's engines run wild
I'd wrap your head in flowers
To remind you of your existance
Your momentary brilliance
As the petals lose their form
And ease into sleep
Against your skin
We too would be freed from this world
Locked in our treehouse
A temple we built
To the gods alive in our bodies
A honeycomb house
Made of chambers
Identical to those in our hearts
We'd live there too.
I'd be a river
And you'd be my name
I'd carry promises
Like stones from the ocean
Downstream to be yours
We'd be the unlikely meeting
Of opposing poles
And we'd wear the smile
Of their newfound friendship
Like a coat
To protect us from the winds
In the eye of the storm
When all we can see
Is spinning too fast to hold
So we wouldn't try.
We'd sway to the push and pull
Of the wind
Like waves that wash away
The most magnificent of castles
Into millions of pieces
Waiting to be reassembled.
We'd whisper secrets like songs
And the first one would be
"yes"