Inspiration
Comes knocking twice a year
In the form of gentle snowfalls
Or heart-stopping storms
Moments that are captured
With the click of a button
And the whirring of lens

Is it really that easy
To capture a fleet-footed muse?

Is it really that easy
To capture what's worth ten thousand treasures?

Come back, my muse,
Knock on my door
For I have my camera ready now.

I'm ready for you.

glimmers in the night
give away their call
the deer scurry home -
waves rise and fall

out near the lake is new
a king and queen, a perfect two,
yet with each other had
they no truth - no glimmer
no glimmer to bind
to call the deer home
a home shot, dying down
but no complaint had she
and he was too often in town

the angels in waiting were true
they listened and watched
and listened and watched
they repeated the words
listened and watched
and after a while
pearled fingers tapped
padded moss mats
asking for more
by betting on doom

and the glimmer,
the lights of day!
without hesitation
they withered away
with those angel wings
as greed, and hate,
came into play

the lights of the night
no longer in this forest reside
they moved away quick
in here no room exists
for tarnished angel wings

Can you imagine
   the beach
          at night?
I dream each day
Each
    fleeting
          day

The seagulls would stop cryin’
And they would be asleep
Nary a soul would be in sight
But for the lone guy on the beach
The rocks to the right
Cast terrifying shadows
And their moonlit surfaces seem like
Ghasts of night

The waves pound in my head
Thud, thud, thud
A wave comes in
And smashes ‘gainst those pale sharp rocks
It claims some sand
And retreats again
Back to the depths of the lake

I would trail my feet along the sand,
To greet the rhythmic sea
The wave comes in again
And splashes at my feet

With the coolness of the water
The crispness of the air
I unfurl my wings and fly away
Leaving everything behind

There’s a dark grotto
Under the sea
With shelves and shelves
Of bottles
Clear, glass bottles
All of my secrets

A carefully watched castle
The middle of a concentric series of impassable walls
Surrounded by a forest of kelp
With razor-sharp teeth
And then the narwhals
The narwhal guards
Armed to the teeth with halibut-slicing knives
Their three-meter horns
Gleaming in the moonlight
Guarding
All of my secrets

Skeletons, trespassers of yore,
Strewn about the seafloor
Bones picked clean
By the scavenging *****
No one can enter
No one can leave
The grotto with the shelves
Shelves and shelves of clear, glass bottles
All of my secrets

But as for the *****
For the first time in centuries
The sunlight warms the waters
Melts the kelp
Kisses the narwhals
Buries the bones and torments the scavengers
Clearing away the darkness
A nonstop route through the castle
Protecting
All of my secrets

The tendrils of photons creep along
Wary
Ready for a fight
The grotto growls menacingly
Unguarded
For the first time in centuries
But upon the first touch -
Light meets stone -
The sea shudders
Ecstasy
And in repayment for salvation
Out come the bottles
Floating to the surface
Bathing in the light
All of my secrets