I would have told you of how there are seas beneath this skin, how there's a storm inside that never ends, how despite it all there's a light within me that never goes out.  

Of how the ocean whispers in my ears as the voices submerge, how I'm put together by broken promises and shattered dreams, how I've drowned in alcohol for nights just to forget.

Of how I balance these fragile smiles amidst the pain, how I've mastered the way to make tear stains on my face disappear by morning, how I wanted to never wake up from that night with you.

Of how you took me home,
but wouldn't be home for me.

(A.H.Z)

There were some roses, once, a long time ago.

They grew out of nothing, out of a tiny seed that burst and ****** its contents out into the new and terrifying air, and even then they didn't exist but for the idea that one day they might.

There were some roses, once:

the product of a process that included water and light and the removal of weeds and the implementation sharp protection from predators: deer and birds and squirrels and the like.

There were some roses once:

great surges of crimson fruit that bloomed so fiercely in their rebellion against the surrounding thorns
dedicated to the protection of the home of the finely spun veined silk that blossomed almost overnight.

There were some roses once:

Never has such beauty been guarded so staunchly;

and with good reason, for the rose in its radiance has but one short season to stretch its arms and breathe its perfume to which all lovers beg and swoon.

There were some roses once:

They faded,
green
then red
then crimson
then purple and umber.

But in their slumber we see the bloom we once beheld on that summer day.

We fondled their petals, hastened their decay.

There were some roses once, a long time ago.

They had to die, as if on cue, as living things tend to do,
and oh, they dried so elegantly!
Plainly meant for royalty.

And even in their most brittle form, they're somehow warm
Somehow still new.

So you plant some more, you cut the weeds, you draw blood on their thorny guards,
knowing that it's not for you, but for the birds in their back porch churchyard.

And the moment the first rose peers around from inside the womb, well
there's your reward,

to forward the growth of something so fragile and sweet.

So ruthless if you aren't aware of its teeth.

That moment when your realize,
You've taken a step too far,
You can't take it back,
You're ruined forever.

It seems to me that golden sparks and silver shimmerings,
Belong to those that still have dreams and wonderful imaginings.
For those of us tired and weary,
Dreams are of death and end.
As though somehow,
The urge to continue,
Wanes,
Like a dissolving moon,
Appearing to disappear,
Its presentness luckily found,
Again the horizon allows slow moving shadows,
To reflect the sunshine of the day,
To creep slowly 'cross the sky,
And bring understanding of the night.
This is my end,
When stars fade to black,
Nothing is left for me here,
Not for lack of desire,
But for a lack of dreams.

We live not so much as to what we are
As to what we are becoming.
But I suspect that what we are becoming
Is, in truth, what we really are.
This now merely a state of separation
Hastening toward unity, integration,
                     wholeness...
Up ahead, the road will become narrower,
                     rougher...
The journey will become increasingly
                     harder...
You may want to surrender...
                     take my hand...


- fr

sometimes i wake in fear
to the sound of anguished cries
to the bleating of war drums and the
rumble and thud of bombs

i awake already sobbing
our tears, all running together,
tiny rivulets in the mud until they reach
that place where fires,
debris and strongly held opinions
stand stoically like the hoover dam
a counter-insurgency against
the natural course of our suffering

the resounding roar of empire
mangy hawks across the way shrieking where
a brittle statue of a dull and angry man
rears it's ugly head each morning

sometimes i wake to this abhorrent cacaphony
and then i feel powerless

everyone is saying that they are waging these wars
for freedom
while all our lives and dreams are crushed every moment

will someone ask that man
on the tv with strong opinions and facts
about people he's never met
if he, in his infinite wisdom, knows
how many more bombs it will take until
the seething violence of humanity
cracks open the
forlorn and solemn soul of the earth?

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.

Write, for instance: "The night is full of stars,
and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance."

The night wind whirls in the sky and sings.

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

On nights like this, I held her in my arms.
I kissed her so many times under the infinite sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her.
How could I not have loved her large, still eyes?

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
To think I don't have her. To feel that I've lost her.

To hear the immense night, more immense without her.
And the poem falls to the soul as dew to grass.

What does it matter that my love couldn't keep her.
The night is full of stars and she is not with me.

That's all. Far away, someone sings. Far away.
My soul is lost without her.

As if to bring her near, my eyes search for her.
My heart searches for her and she is not with me.

The same night that whitens the same trees.
We, we who were, we are the same no longer.

I no longer love her, true, but how much I loved her.
My voice searched the wind to touch her ear.

Someone else's. She will be someone else's. As she once
belonged to my kisses.
Her voice, her light body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, true, but perhaps I love her.
Love is so short and oblivion so long.

Because on nights like this I held her in my arms,
my soul is lost without her.

Although this may be the last pain she causes me,
and this may be the last poem I write for her.