I had a table runner
with intricate yellow thread
it reminded me of your favourite restaurant.
But my mouth brimmed with knowings
that didn’t go anywhere.
My tongue swelled
and felt like when rainfall dribbles down windows.
A chest of perplexing fact
but I will not utter a single thing.
A double blow to your hands,
each one dances with questions
unanswered and prancing along book spines and potted plants,
while you wait for my preordained leave

If I speak of the thick liquor
Of sugar syrup on tree bark,
And in honeycomb of bees’ nests,
In the dark of the hive,
Does your water now taste of it?

If I speak of the slumping, damp plants,
The slow drip-drip-dripping
Into the wet marsh below,
And flight of the water bugs,
Do you hear it echo?

If I speak of the soft satin viola petal,
Of bubbled, soggy foam
Along the shoreline,
Of frilly mushroom gills,
Do your fingertips feel it too?

If I speak of the sun speckled icicles
Off of barn roofs,
And trees swaying in wind,
Like synchronized swimmers
Do you see it before you?

If I speak of crisp, autumn air,
Of picked pine needles,
And low tide’s kiss,
Where the wet bear hunts fish,
Does the room now smell of them?

The tread up was quick,
Read my map before we
Stopped for a picnic
Kicking rocks, picking leaves
Eating berries on the trees
Incline and decline but nothing
We couldn’t face with ease
T’was a breeze

But at the top...
When we stopped,
When the mountain grew red
And the thunder below us
Causing sweat beads to shed
And hopefulness fled
We looked to each other
And cried
As my face and bones vulcanized
Of the bubbling magma
The struggling stagnant stance
Of our feet betraying us,
Standing nonplussed
Breathing croaky and gruff
I huff,
You hum

What have we done

The fractal rays of the light
Through the frozen window,
The furious wind blows
My curious thought echos
The storm will not cease
But my mind is at ease

The smoke of the chimneys,
Fierce howling of might,
The fright of the whistling branch
The snow in a fury; a dance
The storm will not cease
But my mind is at ease

The latch rattles, wood creaks
Dust emancipated from antiques
My heart speaks
To the williwaw shrieks
The storm will not cease
But my mind is at ease

Your once opalite mind,
Like charcoal
Like abrasive sod
Vitriolic tendencies
But alas,
You’ve sent them down sea
Burning the barque,
Where the body of your old ways lay
As you watch the ashes of the past
Incinerate and orchestrate into soot
A gaseous state of night terrors,
A smoky, mocking, voluminous cloud
That’s laughing at your errors,
Wrongdoings you’ve bared
The incandescence of your deeds
Bleeds for both of us
The deceit now loud,
A banging drum,
A thump against your head unbowed
You don’t cower, now
Standing ground, brows frowned,
Tenacity potent, firm stance, hands focused
Searing stare of green eyes,
Your stentorian war cry
A changing fate dancing nearby
Hyper-focused on the prize
With your battle axe in hand
Eqquiped for the skirmish
Ready for the ride
And me
Fighting at your side

I trudge; sludge behind me⁣
I try to hasten forward⁣
But I’m fastened beneath⁣
With the bedevilled unending well of⁣
Water befouled,⁣
Water of my tainted travel⁣
I’m carrying buckets of troubles⁣
I have to let go⁣
But the snail doesn’t know that it’s slow.⁣

If I feed upon a glimmer,
Or leave a palpable feeling
of a future behind me
For another that is abstract and fleeting
Would I learn things about me
That I didn’t know I didn’t know?
Your pearlescent glow
Is a well full of wishes I made long ago
You bring me my pennies
And we sigh
Wondering if
Wondering why

Deceiving
Dainty,
Disguised
Delay

Achieving
Angry
Advised
Astray­

Rereading
Rarity
Realize
Replay

Evening
Eery
Edgewise
Erase

S­eething
Safety
Surprise
Someday

I.
Bare-footed frolic,
In forest of peril,
To dine with the swine,
Though filthy and feral,
We eat with the pig,
We feast on the wheat,
We banish the wolf,
Who we don’t wish to meet.

II.
Below, befallen brothers,
Laying vertical in oak,
Defend my earthly body
Cover me in cloak.

Souls of loved departed,
Who whistle in the trees,
Redirect the cacodemon
The one who waits for me.

Spirit of the past,
Soothe with healing chants
Be my blinded eyes,
Protect me when I can’t.

III.
Bewitching
Betwixt the realm
Betwixt the elm and willow
Climb the hill
Of counting sheep
In search of sleep
Along your pillow.
Let eyes grow weary more;
Let dreams,
Let nightly scenes redeem,
And let soar
The fairy who flies
In search of eyes, wide awake.
Let me find
The lullaby,
To lull to rest
Until the next daybreak.

IV.
Which one will help me there?
The owl or the fox?
The leaping frog beyond the marsh,
The eagle or the hawk?
Who will be my spotting eye?
The “X” that marks my way?
I need the spirit’s guiding light
To not be led astray.

V.
Fire, red
And fire, high,
Beyond the line,
Beyond the sky
Ball of light,
Sphere of gas
Bless my soul
And cleanse my past.

Nightly phase,
Nightly scene,
Moon of magic
Time of dreams,
Wish me well,
Come to play,
Guide my footing,
Guide my way.

Your grappling hook
Latched to my rope
I harness the hope of hereafter
I greet it with laughter
We snicker at the doom below,
A tomb you’ll never know,
As the womb of our quiddity
The viscidity of release,
The nucleus of your fantasy
Is what my mind seduces
I’ll never fall,
I’ll never traduce this
And we will know the peak
The proximate pinnacle,
The victory,
The conquered squall
The tallest wall,
We will know defeat

Those green eyes of yours
My favourite thing to see
So now please face me

I look around here
For something just as pleasing
Who am I teasing

My heart of a whittler’s hesitant interest
A ficus among all the shiny canoes
A journey unknown, both wandering and lost
Its song bellows out for not one ear to witness

Perhaps, unsure of them who walk on two feet
It’s thump resonates with the owl and the hare
It’s chorus harmonizing with melodious gust
The wind knows it well, matching rhythm and beat

My aura, uncoloured, holds true an inquiry
Am I fated to flee from grasps of eminence?
Fated to avoid the stained foot steps ahead
And follow the will-o’-the-wisps inside me?

My heart of an artists blank canvas prevails
Unscathed and untampered at what cost
Questions of when will it learn to play rough
My human carcass held anchored as my essence sets sail

I slit apart your soul,
And I ridicule your innards,
I cackle at the thought of such a sad excuse
For this lump of human rind and bone,
You lived a life alone
And so,
Your termination shall be so, as well

I interpose myself between the dirt and your mind,
My jaw unhinges devilishly
My tongue licks you blind,
As it spits putrid words of pity
Dastardly staring darts into your
Witty little demise
That I conjured up myself,
A plan I devised
Your shriek will not salvage what’s left
Stop wriggling,
Your writhing is futile
You’re powerless,
Pathetic mortal *******,
You’re crucified
Why bother try?
Your cries go unnoticed,
Neither dead or alive
No one close by
Your miserable wheezing
As I’m breathing with ease
I’ll mutilate your wants and desires
Set ablaze in a fire
Incinerated with your own choir
Your sad song of solus fate
You’re at stalemate
Your blood will stagnate
Until it’s mucilaginous
Until your own body defeats you,
It chokes you and mistreats you,
And ends you from the inside out
A slow death, undoubtedly
A vile, cataclysmic, unendurable ending
An excruciating decease
But fair,
As you deserve nothing less
Than this wretched release

My magick incantation
Is unfaded and unshaded.
When the earth knows deterioration
I feel a responsibility, a reaction,
A habit forming,
A sorcery alluring.
I feel a voice, concerning, calling.
I’ll conjure my knowledge,
Nestled safely on broomstick,
And take hitch,
Pitch my best, paint the peeling patches,
Seek solutions to problems,
And pour the answers in the cauldron.
The ways to heal the earth are finding me.
My voice reverberates
Through spoken spells.
I can yell!
I can tell the stories,
While my sisters lived mute.
And knew the inside of a casket too early,
Too often misunderstood.
Punished for what they cast.
And simply because of
The timing of my birth,
I’m worth more than my kin,
Of years before.
I won’t be hung for writing this,
I won’t have to prepare my lips
For death’s kiss,
Even if I was a witch.

The sun greets me in pieces, through the evergreens’ needles and limbs,
Tickling bits of dust particles,
And air-born, fluttery spores,
Soothing my goosebumps.
But the wooded labyrinth has a magnetizing aroma,
One of eerie descent
That I can’t let go of,
Even with the subdued lullaby of warm, midday light.
I crave the unnerving mystery
That the tall, stoic, ligneous soldiers give without hesitation.
I want to be caught with my heart in my throat,
And my breath unattainable.
I want their twigs and wiggly things
Wriggling in my core,
And hear my heartbeat thumping: “more!”
And befall my breathy song;
My wail
That never ends
Until I find the forest center.
Where most are lost,
I’m found.

I fasted
Tried to see what it is to not have you
Tried to release your hand
I lasted
Maybe a moment or two,
I allowed myself to starve of you,
But what hors d'oeuvres could compare
What wine would I lick from my lips
And taste better than you there
I fasted
I failed
Let me hear your thumping ohm,
I am done with this nightmare
Take me home

If I drink from the empty jar, do I swallow
Will it be my pride, or the things I hide inside and cried over,
And if temptation offers it’s hand do I spit in it,
Do a bat my eyelashes,
Do I grin at it
Do I sin, and take hold of a dream up in ashes

If an empty jar calls me like a seashell song, do I press my lips to its rim
And drink from within
The drink that is desert air,
Dry as my skin
As empty as my hands
And do I grin
When it fills up again

The drum – the beat reverberates,
the coffin-held heart still quakes,
between the time traversed, unseen
before it died below the green.

The hand who grasps at last resorts
and goes for throws the body thwarts;
the scathed and bloodied knuckle skin,
is not a hand that you can win.

Of kin in blood, but that is all,
your legacy and greatness fall,
and eyes will watch as you go down,
but none the lips will wear a frown.

Between hums of your lingering facade
And drums of the exhilarating subsequent of this
My body acts as a time-glassed compass
Letting the magnet pull
Letting me yearn towards the bona fide path
While I control time,
And the remedial effects of it
As I chant
“I am fine
I am fine
I am fine”

As I regret the passing year,
Foreign warnings call,
A toll I thought I’d never hear,
A bell molests my ears
Why must I fear the sound,
I had all year to makeready
I had the ammunition in my grasp
I had all year to get steady
I had the motivation of my past
Your idiosyncrasies, to my disbelief
Were widely unknown to my reverie
Foolishly dislodged from my instincts
The irreconcilable ways in which we think

The irreconcilable ways
In which you used to think,
Foolishly dislodged from your instincts
Now widely unknown to your reverie
My idiosyncrasies are your beliefs
You take the motivation of your past
And learn to make my trembles steady
You have the ammunition in your grasp
Now use your motive to makeready
We don’t fear the sound
The bell rings for our ears
A toll we couldn’t wait to hear
Foreign sounds will call
As you and I rewrite the year

Is this lechery for your trickery?
Is this wicked at play,
But I like it anyway?
Do I have say, at all,
Within these fallen walls
My eyes gleam and sway
The chandelier jingles,
The doors close,
My eyes glow
Is this lechery for your trickery,
Or do I just love a good show?

Lay siege to my mind;
Pull strands of old thought
Through old soot, through old knots
Force the draw bridge to lower,
Archaic mosaic of my brain’s walls
A palisade to invade
A great brawl

Raise the caskets,
A layer of dust, and sediment
A lock of resentment, a fear of resettlement
A mockery of my pottery
My walls fall into crumble,
How long until dismemberment
How long until my deepest thoughts
Are your white elephant

“Fear is a place”,
I told the hissing shadow.
“You can’t choose if you end up there, but once there, you can choose whether or not you want to stay”.

Fear was baffled,
And bellowed, suddenly, like a bronze cannon,
“I’m real just like you! How can I be a place if I’m standing right here”.

“Because a real person still exists if you walk away.”

Gather yourself,
And I’ll pour you a glass of my antidote
Under your shell the maggots collect,
Recollect your demeanor and your best memories, we all need reminders that we don’t just have enemies,
Release
Find the keys to the chest,
And let your chest beat be a palpitating reminder of the rest
Take a gander at my remaining treasures
Fleeting and weathered
Unlike your rising regret
You’re focused on the things you need to forget
Clutch my clenching flesh-cloaked metacarpal bones
Before my rationality and my senses go, or at least before your will to live releases so

Crawl on me with spider legs
Thunder thoughts, unleash the plague
Shout your secrets, lay your eggs
On your knees and beg

You cower in the corner, small
You hear my heart beat in the walls
Muscles tense while voices call
You drown me like a waterfall

Protective waves sweep my veins
Washing off the year’s bloodstain
To sow, then weep, then harvest grain
Until we’re weak, and welcome pain

Of all the past and lives foregone
I found you in each frightful one
My bones and teeth remember well
The haunting sound of the passing bell

I have a hollow part of me,
That is chartered for use,
Named
Owned
Signed and sold

It’s molded for only one kind
No other hands can hold
No other ears can hear what’s told
No other’s love can find
No other’s soul can wholly bind

Your cessation
The conclusion I’ve come to
The fate we never un-dwindled
The fate we never bared
But it was a fate of mine and someone else
A fate beheld
Against you
Without you
A fate unshared

Why yes,
Your meek existence has not gone unheard
You showed me the way
Walked me to the path,
But now you must watch my fading back
This was no fortuity
No fortune with me,
No future you seek was held in my teeth

No,
Your kismet is kind, though blind
It’s behind you
Let your debossed muddied stride
Be your guide
I’ll wave goodbye
You belong somewhere still
But it’s not by my side

The staggering hiss and crackle of the ice beneath your feet
Is the same sputtering strain I feel in my chest;
The beat of the muscle contracting,
The beat of the muscle recedes, taking comfort in it’s nest

A phantom, masked,
The apparition of my past, taken aghast without reason taken into scrutiny, without heed
Inexcusably
Without the feud, or the fight
Or the chance at a bait cast

I stare stained glass in the face,
Unclear, tainted of a better day,
Unsure where the path lays
My spectacles unmovable,
I should take on eyes of the blind, but I can’t look away

Vineyard of vermilion.
A bind holding hands in entranced sky,
While the bird lays beneath,
And the pig flies.

The labyrinthine stone,
The intricate, desired key.
We mourn the ****** flesh
Between crooked teeth.

I’m cold in my blanket.
The diamond pen writing ugly names,
While we encourage
The very same.

We pick-pocket the honey of bees,
And sinking eyes notice more
Than the spyglass.
We ask the wrong questions.
Fire knows a place beneath my skin,
My heart of fertile earth,
Unscathed by the cult or the creed.

Vigour of the bully,
The scar of the fossilized abuse,
While bodies dangle
Of the mangled noose.

Graveyard pursuit;
We dig the bones of yesteryear,
But we don’t clean off the dirt,
Or wipe the tear.

Beyond the known sky,
Truth lives in a lonely house.
When the lunch bell rings,
The lion is food for the mouse.

We pick-pocket the honey of bees,
Unscathed by the cult or the creed.

Assess me,
I’m frigid and bare;
I took the plunge, dare to join me?
Dare to fly without baggage and forage beneath?
It’s freeing
To tear down the wall
And let the outsiders crawl
Into the cavern of your ribs and the creases of your mind
Where there’s nowhere to hide
Climb me
I’ll show you the steps
You’ll wish there were less
But you’ll never grow tired, each stair a compass, each tread I undress
To collect at the top of the mountain
Drink from my river, your personal fountain,
Dig your toes in the dirt, plant your seeds in a line
Divert from nothing; my insides benign, lie naked, unafraid, unhidden, unbind

The puddle of penitence is milky and murky,
Fermenting and gyrating,
Effervescently mutating,
A reminder of berating
Within your grasp the very backbone,
The very impetus of another
The sanction you receive,
You can’t un-bleed a calloused wound
You can’t undo
A lie like a slow perfidy
Why live a life double-taking
Painstakingly paranoid,
Glancing worriedly, walking treacherously
Living in a void,
There’s nothing you avoid but a choice,
To know true bliss,
But an action can be handpicked
One slip and the framework un-clicks
Undone like the thread of a waistcoat
A waisted blow, too late to know
Don’t follow the notion below
Before you know, it’s too late
A thorny gate of ruin,
Where as soon as you pass through:
Too late to chase facts
Too late to undo, too late to retract
Too late to set intact the fractured past
Down a long distorted path of sin
Where it’s too late to take it all back
And who wants that?
Just a race you’ll never win.

Clenched fork
I see the horror scene but before it was just my bedroom door
Just a block of wood and handle
Just a frame of come and go
And now it slows and slumps
In an echo
A world I didn’t know before I knew
- Then you spoke, -then I knew
And the door became skewed
Like the thoughts that used to comfort, that I felt and I coddled and I clenched
Like my fork
But now I clench with a sore throat
And a dimming hue
A feeling I never knew until I knew

If a voice
Flutters through walls,
Or seeps from my pillow —
If a voice calls,
I want to know their name.

A wandering soul who once lived
With body and skin,
As I,
So why should I cry at the sight?
And why is darkness
What we see,
In the souls of the dead?
I see light.

Villainous hands
Belong to the living.
The dead have redeemed.
Lost souls, unattached
To ****** wrong.

The soul:
The epitome of glorious, ignorant life —
Unbiased, unbound.
Clean,
Refreshing breeze,
That raise hairs on my skin,
But I don’t run away.

Come sit,
Or dance with the sun-sparkled dust.
Peruse through the books
On bowed shelf.
Come sing of borrowed voices.
Come dine.
And exist in a place
Without exile.

If a spirit is searching
For a home between lives,
A place to rest —
Like the bird makes a nest,
Let it be.
I don’t weep,
I make friends
With the ghost that lives with me.
I am shell
To the slug you call ugly.

I am haunted.
Don’t worry for me.

I am haunted,
But I want to be.

The fact of the matter,
That matters,
Is that you matter,
No matter what matters to others.
We’re sisters and brothers,
We’re all made of matter.
You don’t matter less,
No matter your dress.
And no matter our differences.
He or her,
Or they, for that matter,
You matter the same.
No matter your looks,
No matter the thinner or fatter,
And no matter your name,
You matter.

Caricature of a truth.
I lay down my wheat and fire iron.
In smoky mirrors, I spread my tail feathers
Alongside the peacock.

When will time be fated to wrist restraints;
When will the Milky Way dance?

If we pick the leaves of the blueberry bush,
Should we ask how she feels of it?
I will dress her in new garb
Before the rooster crows,
If she so wishes.

Why must we play riddles with the unknown?
We poke fun at the things we should practice.
We don’t know the invisible barricade
Unless we paint it.
If we paint it.
Will we paint it?

And when eyes fall,
Of royal silk red,
And swords collide,
Will all be sought?
Have we learned already as people?
Have we forgotten?

Sharpened knife,
And quarterstaff.
The dermis artist before you,
Decorticating all who disobey.
All who fall astray,
Or choose a better tree to climb.
How do we not see?
How do we not see that we are blind?

And when will we learn?
When will we be taught?
Will we ever know,
Will we ever know of what is true and right?
Will we ever know,
The things that we should change,
The things that we should fight,
The things that don’t belong?

The rooster crows.
The rooster’s song is sad,
Because the rooster knows what’s wrong.

Don’t ask why all must end —
Without end,
There would not be beginning.

There would not be reason,
Or lesson,
Or strength.

Without death,
No life.
No wonder,
No loss.

Toxins would fester beneath skin,
And without ending,
Your patience wears thin,
If nothing ends,
We give in.
Nobody wins.

Without closure,
Without moving on,
Without change:
Doors stay closed,
All is mediocre,
And bland to the taste.
Nothing improves.
Everything stays.

Don’t ask why all must end.
We know pain like a close friend,
When the end visits,
And it costs us large sums
Of ourselves.
But beginnings are not born
Without help.
New life doesn’t sprout —
The fungus doesn’t grow
Without the fallen green turning grey.

Don’t ask why.
It ends because it must.
Trust the stops the train takes on the way.
Grieve,
And cry until sober of sorrow,
But know,
That today’s end
Brings tomorrow.

Tangled,
Wiry sleep-thoughts
Still float
In the cloud above my head.
A headache,
Born of the annoying red flowers.
A self-diagnosis of pure envy;
I hate all that is beauty today.

The salmon’s bones,
Fragile,
But not as delicate as myself.
The salmon still swims upstream.
I melt between the wooden dowels
On the back of my chair,
In the dining room,
Where I eat my salmon and greens.
I took out her bones,
So now she feels like me.

A veil comes across, a grieving sound beckons but a helpless whisper pulls
A grieving sound beckons but a helpless whisper pulls
You pull at what strings lay withered of me
Your strength - not untangles, but, detaches my puppets
I lay about with wholehearted regret, as I’m regurgitating health back into you, but where is mine if I’ve used it all up for my friend.
Where is mine if I’ve used it all up for my friend.

The tree sobs happily,
In milky water.
The water bug kisses the fetid foliage.
And all is damp.
All is good.

The marsh is alive in the night.
The call of the cricket leg plays,
Along to the baritone frog croak.
All is good in the marsh.

Muted tones of green
And copper
Grow short and tall,
Sprouting from their liquid home.
Grey stones
(But you wouldn’t know),
Carpeted in moss and lichen.

So dead,
So alive.
The mystery,
As sweet as the cool lacquer of dew
Misting over me.
I blink the haze from my eyes.
Aye,
But I still cry.
I still weep with delight,
Of the sight before me.
I cry with the tree.

And by sun,
The milk-water looks as ice,
That moves as gelatinous dancers,
Or as silk
In the wind.

If the rain only knew,
That the swamp will be wet either way.
But when the sky
Matches color and dress
With the grungy mire,
Everything looks as it should.
All is good.

Five fingers.
Five fingers too late, and an empty plate.
Wasted day.
Wasted fate, wasted away.
They say it’s always darkest before morning,
Yet dawn is a moment that we sleep through.
We miss it,
We reel it in with fishing rods,
We wish it near,
We kiss it when it’s here.
But we are usually too busy to see it,
Our beady eyes focused on reliving the past.
Misery will attach like a leech.
And regret is a creep
Who lurks in the woods behind maple leaves.
Above closed eyelids
Does hope make a home.
Overcoming what’s been done
Is not a race of hare and tortoise,
It’s the bullet of a gun.
I am a foreign song,
Resident of a place I don’t belong.

Can I be the man in the woods?
Who walks with viridescent leaves,
And reaches like branches
With purpose?

Can I be him —
He who couldn’t be bothered
Whether empty sea-salt shells
Lie against his stalk?
His talented, contorted arms
Pimpled in thin, brittle bird eggs.
Home to the silk-giving wolf spider.

He knows vines,
Not as something that strangulates,
But as garment.
Saprophyte and toadstool
Like jewelry,
Dress his textured body.
Extravagant, speckled robe for his promotion,
Into new life-giving.

And if I can’t be him,
Can I at least ask what it is
To know the sky closely?
And how it feels
To speak so clearly without voice?
To root-dance —
To be the rooftop of the rabbit,
And the watchtower for the owl.
To taste earth-given water with taproot,
And stand as a landmark
For the soaring hawk.
I know he would tell me,
He loves to share.

His nurturing stance.
He smiles at the small aphid who feeds.
And without needing anything in return,
He gives riches to the forest,
Endlessly,
Even long after he falls.
Aye, like a Phoenix,
He may even be born again
Of his own remains.

I wish I could be him.
But instead,
I write these wishes
Upon his pulpy skin.

Catastrophic throne,
Fermenting underneath my bones
As I sit above the chaos,
But as long as I sit motionless,
Focus on ahead instead of what’s at loss
The rocky remnants of your regret
Will crumble,
Go to rack and ruin
If I sit above the chaos,
It will all be over soon

Wood upon wood,
I build the wall a door.
The wall that stood tall between foe,
And now stands,
As proof that held hands
Can come without gloves
And wounds.

Cheek upon cheek,
I spread the water leaked
Of eyes once grown sore and red,
To water the bountiful garden,
That community gathered,
To sow and spread
In unsalted field.

We may still have foe.
There are those
Who comb the horse’s mane,
And those who steal the tail.

But upon your knock at our door,
We don’t paint the mask of your past
Across your face.
We embrace tomorrow’s peace.

Why do we fight
Over cocoa and ivory?
Our birth is not a contract
To pick a side.
Yet we still ***** a divide.

Light upon dark.
As mountains crumble,
As mountains grow,
We can change as friends, from foe.

Clouds rumble,
I walk the crooked stair.
If hair fell like a waterfall;
But instead it falls like ash
And soot.
If only footprints like
A horse carriage in brittle snow,
But instead they sloth and sludge
In muddy pasts
And saddened hearts.
If voices like a song, called out
Instead they gargle
Moan
And wail.
Instead they tell the tale
Of the day the clouds rumbled
And I walked the crooked stair.

I do not wish to speak for the trees.
I wish for them to speak through me.
If you listen,
Nature’s voice crashes upon the shore,
She whispers at dusk,
And moans through the murky cattails.
How dare we silence such art.
At times,
We paint her playful green a mucky black.
And we expect her whimsical warbling to wash away our worries.
Why do we extort her this way?
Does mother really owe us such things?
Let us lay in the mud and play,
Let us gather her stories, and sway as she sings.
By sitting, waiting, watching.
Holding, pausing.
We will put ourselves aside while she grows.
We will stay long past the sunset glow.
For when dark follows light,
The show does not end.
The show never ends, nor begins.
And we can only know the meaning of life,
When we finally join in.

My soul alight,
When the sweet melody
Of kindred spirit’s song
Fills my fingers and toes.
When the divine,
Connects me with another,
When I find my brothers.
When Mother Earth
Collides me with my like-minded,
And we travel
To parallels and spirit realms.
I love them,
Those of my soul pods,
And born of stars,
And those with scars like mine,
And deep, other-worldly minds
And chosen-kin,
Who are more than our bones,
And our skin.
We are home when within,
And when together again.
We are cosmos.
We are love.
We are one.

The stench of struggle smells nice to low standards,
But I lack those,
So I take it through the nose
While I wait for a lightbulb moment.
Because a block is a block is a block.
But what lies beneath the rock?

What do you do when the door is locked?
You get in another way.

But if you yell,
And you smash,
And you cry,
And you wail.
And you blame,
And you shame,
And you dread,
And you bail,
The other way doesn’t come.

When you stop,
And you listen,
And you breathe,
And you wait.
When you gather,
And you solve,
And you trust
In your fate,
That’s when the other way comes.

And sometimes through this stillness, through the wait,
The locked door clicks, unlocks and swings open,
And we realize we don’t want to walk through.
Because a door is a door is a door,
But what lies beyond the shore?

Your topography.
Your body and its geography.
Lavish to lick,
Sensual, slick,
Fantastic.
I indulge with my hands and my mouth
As our hips, caught in a dance
Lift me into a trance,
And all I see is you,
And the star-speckled black.
Our aura outshines them all.
I tip-tap finger tips on your back,
And your breath,
And sighs
Whisper sweet-nothings to the skies
And all the gods watch in awe
As we crumble temples in our path,
And reach levels higher than Olympus
Decibels higher than the thunderous clap,
Anchored down by nothing
But a metal clasp
And hidden by nothing but a mask.
But these are no obstructions
To our naked odyssey,
We wander in wanderlust.
In lust, in love.
In you,
In me.