To finally begin to live
In the warm embrace of an artist's heart
Resurrected
From this cold barrow
My mournful hibernation
He has breathed life into my crux
Wiped clean the dust from my soul
Nurtured my development
Golden and inspired
Fed my deepest internal needs
I am made
Chipped from hard stone and softened by loving hands
A late muse
Celebrated

I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times…
In life after life, in age after age, forever.
My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs,
That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms,
In life after life, in age after age, forever.

Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, its age-old pain,
Its ancient tale of being apart or together.
As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge,
Clad in the light of a pole-star piercing the darkness of time:
You become an image of what is remembered forever.

You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount.
At the heart of time, love of one for another.
We have played along side millions of lovers, shared in the same
Shy sweetness of meeting, the same distressful tears of farewell-
Old love but in shapes that renew and renew forever.

Today it is heaped at your feet, it has found its end in you
The love of all man’s days both past and forever:
Universal joy, universal sorrow, universal life.
The memories of all loves merging with this one love of ours –
And the songs of every poet past and forever.

A raw day
New and chaste
Like an unveiled bird cage
I am winged with bright eyes
A clean journal open to possibilities
You have scoured the rust from my heart
Leaving it a fresh, bleeding abrasion
That delightful hurt
Like cold hands thawing
Reminding me that I am still alive

One hand is *****
Marked with the soil of hard work
Scraped knuckles that ache in the cold

One hand is *****
Tainted with bad blood
Permanent stains that cannot be washed

One hand is clean
But only to the human faith
And underneath it is as filthy as the others

Still people give their tithe
It is in vain

We are weary at the end of the day
Behind our closed doors it is quiet
Except for the roar of silence in our ears
We unwind like tight spools
The tension melting from between neck and shoulder
We wrap ourselves in comfortable cottons
Our faces scrubbed clean and tight
Palliative lotions rubbed into our hands
Teeth like minty stones
Eyelids heavy, washed with relief
Swallows of warm milk or merlot
Fuzzy socks and all things elastic
To fall into bed with our dreams

From the man on your heels
From the cold
From your demons
Run wolf run
Run until the fog has cleared
Until your chest has warmed
Until your ache is fed
Your hunger satisfied
Your past is gone
Run past those of no importance
Leave them in their place
Stay with your own kind
Embrace your hot copper tinged diet
Warm salt
Raw meat
You're all sharp claws and memory
Deep instinct
An ever rolling hunger in your belly
Programmed to survive, love, feed, make
Run

Our purest selves
Reaching deep
Warm and wild
Our blood thunders
Tearing through elastic highways
Driven by that rough, rubbery pump
Congregating like pack animals
Evolving thick as thieves
Rough and oily with dull wit and sharp tongues
Minds crackling with electric waste
Droning in the distance
Responding to wide signals
Follow follow follow
Driven by primitive urges and flights of fancy and pickling liquor
Rough clumsy fumblings in backseats
Stolen moments behind straight backs
Populations pour from our bodies
Often devoid of purpose
Leaving us with shredded dignity
And tired blue collar hands
Where our dreams come to an abrupt halt
It is all we can do to live in the present
For in being ill we have drawn a line through our future