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

Sometimes
When others try to improve on my mood
I
DON'T
WANT
TO
FEEL
BETTER

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

It used to be much easier to tell a story
Linear
A protagonist
An antagonist
A beginning and an end
Two hours
Back to reality
We began to tell our stories in triplicate
Two hours
Wait
Two hours
Wait
Two hours
Conclusion
Now it takes a lifetime to tell a story
Three hours
Wait
Three hours
Wait
Three more hours
Wait wait
Six or seven stretched across a decade
Everything is an epic now
Bright and loud and larger than life
Spinning them out with such carelessness
Undermining the meaning
Money in the pockets
When all I want is a warm quiet room
And a good book

Let's take a moment
To think this over
Do we even know what we're feeling?
Or doing?
Are we just saying what we say
to make ourselves feel right about it?
The bad outweighs the good
We're trying
Trying
It's a noble effort
To make ourselves
Feel
Justified

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

Window after window
People live
Like animals in a zoo
Each one in their own personal space
In disregard of all the others
Canned conversations
I look in each window
Trying to gather something I can use
A swatch of color
A gesture
A mannerism
A point of conversation
Constantly gathering data
Discarding ideas
Filing what is clever
Building an amalgam
The fluttering eyelashes
Soft, husky voice
Tall, straight posture
Graceful movement
All learned
Bought
Blended
I have built myself
From used parts

How I feel
As it is understood to myself
I know
I find myself in a moment
That is all mine
No one else at this moment
Feels this
It is only I
No one else is seeing this
From my angle
No one else's heart is beating as mine is
Along with the sound of it
We may all feel a rush
But it is different for all of us
This is mine
I could take centuries to describe it to you
But it would NEVER be right
It will ALWAYS be mine

We revel
In the satisfaction
Our desires are unfounded
Fresh, clean articles
Resulting from what we want
Or what we covet
Is it such a sin?
Fulfilled longing
Resulting in happiness
We line our new things up
Rows of prestige
Admiring them far too much
Showing others what they don't have
Is it such a sin?
After all
We are gratified
Blissful
For if it is a sin
We yet own another thing

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

The further away
The stronger the pull
The lesser the doubt
The wilder the drive
The warmer the heart
The greater the want
The tighter the embrace
The deeper the love

Tell me it isn't true
That there is a science to everything
In all things measurable
Please PLEASE don't let love be one of them
If love is quantified
Then we are chained to it
As the flame draws wax from wick
The end is in site
And we extinguish along with it

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

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

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.

Frigid
The numbers drop
Like quarters through a slot
The cold is hard
You count the degrees
They tick one by one
Down they fall
Winter's cold scrapes at you
Leaving the grey underneath
That tight pain
A knot in your middle
As you lean into the wind
Walking briskly
Eyes ******* tight
Hands in unforgiving lined pockets
Those days
Where nothing can warm you

It's never there when you seek it
It's always there when you're not
You miss it when you don't have it
When you have it
You don't know it
When you know it
You don't have it
It races around the track of your thoughts
The key winding it tight
Until the momentum runs out
You have overthought
It is the death of your clockwork mouse
Grinding to a halt
The gears scraping painfully
Staring at your dead keyboard
Your blank screen
Your blank mind
Sleeps