Who am I to set this scene—
an old psalm slipping from my throat
to pass along,
to float like leaves
from a stolid, ancient oak—?

Bathe, Bethesda, in the font
of our foremost human need—
to be heard, and
to be seen,
we're jet-black beacons in the dark.

Pose a query, on the tongue—
does the soul continue on,
to the source, or
to the sun,
and will we notice when it’s gone?

This chrysalis has come undone—
I am a moth, I endeavor
to seek the light,
to multiply,
and above all else,
to hope for more.

Dear Daddy,
Do you know what these men say to me?

With their
eyes and their mouths
when I walk on the street.

With a grin and a nod
and a look up and down.
A wink and a kiss
and a cat call heard from downtown.

With my skirt short
and my top
low,
It’s a cold world daddy
and no
doesn’t mean no.

Daddy do you know
how these men look at me?

Like I’m a piece of meat
strutting down the street?
With my head buds in
and my favorite song on.

I’m asking for it Daddy,
I’m in the wrong.

Do you know how it feels
not to wear what I like?

To walk a little faster
when I’m alone at night?

Daddy the world is my predator
and I am it's doe,
Daddy what happens
when I can’t say no?

You called her beautiful, but that’s not what she was.

She was fire and flood. her words pounded against the sand like waves.

Her hands created art from pain, each stroke a painful stitch.

Her thoughts were flames from a wildfire, taking the world by smoke and ash.

She was not beautiful, and anyone who called her that felt her wrath.

“I think that I shall never see”
a tree thin as phylogeny,

looks poor, no fruits nor leaves for tea,
Yet means so much as Darwins see.

rooted, unrooted, a weird tree,
well, Nature, too, selects weirdly.

No other tree much affects me,
keeps changing my taxonomy,

splitting-lumping, lumping-splitting,
because more data keep coming.

“Poems are made by fools like” you,
but cladograms, don’t make me blue.

The snow,
  Whirls,
Spins,
And turns;
Shapes in the air.
A floating, flowing, fluidity;
Such substance in something
   So diaphanous.
           A performance,
          Just as magical as
     The starlings
They had watched
At dusk
By the pier.

      Swooping
         And gliding
     The birds
  Danced in the darkening sky.
  That erratic black cloud;
  Morphing, flowing, conjuring...
        Forming new dimensions
          While the glowing sun
               Balances precariously,
                   Poised on the edge of the world
                                                              And then
                                                                            Sinks,
                                                                         Into the sea,
                                                                        Leaving pink
                                                                     Goodbye kisses
                                                                       On the clouds.
  Now,
Two figures are
Stood by the window,
Looking out and
Watching
  The crystal dust drift
   Within the flow of the wind.
      A giant ghost's display of ballet;
         Spinning, twisting, turning...
                                  Leaning on each other
                                In silence,
                                In the darkness,
                               The skies' cold ashes
                               Sparkle
                             In the night,
                       Under the rays of the artificial
                    Street light
                      Outside.

Soon the train will leave the station,
Get further and further away...
Settling in the west for longer than a day.
Swallowed by the horizon.
Physics in the way.
                                                          She will freeze her face
                                                          And wave,
                                                          Borrowing a stoic's smile,
                                                          Safely held together,
                                                           Until within the veil
                                                           Of the warm taxi home,
                                                            Her eyes
                                                            Melt.

Five years and all I have left
Is her name and the feelings she gave.
It was a heinous crime, a theft.
Still, I want her on my grave.

On that day, the Sun shone,
As it always would.
This was before her throne.
A finer time, you might call it good.

Dubrovnik’s walls stood tall,
Yet her beauty couldn’t be contained.
The city would fall,
Her grace was untamed.

To the sky they flocked.
The birds of black.
Shining rays they blocked.
The sky would shatter, and crack.

Cobble streets and busy crowds.
Amongst them you were there,
The heavens were clear, no clouds.
Your gaze left me gasping for air.

One word lead to another,
Before you know it I was hooked.
She was something else, something other.
Something the Gods overlooked.

In my cage everything was perfect,
The real world, however, was not as joyful.
I left my world undefended, and got it wrecked.
Grief, misery, death and death!

After the collapse of my star,
The only thing which kept me sleeping at nights.
I dream of a distant place, somewhere far.
When I close my eyes I still see her shining lights.

My heart is now a furnace,
Dishing out black smoke, my love.
Its fuel is your name and its sternness,
It burns with the hate for the love I promised you, sweet dove.