Graceful, pale, and lithe,
Strung low on haunches,
Belly brushing snow
With bristling fur.
Eyes, teeth, and claws,
Muscles taut and ready,
Preparing to pounce
On unwary prey.
Rage, snarls, and instinct,
Caught up with crimson,
A killer in the snow,
Howling, haunting, hunting.

Sharp eyes and sharper beak,
Senses keen and predatory,
Talons waiting to rend and tear;
Yet, still a thing of beauty,
Of wisdom and of calm,
Now soaring through the clouds
To the ethereal eyrie.

Fade into the night
not as a silvery soprano scream,
but a willowy whisper of what was.
Though Fate,
                      and Time,
                                       as well as Death
may eternally put Us to the scythe,
We will not yield,
nor can We.

A sacred betrayal, bound in blood,
And stained with the little canals
Of salty tears.
Torn and rent, broken and used,
Held hostage
By a monster in a lover’s breast.
Fists, feet, words;
All become weapons
In the hands of a beast.
Shame and fear persisting---
Quiet devotion and regret.
Once, before two became one,
There was passion, love,
Burning hot and bleeding red.
Now, two hearts again,
Made separate yet bound together,
A crimson wound upon the sacred union.
As a cruel child tortures a fly,
So too does this husband
Rip off the wings of his paper angel,
Throwing them down in the fire
Burning long; ugly crimson where once
Thoughts of love roamed.
Those roads, those heartstrings
Are now scars, paths overtaken by callous foliage,
Ne’er again to be traveled
After the reaping of a vicious love.

One final journey to the sea,
The last wish of a grizzled old warrior.
From the sands and dances
Of the American West,
To the blood and bullets
Of the Western Front,
Roads traveled by
A lone Apache.

Somewhere along the way,
He became my grandfather,
Replacing that which I lost
To drink and bottomless spite.
Better than his predecessor, naturally
Walking the path of a grandparent,
With stories and lessons for me,
His capitan.

Now, I walk with him
Along life’s shore,
And as that grand, beautiful ocean
Breaks upon the rocks,
I feel his stories and lessons
Rising on the salty breeze.

Entombed in chrome, steel, and speed,  
Humanity slays the night  
With headlights,  
Banshee engines screaming  
V8 defiance,  
High-octane ghosts in the exhausts  
Bellowing spectral smoke,  
A motorized mausoleum  
Driving away from nature  
And slipping into darkness  
In the midnight heart  
Of a graveyard city.

Standing here upon the verge
Of who I am and will become,
Eyes wide with wonder
At the infinite possibilities,
I encounter pause
In the face of two questions
I never had to ask before.
Who am I?
Writer, friend, lover, doubter;
An emotional jack-of-all-trades,
Eager to learn yet scared of answers,
What am I afraid of?
Ignorance, death, loss, myself;
The four great evils
That all men and women face.
But let it not be said that I fear aging;
For the chance to gain
The experience and wisdom
Necessary to answer these two questions
Is one I take with open arms,
Drinking myself in
While my heart beats double quick.