Second rate;
a moment too late
or too early to
be first.
Save the worst
for last because
that's all you have left --
for this heaven sent
inkling of perfection
is sick of the
tiresome wait;
the same perfection
that you'll never
have to reach my
"Golden Gate."

Judgement day
has declared
you scared and alone --
*isn't that
what you wanted
anyway?

The last thing I want,
is to be beautiful.
For beauty is shy
and thin as silk --
currents and waves
pass through it's
woven threads,
threadbare and broken.
For beauty is transparent,
translucent, and only
noticed on the surface
of what's slippery
and skeleton-like.

For beauty is finicky;
you either grow out of it,
or you grow into it.

And so the last thing I want
is to be beautiful.
Because if it were the first,
it'd be gone before the second.

Paint words
across my skyline
with fluent tongue
and softened hands.

Stream life
along my shadows
through steady step and
ribboned compliments,
flowing lightly
through carefree breezes
accompanying the bitter wind.

Etch hope
into my pillow,
cradled beneath my
heavy head,
and set forth flowers,
floating through river beds
and rivulets of tear drops
in tea cups,
slipping along
with the
current.

*Set them free.

Simply a vanishing act.
Remain in one place long enough
to steal the hearts of few
before you retract,
detach, and abandon.

A circus trick to disappear,
leaving one you noticed,
one you inspired,
astonished by your fear
to stay.

*I didn't know you,
I never will

Some things come naturally,
like breathing or crying;
they are embedded into us.
Other traits we seem to
acquire over time --
like a carefully raised
Thoroughbred, being taught
to clear the steepest jumps.

Some things come naturally,
like sleeping or eating;
we're born with the urges.
But others will fall
into cyclical habits slowly --
like a filly taking
her first shaking step,
I place a pen to paper.

The hills are alive
with the sound of silence.
They echo back towards
deafened ears and
blinded hearts.

TImeless winds begin to change,
combusting all that's within range,
stripping trees from land,
and tearing souls from man.

So plug your ears
and close your eyes,
for here is where
the spirit dies.

Write me a poem; a sonnet or a haiku.
Develop me in fiction; or a story, all too true.

Engulf me with your metaphors,
and string me from your scores.
Surround me with a hundred scribes
and I'll find, for you, some more.

Surprise me with suspenseful thrills
and write to me through winter chills.

Allow me some security
in charming ambiguity,
and set the stage of puppeteers,
the types I haven't seen in years.

I yearn for longing, hopeful prose,
detailing how your loving shows.

Just weave me through your dream machine,
and catch me reading in between
the lines of stories left half done,
through hearts you've lost, there's mine you've won.