My ***** worn feet
Retracing the same journey,
Many souls before me,
Many following behind.
I feel the steps realign,
I've made the same footprints
In the same soil, again & again.
Remembering recurrent realities,
Replay the drama, another reincarnation
Of my eternal soul, slowly
Lifting back the veil, peeking into
The same void of dichotomies,
I feel their resolution has once before
Resided within my understanding.
Now a forgotten fable, told in foreign tongue.

I am here, now.
But I am also a primordial memory,
I am also a vision of the future.
I am here, now with my preconceived predictions,
My view tinted the colors of my past,
But with each new sun rise,
I reach beyond to open myself, again & again.
The flowing current of energy,
Unfolding new perspective in front
Of my eternal awareness --
May my colored glasses be rainbow,
A kaleidoscope of amorphous patterns,
All turning with the rhythm of the universe.

Here we go, here we go,
Round and round again,
Same mile markers, same land mines,
Running like a mobius strip.
Have we not learned to jump ship?
Have we not seen the signs?
I always thought we'd never be here,
On the opposing sides of a think line,
When was it that I kept moving forward --
And left you behind.
I can feel your gaze on my neck,
It's boring down my spine.
Won't you see through my viewfinder,
See this upside down landscape
All the homes falling, falling, falling,
From your face rivers running
Fast and furious, ferocious forget-me-nots
Finding failing facets of faith --
Can I ever believe in us again?
I wish my mind would whip me into shape,
Searing lines of us into my truth,
Make a believer out of me,
Ever following your holy footsteps,
All the way across county line
Tracing into California, promised land.

But I am no herded sheep
Bah bah humbug, my little one
I will not flee from wolves with snarled teeth,
I will not be cuddled into a cage.
I am a moth in love with your flame,
Drawing me to my fiery grave.
Well, I'd love to crash and burn with you darling,
But I have dreams of kissing the sky,
And with my fragile wings I'll fly away
Oh glory, I'll fly away.
Do not reach for your butterfly net of guilty conscious,
You will not catch me this day.

But baby, baby, in my bones I'm breaking,
A bitterness -- I was born to love you.
But you so love your chains,
You prophesied they would choke your love,
You wrote the writing on the wall,
You foretold the end of everything,
But I saw it long ago,
Hidden in hazy half-truths,
And I tripped on the seed of doubt that was planted.
And oh, I've watched us fall apart in
Ten thousand different ways,
Each piece more jagged than the last,
Drawing pictures in my blood,
Sidewalk art for hopscotch and lost hope,
Held in the ground.
I'll build a shrine to this lost love of mine,
Candles, pictures, a vile of tears,
Surrounding our hearts buried below.
Dead flowers strewn across the floor,
I'm picking their petals with poisoned precision.
He loves me, he loves me not...

He loves me, and I love him,
But at this hour, in this place,
It didn't pass the test,
Our love must rest.
Let its grave be a wellspring of new growth,
Let us water it with compassion and understanding,
That it might rise a fresh garden,
Someday, somewhere, somehow.
I will diligently tend.
I will not lose sight of those soft, soulful eyes,
That first drew me closer, closer...

May you always feel my hand pressing into yours,
May you always feel my love surrounding you,
And may we meet as new spirits soon.

Thunder claps blood red,
Splattering souls down from the sky.
Rain pouring in sheets,
Undulating waves of shhhhhhhh,
Shining lightning, lighting the land,
Pictures in negative contrast.
Purple pop, poisoned pole,
Hit with pristine precision.
The storm gods must have seen
The sinking holes in me,
Since they're filling them all in
Floods of fragrant liquid,
Pouring out from me into the
Sob-soaked soil below --
Symmetry of the sky and I.

Dear old friend of my childhood:

Thank you, for finding me here,
Greeting me with an old feeling,
Familiar weightlessness I've missed,
Misplaced by life's heavy grounding.

Thank you, for lifting me back, up
Back, up through the crisp sky,
Legs pumping ferociously to fling me,
Faster, higher, popping up from your seat.

Thank you, drawing peace back in,
Swinging my fears far from my focus,
Flinging my head back, heart held high,
Ears ringing thick with airy laughter.

Thank you, for throwing my perspective,
See the moon, see the mulch below,
See tops of tress hung with goons,
See dewy grass, see the back of eyelids.

Thank you, for holding my hips tight,
Pressing out wrinkles of over-worried woes,
Squeezing, hugging, assuring you're there,
Catching my bouncing *** from flying away.

Thank you, for squeaking louder, louder, louder
Than my malicious runaway monologue,
Your steady metronome keeps me in time,
To the muffled beat of my heart.

Thank you, for calling others round
You're a common ground for misfits,
A shared memory of past bliss,
A shrine to the good old day,
Thank you.

Laying in a dewy bed,
Lullabies from humming crickets,
Echoing waves through my head
Thats hanging with hazy clouds,
Drifting through darkening blues,
That blanket you, but never cover
Your luminous glow -- magnificent,
Mystifying, marvelous, magic moon!
You celestial goddess, my guardian.
Tonight my bones are quivering
Waves of undulating energy,
Injected from white rays of
Etherial light leaking out,
Reflected from your face to mine.
I can feel the furnace that's feeding you,
Within the pit of my belly burning,
And as I breath in the summer night,
You wrap me in subtle assurance
That a bright new day will rise,
For your gentle guiding light,
Reveals that sun is still shining
Just around the corner.

Fumbling fingers yearning for connection,
Reach out through negative space,
Crash headlong into rejection.
Curl back in defeat,
Clenched fist to deflect,
Fiery agony of regret.

An empty, disparaging inflection
Cut from a hot pink tongue, flapping
Dispassionately disproves theory of interconnection,
Maybe myth, fable, love story --
Or maybe lack of detection,
From calloused palms,
Roughened with each ingestion
Of honey suckle poison.

Was this the original intention?
Or did the son choose to elect
Another hidden path, indirect.
This haze manifests crystalized predictions,
Of hands meeting thighs, meeting hips,
Pushing forward climactic introspection,
Or just another muddled reflection,
Of my endless projections,
Always  failing tests of retention,
Mind permanently trapped in suspension,
Of spiraling tension.

Somewhere smothered --
In between sprinting feet,
And a hazy head
Heavy spun with dreams,
The image of you - dissolving.
Slipping slowly like sand,
Through cracks in a desperately
Clenched fist, seeping
Out through pores,
Glistening a ghostly sheen,
From ghastly truths.

Sometime released --
In between blooming bushes,
And the infinite inhaling
Of passages - hungry, hunting
For fragrance to fill the lungs.
Expelling old dusty promises,
In a windy whirlpool,
Your roots were dug up
From my garden, and you
Dissipated into clean blue sky.

Somehow forgotten --
In between toes dangling,
Off a precipice of golden possibilities,
And the plunge of faith,
To the inconceivable depths
Of my expanding soul.
A cosmic flight to air me out:
Empty slate, open arms.
I am slipping into light,
Reclaim, repurpose, renew.
Back cowering atop the cliff
Lies my memory of you.

There is a calm center within me;
It flows from deep rivers of breath,
Spiraling up and out in every direction.

There is a calm center within me;
Grounding me with sturdy roots,
Soaking up the sweet soul beneath
My rocky hard surface
Through twisting tunnels, tumble torrents.

There is a calm center within me;
Laying soft and still under rushing currents,
Reflecting patience, serenity, consistency
To my mistaken misplaced preconceived perceptions,
Oh they appear to be everchanging,
While the truth is they're stuck going round and round and round
Over the same cyclical trap, making me dizzy.

There is a calm center within me;
It is my mountaintop of mercy,
Where my mind meditates and marvels
At the we of conscious connection,
Spreading from me, reaching out to other frequencies
Emanating from peaks which surround me,
Where the dichotomous
You-Me, ******, Us-They;
Melt into a spectrum of WE --
And oh, I am just beginning to see.

There is a calm center within me;
There is a calm center;
There is calm.....

There is a calm center within me,
Let it flow out.

if i float on in
with flowers brandished
twisted into curling waves
tumbling from my fountain,
and you mistake my mind
full of mystery and marvel
for a dainty, empty vessel
to be filled with your creeds,
                     may you choke on my knowledge.

if i bounce between
bookmarks of laughter
that lift my heavy pages
aligning my beginning and end,
and you mistake my comfort
for the ditzy daze of a doll
fashioned to be played with,
and put on a collectors shelf
to scoff at imperfections,
                           may you be blinded by my light.

if i am flowing round
fabric billowing to catch sweet
wind of movement, spinning
glee of gliding off the ground
to glimpse golden gates,
and you mistake my joy
for a pair of hips to clutch,
and sneak your jolly rodger
past into pillage and plunder
and poke a broken flagpole in,
                         may you drown in my crashing waves.

if i am still in silence, serenely
lost in my clarity, presence of being
holding my unruly tongue, sleeping,
and you mistake my peace
for a void, desperately empty
to be cluttered with your
ostentatious masquerade of manhood
or statue to your *******,
                         may the wonders resting behind my sturdy walls
                         rise up rumbling pillars of awareness
                         and demolish your preconcieved
                        patriarchal perceptions of who you want me to be.

broken mirror of emaciated imagery,
stupid, slow, sorrowful ****, simply here for silly sulks to stick their sweaty sliding cylinders down to search for silk to steal and sell and sew as seeds of slandering stigma to slinking sailors.

may it be shattered in two and remade, a new
unified whole of harmonious equality,
shaking the chains of dichotomous value,
break the monstrous institution.

slither singed and sullen back to your tree
little snake boy, you know nothing.
and you cannot fool me into eating your apple,
i already know my truth.

its said you can only lose
what you call yours
you can only miss
what you hold onto
you can only remember
what you choose not to forget.
so in the hazy moonlight
of this dreary summer night
ill be letting you go, darling.
ill release my love away, into the sky
ill watch it dissipate in the thick air
floating away on a soft breeze.
and ill breath in deeply,
holding the scent of us in my lungs
and when i exhale, nothing will remain
but my empty, barren, wasteland.
and that too, i will surrender into the night.
leaving just a distant memory of memory
of what once was, but  is no more.
and soon this dream of a dream will pass as well.
and i will be here, now, breathing.
and i will not feel loss.
and i will not long after you.
and i will choose not to remember
the part of me that i let fly away with you.

when you’re living in two places at once
you're really not alive anywhere .
when your body is here,
and your heart is spread across the country,
and your mind is lost far out at sea,
you’re truly nowhere.
for when your body isn’t wrapped up
in the sturdy arms that claim it as theirs,
when you aren’t dancing together,
its just an empty vessel, a walking shell.
and when your heart is straining to reach
across mountain peaks and rivers and forests
its no longer able to love, to grow, to sing
its stretched so thin its barely hanging on,
its as hollowed out as the grand canyon
that it struggles in vain to jump over.
and when your body is empty
and when your heart is hollowed
your mind will wander far out of your reach,
it will sneak aboard a pirate ship,
and all of your faith, your courage, your sanity
they will be pillaged, and your mind will rest there
out on the high seas, with villains  that look like friends
and it will drink their ***, til the bottle runs dry.
and you surely won’t find that runaway
before it sinks to the bottom of the dark ocean.
and there you’ll be,
without body
or heart
or mind.
and you still won’t be
with the one that you tried so hard to reach
that you emptied and stretched and sank yourself,
only to find out what you knew all along:
that when you’re trying to live in two places
you’re really not alive anywhere.

oh darling, i wish i could be
your big ice cream cone in the sky,
but i am no longer searching in the rye
for a catchers net woven
of arms, heart, legs ****** open,
i am just beginning to arise
on my own horizon, arise
into my new wild garden,
and my nectar is ****,
but if you'd stop *******
all the berries from my bushes
dry dry dry,
maybe you'd stop being poked
by bare twigs in your eye.
see, or rather UNDERSTAND
my side of lines crossed, and don't bind
in hindsight my once defined mind,
it was cracked wide open
with the strike of pure lightning,
skies poured in to no end
and i learned to float on remnants
of half-baked sentiments,
you barely took the time
to stir the eggs shells out,
or maybe you never noticed
them crunching in your mouth,
but i saw every last white message
of your hastily harnessed hostage.


you keep telling me that you don't know what to do without me,
but frankly darling, you never did anything with me.

Sharp breath
Carving out the carcass
Shaving away sanity
Cringing.

Shallow plunge
Into sinister sea of shards
Crinkling cracking
Cringing.

Cowering for invisibility
Hiding behind folds of
Crunched eyelids
Cringing.

Hollowed by fire
Raw red remnants
Crumbling, ashes ashes
Cringing.

Projected perfection
Diabolical demons dream
In absence
Cringing.

Bubbles boiling over my
Hot-hot-hot tea ***,
Rising up like the tingling
Corners of my mouth.
Toes tap-tap tapping
Along to your soul-swinging
Tune tearing straight through me.
Oh my feet could fly away
With your endless running riffs,
My head reeling with fantasy
Fabricated figments of mystery.
Can't hide it! Can't hide it!
Wearing it on my hands, arms, chest,
Screaming it in soft whispers.
Oh racing round and round
On the edge of my seat
To jump into your lap.
My legs won't stop bouncing
Gotta shake it out before I burst!
Teeth been showing since
My eyes glimpsed your shadow,
Head falling back with laughter
To watch the stars that are twirling
Above my crown
Shooting blinding light into my sight.
Oh baby, won't ya dance with me?
Quick! Before I drown
In this sea filling faster, faster,
Teeming with unknown possibility.

I've been forecasting a wild fire,
It's bursting forth from my furnace,
Ferocious and consuming.
Be careful baby, you're fanning my flame.