I return to the stillness.
The space which allows for emerging energy.
I see where I collected hope and pain here.
My admissions of vulnerable truth.

These sparks create comfort.
Even in their clumsy attempts.

I have just returned from the mad choral.
Society had ****** me in and asked for all.
I emptied my pockets of knowledge and love
Hoping it would suffice.
Yet, I return empty with failure.

Weary and fearful of those who say they're are helping!
These strange proclamations
are surrounded with unspoken yet known fear.

I return to the stillness.
The sound of soft rain falling on maple.
These reflections offer comfort
as I continue up the mountain.

My journey continues.

Life begins quietly this evening
I wonder around my head
as eyes absorb the outside world
the orange street light
dances in the blue twilight of the hottest recorded day this january
(Iwonderhowtheicecapsaredoingtoday)

small stars sink into city light of texas
painting momentary stillness with
a glimpse into another galaxy’s sun

even while i keep smoking
the cigarettes parents pray I have quit
my body reaches into wisdom and contentment
but this feeling is foreign
and the realization brings anxiety.

I try to gauge where I belong in all this moving quietude

Golden afternoons sift in my palms
My lover is searching my pockets for skin
and I have no clue where to begin
so the smokey lungs reach for blood
start with the freckles then the stretch marks then the scars
See where your fingers find home
And we’ll discuss the reason fate has brought you into my arms this night

Ode To Ginsberg

I walk every morning down to the bus
dodging the ***** condoms and broken teeth
Chanting Ginsberg to the rhythm of my walk
Its actually pretty safe around here
the corner is just a passionate place to live.
there the vagrants dwell
drinking and puffing away,
light shining through their gapped smile
whispering the dirtiest thoughts dipped in sweet eyes
as if they were simply asking me bout the birds above.
I dont know why I enjoy such peaceful violence.
But I'm getting used to my home in the city

One day while indulging in my addiction to smog
I walked down to the corner store
The old Spanish letters had been plucked off and new sparkling words read, This N That
I walked in with a question on my face
They had changed its spanish name
because “nobody knew what tiendas even meant on this block these days”
Roots that had held homes
Were being pulled up without concern.
I walked back with my head tilted down
it felt very heavy in those days

there was a street corner in austin
equipped with a family, if you choose,
a family made up of half a dozen vagabonds with beer in hand by 10am
laughing and dancing to the sound of horns and skids and crashes and katydids
and towards the end
beautiful paintings adorned their outside abode. They collected lazy chairs, potted plastic plants, and enough green to smell three blocks away. They laugh harsh happy traveled laughs, and sing scratchy Blues. Occasionally letting a sunflower seed fly from their peeling lips.

this dusty grime coats my drifting soul
as gravity sings my name in choking clouds
but as i make my way back up the block
I see red and blue lights and a couch being thrown into the garbage.

This city is breaking its own beauty
In the name of progress.
I put my hand on your book and know youd feel the same.

Tonight,
the golden moon drips full.
Shadows sing my form.

A dried petal swings in the silhouette
splitting the variegated shadows
I bask between.

The walls have ceased biting my ears
and old ghosts no longer whisper lonely gibberish.
Still,
a hammer in my heart begs admission.

I cannot ignore the clawing of my mind,
there still much to gut and cultivate.

One must offer libation to the moon,
pregnant with primal enumerations,
drain a small river of mortality.

Yet
as my bark has aged
my familiar melancholia
bloomed awareness
observing my lack
and wished to become reborn.

My fingers freeze
holding in hurricanes,
I see them glow with fullness
in the crescendo of moonlight.

Perhaps,
I will begin with the simple lack
the frustration with what was
and what became itself once again.

The petal falls from its frame
As I return to the solitude of reflective nights
Such as these.

Trusting
I will bloom
underneath shadows
into holy curiosity
again and again.

Last night
I drove past a fawn
she was laying on the road and lifting her head up slowly
Stunned  by an oncoming car and unable to carry her
self.

A day later
I drove at dusk
the blood red shadows framed the low clouds
a large buck with a crown of time on his head
bowed beneath a tree, searching for something
lost.

The days gather
like revolving doors
till I am exhausted and unable to raise my head
Going too quick to comprehend all my packed
belongings.

I unpack my plants and books
and look up the mountain
searching for something
in the shadows of morning,
lost.

I have lost my voice as of late,
feeling like prospero living in the island of my mind.
Here's an attempt to describe how I pass my time.*

there are moments when the ache overcomes the present
the scratching demon inside, selfish for something I can’t pronounce
and I find myself swallowing my tears over black coffee, hoping you don’t see.

I look into your hazel eyes and see the frustration with age.
you tell me, ‘I hate being old’
and I quietly tell you to embrace your wisdom
‘you’re only old once, nana’
you laugh and I find my place inside your sweet warble
as we look around for the keys that you just put in your purse.

the small girl within me reaches out and holds your shoulder lightly
guiding you in and out of the slow traffic swimming in southern humidity.
everything has slowed down in the past few months
the decaying town I grew up in is full of molasses minded folk,
and I only wish it was slower as you forget why we are here.
We walk into the the cool air and I tell you we needed to leave the house.
you’ve been folding the dishes and scrubbing the laundry while my grandfather yells about the TV and his inability to find his mind when they put another persons heart inside his chest.
we decide to leave behind the scene of you sobbing in the sink
and drink some black coffee.

You and I have sat so many times
wrapped in fits of laughter
defying the pain of the world.
I try to make simple jokes as an excuse to lose ourselves,
but my new silence has grown with the summer honeysuckle
and I have lost the desire to forget.
We sit side by side, watching the black water slide inside the creek.
You begin telling me how you finally feel relaxed.
I kiss your cheek and tell you I love you.
We smile, no longer needing to grasp for breathless laughter.
The ache becomes a part of every moment
and I breathe in the golden sadness of mortality,
knowing that I am learning the art of dying
in southern heat of the town I was born.

My body has begun its chorus
of holy fertile futures,
it was time to stop praying for the apocalypse,
we had begun to grow old.

This return to my oceanic blood
provokes ol' Sancho's proverbs.
I become a dreamer of goats all around
as I find our common nature
in the salty blood of the earth.

After so many years of gathering salt,
from youthful pupils
wild on becoming Oedipus,
I finally swallowed my heart,
-it had been leaping into other ribs
then panicking at the site of another cage,
and damaging the very thing that had become its home.
I decided I couldn't bear another ******,
How did this need for love become butchery?

So, I recalled the ocean
the way the abyss gave life to my salty motion,
I've emptied my sorrow into the sea and became free.
Now, my heart swims in mortal infinity.

The apocalypse has come and gone.
My land has begun to sing with renewal.