Its soil is freezing as tired leaves grow
Through windowpanes and laden fields
A kind expression on each limb shows
The fruit on which the young bird feeds
Each nest a budding home for crows
To spread the old tree's last-sowed seeds
He's tired but at least he knows
He's what the life around him needs

When your pencil is aching
And your cup is filled
With thoughts
You're quaking
And your words have spilled
Ending droughts
Graphite breaking
And your guise is milled
Joyous plots
Are making
Your paper so thrilled

This happy mind
Set high up in the sky
An elevation conquered through such smiles
These well-embarked nights
Too sweet like sugared lime
We're gallivanting urban streets for miles

This life is gold
Wrapped memories in foil
To save, refrigerate, and sit and wonder
Street light, lightning poles
Electrified shoe soles
Northbound on a bridge, we stand and ponder

This city street
The trees have lost their leaves
But warm food paired with milkshakes stifles chills
Each touch ignites the breeze
Bad jokes, good laughs with ease
Casting spells unknown through each unopened thrill

In this room alone, piled with wishbones
Each social high on golden throne
Feel the breeze with shaking knees
Empty space is all I see
Though triggered by the sadness
Each glory yell to madness
Tells tales of the past enough
To incite the desert dreams

While drones buzz by like angry bees
A hornet's nest is waiting
To capture each like saws to trees
A story worth creating
Through the fairy dance I'm singing
Each brazen glance is seeming
A little less like added stress
To describe this desert feeling

Though peacefulness may hide itself
In shadowed, dripping caverns
A stalagmite of good fortune
In the cheers of beers in taverns
Behind each whisper of enchantment
Comes a desire for life enhancement
But not before the felled tree lore
Is recounted by fire-lit lanterns

Picking the patterns in frost-bitten lanterns
Where the light leans to bide each lost-souled phantom
Does the naked eye see
the illuminated rings of Saturn?
Slipping past airplanes, you're fodder-ridden, head-down
Where the sound of darkness echoes like bitter, angry bantam
Does each ice-cold stone of Saturn
deserve to be in its ring?
This is when you find your wing, half-broken, in a sling
Hairline fracture, ****, that stings
This is when you ask yourself, "What does this mean?"
     End.

Searching on the fire escape
Desert sands
Rooibos flake
Standing on the dune of fate
Raga bands
Oasis lake
Rolling red the wind to shape
Palm leaf fans
Wise-eyed snake
Quenching cactus, satiate
Unknown lands
Hot breaths to take

Softly spoken, send me surges of
Electric energies to emit endless echoes
Silently stirring so to sing, it urges
Encapsulating that so elemental
Superseding the strife with serene sayings
Ending the edges of errant easels
Saving the straying to stay in stance
Embrace to emanate an eternal enigma