Blue lakes gave the glass a crystal world of looking
The ocean seems blue
It can be rough water
Dream water
Red water
Zero water too
Aimless
It's time to shine
In the dead of night
Flow into a delta and find its goal
Its rivers and tributaries meander, broken down, broken up, algae
It carries soil, silt, sand, streams, silent
Silent
It is created, evolved, reincarnated, now
Rolling with the tides and the moon
It's not leaving
It will not speak
It doesn’t go far
But the distance is too long to walk
It runs in Winter
Slows in Spring
Dangerous in Summer
I hear it sing
Drum up a current
It's glass
It can flow
It can pass
Under bridges where cars and trains are electric
It waters the land
Straining until pure
Removing all the lures
It is a flurry
It is fast
Fast
I see it, hear it, I feel it too
It's been green, brown, pink, orange
Red
It's been drained
Remained
Stained
Up close it's clear
But at a distance
It's blue
I see the air, the moon, the hands, the truth
Breathing in
The ocean's blue

I get down on my knees
In front of honeybees
I sit directly in their song
Just to hear them hum
They always watch me carefully
When I say anything
They always fly away
Like I would disturb their flight
And their short-lived life

Our passions are fueled
By actions in practice
Our discoveries can be lost
In arguments of semantics
What is discovery
What is passion
Why do I feel
This sense of abstraction

Abstraction
And chance
What a beautiful combination
A happenstance circumstance
That brought you to culmination

A sitar sings
Her notes carried on the wind
Like cactus seeds
I brew the roots
And drink the juice
Of desert dreams

Each cup is filled
And cold toes are warmed
By little spills
My hands are scorched
Dunes are grabbing my ankles
And pulling me forward

To the cross-legged drums
They sound like water droplets
Each beat flows
In a pool of stone
Caressing the ears of cicadas
as their legs pierce the heat
of the hailed sun

Halogen lights are lining the walkway
Bright, bright, bright
Each one
Blinding, but I keep staring
Leading to this place
It's bland
Bland, bland, bland
But I keep coming
Beige filing cabinets
Contain the documents I need
I need them
A paper envelope
Two times a month
I can be relieved
There are others though
Disengaged, but we share a goal
To make it
Until we are gone
Gone, gone, gone

Paintbrushes and bulldozers
Canvas and land
Creativity and destruction
Each done with mans' hand

Extrasensory perception
Perhaps a sixth sense
Feeling and reading
The mind bends
To subtle nuances
And blatant clues
To discover clairvoyance
That you already knew
Illusionist mindsets
And trickery too
Can fool you to think
They know more than they do
When all people are prisms
Slightly off-hue
And all are a song
On a radio un-tuned

If our Universe were laid out flat
With many others
How would we interact
In a beautiful multiverse
Maybe the gravities would merge
Intertwined in a way
Maybe our thoughts of tomorrow
Would be there today
Would we be a layer
In a celestial cake
Or a player
In a space-ruled game

A diagnosis to prognosis
Hypnosis to sleep
Meditation to mindfulness
A tragedy to weep
Venting to relief
In the oven to eat
The time in between
is time to keep

Gravitational lensing
Brings forth so beautifully the thoughts,
the haphazard chaos
That is the Universe's entropy

While colors are distorted
Light is contorted
It somehow provides a deeper look
Into the unknown

****, space is cool

Lightly stained
Like a towel
That took so many trips
Ocean water seeps through
Elegantly
Permeating the fibers
Pooling in the center
As a large celestial body
Pulls
Bending space and time
To wash you again

Galactic disposition
Relentless exposition
A guided meditation
To harbor one's condition
An earwax candle mission
Removing audible visions
Internal text to bring forth next
The silent-held emissions

For birds abound
In shallow mounds
A marsh to sate their thirst

A vulture pen
A raven then
Out of the fire burst

Rocket ships
And planes are quick
But birds have made it first

The Great Red Spot
Gracing Jupiter's surface
Beautiful and intriguing from the outside
And a whirlwind within

Drink a clock and combine with time
Be once again a work of art
Doesn't it feel so sublime
The world around you falls apart
But you're a timeless interjection
A gear within a counterpart
A ripple in a lake's reflection
A defibrillator to my heart
Your mind is transcendent yet you're here
A physical reminder of the rest
The world is not as it appears
That's why I'll give you all my best

It's so lovely out here
I think I'd be okay if I never went inside again
All I'd need is paper and a pen

And maybe a little food

A staccato accordion
Chimes merrily as the spotlight turns
In the star-ridden distance
I can hear The Entertainer
It's out of tune - but a jack-in-the-box jingle
Doesn't carry well in the wind
The Ferris wheel has stopped
But the passengers are unaware
Their gypsy laughs and joyous shrieks
Loop carelessly around the air
Whimsical men in gargantuan top hats
Guessing weights and handing out sugar
Decorated elephants and dilapidated circus tents
Circle a trapeze artist as he wows onlookers
It's warm out here
But there's a chill
Something ominous
A sound that's shrill
It could just be a ride that needs to be fixed

How to become a poet?
Write
Your words will spill
Some like water droplets from a faltering faucet
Some like torrential downpour
Leading your mind to flash flood warnings
Your words are wrapped in foil
Waiting to be heated up
And eaten up
Poets are hungry

Retrograde beauty
Sparkling, smiling down at Earth
As dusk falls and fireflies illuminate our own planet
She shines even more brightly
Despite the pressure
And despite the sulfur
Her terrestrial surface gleams
Having no moons
She's a solo entity
But our sister
She circles the same violent ball of heat
As heliocentric
As we

Have you ever left?
Streets decaying, bereft of wonder
General store hours
Posted
Trees, posted
Homes, posted
This town is a ghost town
Like Centralia, Chernobyl, Hashima Island
Complacent in its solitude
While wind rustles the dead trees' souls
And dust collects in endless potholes
One street light flickers to guide the silence
Main Street relentlessly harbors memories
Of feet crossing and ***** tossing
A newspaper stand
A truck for the postman
This town is a ghost town

On the desk, there lies a fountain pen
It doesn't take cartridges
Rather, you dip it in ink and press it to paper
It makes a sound, not unlike fingernails on a chalkboard
But not like it either - it's satisfying instead of goosebump-inducing
Slowly scratching the page until it's gone
The ink has bled onto page 3
I've pressed too hard
But this paper is thick
Previous poets pondered profusely
Pretending this pen was a pipe
Holding it between their teeth until an idea came ripe
This pen holds a history of poetry
Of spilling thoughts that otherwise stayed internalized
And of sometimes spilling ink
It gets everywhere
I love it

Felled trees and failed deities
In books on shelves of libraries
Hundreds of them - thousands!
This sure is a sight to behold

Information, new and old
A rustic smell
Book mold?
Regardless, this is exhilarating

The past, too often, intervenes
With thoughts of forward productivity
The solution is not to push it behind you
But to use it to be even better
And to learn - to be thrilled to be here
And have great joy in the fact
That sometime in the future
You will experience such happiness, and such jubilance
A small moment, or a wonderful day


It really will be okay

Leatherbound
Tannins have branded
My fingertips
But the steel still feels and heals
right
I'm at home with this
This wooden body
And slender neck of burnt mahogany
Each string a page in the next great novel
It just hasn't been written yet

The clouds are wonderfully white
The Sun is peeking behind turbulent grey
Blue lakes and ponds are ephemeral in a way
Skygazing
You realize it's you
The clouds, the water vapor, the elements - you're oxygen and hydrogen and nitrogen and carbon and so much more
You are a product of all that is, and we are all together like this
The wonder comes in waves
How are you so blue?

The Great Andromeda Nebula
No longer as such
Now, she is a galaxy
Close enough to touch

As with life
And consciousness too
We form a singularity
In which attraction cannot move

Or can it? It's unknown
The wonders of this mold
It's Torricelli's Trumpet
Filled with finite gold

Take me on Cassini
Each pass-by in blue
I've seen Jupiter, and Saturn
And Epimetheus too!

I can't wait to keep on living
In this fantastic, beautiful, enigmatic,
expansive, wondrous universe
With you

Dandelion meadows
An invasive species
Taking land from the hand
Of the previous leeches

Not a bird in sight, nor insect, nor squirrel
Loud silence lacks cars and the usual whirl
These winds are like whistles
Through the fingers of trees
Closed windows are pummeled
By torrential pings

These mushroom spores and petrichor
Are easy to inhale together

His table
Is dented
And thoughts circumvented
By lingering memories
Of dropped self-inventions
A scholar, who sits
In quiet despair
Lacks joy in his heart
With grey in his hair
He pursued his dreams
But better than thou,
He stood on the beams
And preached to them how
His way or none
Go home, Coke and ***
He can't figure why life
Is boring hum-drum

Sometimes, I just want to sit and write
Or read and play
My guitar all night
Sometimes, I want to run outside
Or speak and say
The words on my mind
Sometimes, I want to bathe and sing
To the beat of the flame
As it's flickering

But through everything
I want to learn
and be
in wonder of the world
as it's rotating

Wake up, breathing, happy to see
The walls surround you, deafening
You're in the ocean, water deep
The ground is there beneath your feet

It's at the door, ding-**** bell
You're whispering to rid your Hell
Of mindless thoughts and there you fell
Into the pit - a burning smell

When the sun is up, the heat is nigh
Your words are breaths to make it by
An aquarium of octopi
You breathe again and feel alright

The window has a crack but it's okay
You patch it up with masking tape
And avoid it like that song you hate
To masquerade this life you've made

Sunglasses to hide the eyes behind
In hopes that one day vines would bind
The swimming laps, the daily grind
To avoid the time it'd take to find

The answer to your Hell is near
Just put that smile ear-to-ear
And remember the reason that you're here
Alive and breathing - let it come clear

I open the front door
Which leads to a pathway
It's small, and stone, on which I walk halfway
And stop
I'm at a pond - in its reflection the home behind me
Stained-glass windows
And a crystal-coated chimney
It's small in size, but the window reaches high
Two birch trees, and countless willows
Hearing hums as the wind blows
To the green vines crawling
And the red leaves falling
Cross-legged, I sit, and observe the birds
They're drinking from the pond
With satiated chirps
While dragonflies and animal eyes
Peer 'round the raindrops' descent
Soft books and leather seats
Await me inside

What to do about wanderlust?
Should it be quelled?
Desktop backgrounds are my only escape
Maps with tacks and backpacks with knick-knacks
It all seems so far away
Cobblestone steps are wearing down
By the feet of enlightened in wondrous towns
While chairs are pushed in
Or left out of place
Thoughts are escaping to the vacuum of space
This Earl Grey is mint tea in Tangiers' seats
Or gold and black Yunnan at her highest peaks
It's sifting through pans of Fynbos' red leaves
What to do about wanderlust?
Should it be quelled?
I seem to dwell

Elephantine swirls
Careful, unraveling threads
Bookcase, bookcase
Zig-zag treads
Vaulted, deep, brown and steep
Held by wicker
And woods and peach
Stones uneven, pathway in
Phrases painted with
Juniper and gin

Dimly dreaming of bright lights
Crave glimmers of ascension
Freeze, question
Interrogate and turn this way
To boat around this fence
As for the distance, straight line
Asphalt is bent
Gated at night and locked all day
The password worked yesterday
Everyone loses senses slowly
But this is just too far

The visceral admiration of one
The ******, on their knees, bow
Bronze cast dragging, alas,
One cannot fathom eternity
Fate in selfishness, determined, hauteur
Relentless and coerced
To be the one who hands his soul
At the feet of broken totem poles

O, my dearest and most enticing caffeine
Without you, the world would be grey
For each time you reach for my heart
It both flutters and beckons the day
So generous and giving, thou doth art
The simmering sound of your can intoxicates me
Carbonation so sweet; you give me motivation all week
To continue this molecular love story

Well, this mercury has broken
Each piece of glass inside my bones
For words are beautiful when spoken
And when written as a tome
I'm done with taking this for mine
Time's proven countless times before
You loaned me lights to fight this shadow
To not believe it anymore

Keep with you the breadth of hope
For deeply-defined melancholia
Can become pungent with despair
Journey alongside dragonflies in flight
For sedentary woe-becomes-me
Can turn the vermilion lake fair
In days of passing, through drops of daze
First pause and ponder that which shadows cast
For smiles in measurement and thoughtful plays
Bring forth merriment in a drought-ridden past

Parades and bikes
Lily pads on ice
Frozen lotus blooming
Hand me newscasts for free
"What's in store for today?" I ask
Allergic to the ink
"A horrible tragedy -
        you won't believe!"
It's a spectacle of disgust
A shock factor of distrust
For everyone to see
Who's the biggest celebrity
I read the front
And taste the back
Page 33, ink smears in black
"You need to care about this," it says
To me unwittingly

Just light a light and let it linger
Don’t fall again into the bed
Cast me with your index finger
At least I think that's what you said
I'm running further toward something
Which excites me more than I can say
It's like the cup upon a saucer
It's like a towel made of grains
I'm soaking in the seaside stories
And squeezing out the ***** stains
Washed by rain
Washed by rain

The water's edge is near to me
With rolled-up sleeves
This tranquil breeze
I'm bringing bookshelves in with me
It's Aberdeen
It's never-seen

Summer is singing
The spectacular sun
     stains my skin
Its song a sweet serenade to subtlety
Insects slowly swoop
     so to satisfy
Seriousness can't be taken seriously
Summer is singing
Each step in the sand
     singes under sandals
Somehow the setting sun is enough to stop sadness
Sweat spills over
     into the sapphire seas
Sometimes I forget how sacred summer seems

For favored solutions
When life is so brief
Open doors and open books
Are half-asleep
Gems glimmer and glisten
For purity's sake
In mental affluence and disillusion
The brain wakes
For coveted miles
When walking is done
Open doors and worn coat hooks
Are welcome
Locals bid well and listen
For status' sake
In sleepless intuition through cognition
The brain wakes

How wonderful it is
That we can see
And interpret
And comprehend
And contemplate
And dream
How incredible our lives are
That we can be
And breathe
And live, and feel
How beautiful the world is

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