I've seen a better part
Of overwhelming emotion
It's strange
An ebb and flow
Of apathy and actually
Living
Feeling an emotion
Feeling a feeling
Feel
When your body
Is alive
And your mind is trying
To let it slide
Behind
I am fine
I am
Life is beautiful

Through the wandering spectrum
Of cerulean dragonfly eyes
You fly without hesitation
Observing the vast and marvelous world
As if it were your own
As if it were your cut-out template,
With an admirable sense of wonder
And the fervent desire
Not only to know
But to contemplate
The luminescence of a fluttering firefly
How the brittle mechanisms of life
Apply
Through crystal-clear dragonfly wings
You carry your mind

The Yorkshire Rose, elegantly perched on the bridge
This was not London, or the palace
nor Manchester, where Mancurians are free
nor Blackpool, where the beach swallows
Glasses, towels, mussels clinging to rocks
The Yorkshire rose, drawn upon the bridge
Bullet trains, leading distances
Almost unfathomable in this very spot
Harrogate, bath water
Spilling onto the street in natural sulphuric geysers
Burning
The Yorkshire Rose, fleeting in memory
In ghosts of the abbey nearby

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

Liquids and lipids
North and south
Fatty and lean
Mouth-to-mouth
Resuscitation
Breathe
In and out
I think I need the Heimlich too
Compress my chest
Until I come to

Floating
Laughing
Smoking
Singing
Flying
Drying
And hopping in again
Something sharp touches your skin
It burns
A thousand needles
Of a jellyfish sting
It has a hold of your ankle
And is pulling you downstream
You look down
It's menacing
It's laughing now
And floating
Singing
It's quite demeaning
You fight and fight
But its grip is tight
It pulls you underneath the surface
As the trees around you
Become a world without you
What is that sparkle?
It's golden, silver, bronze
You see domes and towers
Fruitstands and flowers
You quiver
The jellyfish loosens his grip
As you wipe the blood off your lip
Who would have thought
The key to Atlantis
Was in a jellyfish's grasp
Either that or this jellyfish's secretions
Were super hallucinogenic
Either way
This is cool

*wait, how do they even have a swimming pool underwater
and functioning toilets
fish don't even have thumbs
i really don't understand
****

Drowning out through seeping acrylic
Unconventional canvas on a rickety easel
Not even possessing the power to paint
The broken wing of a broken swan
Despite her weakened frailty
She paints
Using her beak, using her feet
The swan finds it consoling to know
That the littlest, infinitesimal purposes
Are purposes
None the same

Precipitation
I felt the raindrops
Hit my lungs
Like a cigar
I wasn't supposed to wholly inhale
But I breathed deeply
As if the earth were a hookah
With endless coals
Lit
As the street lights
Illuminated each drop
I only missed
One or two

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

river poets meandering
through stacks of golden hay
water rolling over jagged rocks
as night turns to day
pen to paper, written later
reeks of means to hesitate
ocean writers flicking lighters
humming through to meditate
when your chest is getting tighter
smoke through cigarette haze

Strolling, the clouds
Are rolling, they abound
And surely they've found
A purely new sound

But towns have found that clouds come down
In rain, to panes
Their windows are loud

With respect, they see
That without them, they'd be
Lost in the toss
Of a barren dirt sea

She checks her wristwatch
Counterclockwise
Against her former expectations
Of the metal
Around her wrist
She checks her digital clock
The one on the stove
That flashes
Flash, flash, flash, flash
Like a silent metronome
When the power goes out
And comes back on
12:31
12:30
12:29
Calm
She is still calm
Breathing
Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale
Steady
Like the bobbing of a buoy, bouncing
Brazenly in open sea
You see
She sees
That time can be trickery
That conceptual thoughts
Provoke mystery
Illusions and delusions
Conclusions and intrusions
Seclusion
She has many things
About which
To think

Minnesota winter
This lake, that lake
The lake around the corner
Frozen, wholly
Catching fish through
Holes in the ice
Frostbite
Layers of snow packed deeper
And deeper
And deeper
Like an unsightly
Ice cream cake
Snowmobiles leaving traces
Of minus 40 races
Breath freezing to faces
And icicle trim laces
Something is serene
Though the air
Kind of smells like
Freezer burn
And hypothermia

I have been witness to many things
You must fear not what cold winter brings
You are young, but the reason this bird sings
To you, sapling, this bird clings
Let go of your evergreen hesitations
Your leaves will fall in wondrous presentations
Followed by gazes of beautiful validation
Your stems a sign of majestic acclimatization
While your trunk grows larger and far more in tune
Your leaves will broaden to as large as the moon
To each passing insect and all birds here soon
Your pits to catch water as a natural spoon
You see, young sapling, you are a delight
Do not see winter as a source for fright
Each tree in this forest has seen the same plight
But all have continued their journey for light

Her thoughts so weary and bitter tasting
Forevermore to feel tired and wasted
Aging dreams and makeup nights
Feet so high she hits the lights
Falling for the guile of each street salesman
He opens his jacket; "Each is a haven,"
Claims of lightposts, illumination of the dark
She's falling asleep on a bench in the park
Urbanization of hardy measures
Have tempted her to indulgent pleasures
Whiskey whiffs of fallen kings
Street lights showing off the obscene
The days are gone of lasting serendipity
She's misplaced in what was once her own city

The tapestry in the window
Has fallen on one side
But she continues waving
To the passersby
Gifting them gold from her left hand
And showing her stance
Perched upon a lotus
She's a still-life dance
Algae consuming her kneecaps
As she remains in a trance
Her eyes deeper
Than what could be portrayed
With the dye
As we are all deeper
Than what is portrayed on the
Outside

It's admiration, inundation
A secular or religious nation
A land of automation
Drowning in inflation
*******
And frustration
On each radio station
We claim dedication
But all we need is
Validation

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