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

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

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

Oxidization
Volcanic hills are blood red
With memories
Of water
Past
Atmosphere gone
Polar shift, done
Magnetic aesthetic
Still
As pleasing

Dressing room, dressing room
Tell me I'm pretty
Allow me to pirouette
In this small space
To show you each plait
On the skirt I just lifted
Over my trousers
Dressing room, dressing room
Your lights are so bright
It brings out every makeup line
But if I squint
They don't seem so defined
Dressing room, dressing room
How close can I get
To your mirrors
Before they stop
Reflecting
And start
Complimenting

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

He has a lot of photons in his pocket
Waiting to be taken out
And thrown about
But every time he reaches in
To grab a handful or two
They slip right through his fingers
Because they're fast
Quite literally the speed of light
Energy driven by momentum
And that's just what he
Needs

Guaranteed satisfaction
Limited supply
Get it fast - run!
Our sale ends
In 30 seconds
Trample your neighbor
And buy the best one
Bend over
And check it out
Head to the register
And we'll apply the discount
We promise

Balancing willows on the tip of the earth
The ground below eagerly catching their tears
Their dilapidated easel is poorly shaken
But they have not given into such inconceivable fears
A thinking man's dream of peace forsaken
Only to build in one hundred drawn-out years
The simplicity of man has thus been taken
As the willow weeps for that so cavalier
Where the grease of industrialization so nonchalantly flows
The willow in his beautiful stability knows
That when man's irreverent complexity grows
His drooping leaves to wilt like a rose

Lying there
Nose at the bottom
Of the door
Sleeping
I wonder what he smells
The grass
Or the bush that was just trimmed
Or the neighbor's Jack Russell
After all, they are good friends
Dog park stories and
Funny expressions
Times when his tennis ball
Was the only thing in the world
His goal to catch it
Bring it back
He would do that for a week straight
If he could
Maybe he's sad that I had to trim his fur
Because now his tail
Just isn't as fluffy
Being a golden retriever
Is tough

Ice blue, fluorite lights
Brisk and windy Autumn nights
Trees silhouetted against beautiful sights
Lights reaching fantastic UFO heights
A shiver away from icicle, frozen
Buoys float on water in space wide open
Life letting leave on those things broken
Water lapping shores like lava molten
Whispers in rocks surrounding each path
Knowing tales of days-passed and aftermath
A spindly tree feathered with its repeated bath
Moonlight washing away all that's wrath
Not trading here for a million or two gold
You could offer a mansion with no sign of sold
Each passing boat of enlivening cold
Remembers stories of today that were never told

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

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

I sit in silence
To sing the sounds of a sitar
It's hard
I can't really do that
That "pew weeeew" sound
I sound more like an alarm
I bet it could definitely wake people up
If I were loud enough
But my voice doesn't carry well
Regardless, why would I want to disturb sleep?
When it's something that people
So desperately need
I guess to be alive
Being bound in this metal cast
I bet I could program my voice to do that
To sound just like a sitar
But it would probably sound slightly
Mechanical
Methodical
And that's not what I'm going for here

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

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

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

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

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

Man, I sure do wish I was up in space
Flying and gliding
Slowing and observing
Checking out comets
Maybe having a cup of tea with Mars
Or maybe like, a Diet Coke
Whatever Mars would prefer, I suppose
Except not Diet Rite
Because what kind of life
     anyway
If I were in space
I'd want to dance with Pluto
And chat with Jupiter
I'd ride the tides of spacetime to find
The asteroids of ice - I'd take a knife and grind a slice
Stick it in my drink
I didn't forget
About my tea-party with Mars
"Man, this is stellar!" I'd exclaim, far too often
I'd journey on a boat
Or a spaceship
Or nothing
To the center of the galaxy
And I'd probably think something like,
"I knew this place was pulling me."

Train tracks lead to predetermined places
Different directions, different faces
Exist to the right, exit left
Fluttering in one's peripheral, leaving traces
Daylight passed, nights so moonlight bereft
Of cloud cover to be cloven, the unconcerned brace
In the sky above what is known as home
Wherefore, each break shepherds individuals
As still as a garden gnome
Stoic as a preserved throne
Phlegmatic as a slowly melting icicle
In a cave that no one knows about
Exist to the right, life is what is left
Learning and yearning for that so disconcerting
Yet the biggest and most impactful
Inspiration
To live, not only to exist

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