Diametrically opposed
We push and pull
Yes
Like a set of magnets
We are drawn and arranged
In such a way
As to offset normally balanced poles
Into an array of dizzying fractals
Playing off one another
In a symphonic harmony
That vibrates
With a disphonic ferrousity
Until we are drawn closer
And dance in the force of our love
Our attraction unlimited

For one known to sojourn
The world becometh but a fraction
With every incremental journey
The puzzle of life clarifies
Like an uncouth window in need of cleaning
Every swipe removing a haze
That had previously clouded your vision
So that absent your cataracts
Each new destination resolved
And the beauty what lay beyond
Beckons
And as you merge into nature
Father asks you:
“Do your legs not tire little one?”
Enthusiastic you mew the contrary
You always were the contrarian
Springing away in leaps and bounds
In search of the next great adventure
Waiting around the next bend
I watch you go feeling proud of my little girl
Yelling after her:
“Daddy loves you my little traveler
Be sure to return with tales of your exploits.”
Like clockwork she returned again and again
As days became months and those to years
I began to fear the day when you no longer came
...
That day is today my baby kitten
…
And my heart aches for just one more story
From the one cat known as Sojourner

Daddy misses you so much

What words left unspoken
Speak callous to the mute
For it is grace to give sound      
Opposition tranquil                        
Like the rushing water              
Heard from a background ravine
Babbling incessant                              
Just out of reach                              

Woe it is that such secrets rest
That truth ranks second      
En lieu of base expression      
Deeming stoic pretense superior
To turbulent interior                          
Similar to the focus of a predator          
Stalking it's prey              
<Silent>
Waiting for the perfect opportunity
AMBUSH!                          
To sate the quiet hunger              
Patiently lying in wait                

Oh, it is a shame that masks be worn
For behind that false visage        
Rests a truth                        
Left unspoken

Deceptive it sleeps
Waiting for the rage
All consuming
A break in the torrent
Pain subsiding
It's replaced
Singular focus pulses
Throbbing incessant
Needing to be released
Craving blood for blood
Seeing red
It's free

And then words
Alone
Are not enough
To sate
The demon patient
Waiting
Hiding behind
My face

Storms wash over the lands
Flooding
Causing a veritable maelstrom
Palpable
Trunk swaying in reaction
Lightning
Flashing and booming in bass
Cacophony
Wind pounding and beating
Incessant
Attempting to erode the landscape
Cleansing

Then...

Calm
A break in the dissonance
Assonance
Filling the pall left behind
Peace
Healing the ravaged earth
Sun
Shining glorious rays
Prismatic
That shatter as the eye passes
Blind
A terrifying howl reminiscent
Forlorn
Followed by a sickening rip
Broken

Then...

I am flying!
Spinning
Rotating at an ever increasing rate
Disoriented
Confused as my world tumbles
Torn
From the only home I'd known
Alone
Just a tree caught within a raging
Cyclone

My sadness comes when life is put into perspective
Just how tiny we all are
In a scheme unknowable
But also possessing knowledge
A contradiction set in the realization
That perfection is not a part of our condition
Instead that we are conditioned to seek
Nay
My sadness is not one devoid of happiness
But alas one of wanting more than can be obtained
Straining to see through a looking glass
Whose aperture contains but the slightest imperfection
Such that the vision produced is warped
To a degree that sight becomes a lie
Dancing like a butterfly just outside my peripherals
Taunting and laughing at me during those quiet moments
Of peaceful contemplation
That lends the insight that generates a sadness
As massive as the black hole at the center of our galaxy
******* in the surrounding information
Only to spit it back out
Unrecognizable
To the otherwise happy and content man
That desires to be more than this mortal coil can permit
So I sit and write aimless lines
Designed with the intent
To convey in words
The potential inherent within a mind
Wondering adrift in a world possessing a surplus
Of ignorance

If only others possessed my sadness

The world could be a happier place

Why hasn't it changed?
If all we just do is sit back and abdicate
In faith that justice and liberty are inherent
Within the minds that control and manipulate
Both the means and the ends
That lead to a prosperity unworthy
To the masses and become limited to an elite
Selfish and soaked in a tyranny
Founded on the power generated
By the minds of the ignorant
Who truly know not the meaning of freedom
Given, only to be ripped away by the simplest
Execution of our most fundamental rights
Possessed by all with a mind
And a soul which yearns to decide
For itself whether it is to be free
Or a slave to those inferior in wisdom
To the animalistic tendencies we so quickly
Fall back on in a relative, fictional, safety

We all have a treasure to discover.

Some of us collect cards
While others of us hoard gold
But there is nothing in comparison
To the love I now hold
For there is no price tag
Or dollar amount to pay
The value that you bring
Makes tolerable my day
For you I will sing, scream
And even write
Proffessing my love
In all its might
So that it might grow at a steady pace
Never moving to slowly
Always giving chase
Because you are my queen
You're happiness my focus
To spend my life with you
Is just a pleasant bonus

I discovered my treasure. Shes priceless.

The clouds scamper along the horizon
Bringing with it a breeze of life
Ever so succulent
Like the sweet smells from a jungle canopy
Ripe with fruit and flowers of all variety
Accompanied by the sing song melodies
Of crickets
Chirp, chirp, chirping
And bees
Buzz, Buzz, buzzing
As the breeze weaves it's way through the trees
Causing a deep moan sporadic in nature
Then... rain...
Falling out of nowhere
Furious
Lightning flashes as thunder follows
Upsetting the breeze to a gust
Speeding up the world in a fast
Sorta
Slow motion
That yields sight to rushing lime greens
And bowing brown boughs
Caught within the torrent of life
Only the forest may know

Words absent I sit and ponder...

Am I the one I see in mirrors reflection
Or I am just a mirror immage of potential
Lost in the convex surface striving to be more
Like light flowing in waves to form an image
Particles aligigning at the wrong moment
And at the wrong time to develop a concise juxtaposition
So that the world appears like a 3D movie absent 3D goggles
Side by side with the potential to relay a whole
Yet only delivering a blur of information undescerned
Similar to a vinyl record slipping on an endless scratch
Forever broken and divided from it's potential
To deliver a clear and crisp note tonally pleasing to the ear
Yes, I am he who exists in a self imposed purgatory
Forever doomed to repeat the mistakes from his past
Never quite grasping the difference between the cardinal directions
Of life and the proper heading into the storm and the fluctuations
Marking the true course of happiness and it's cardinal rose
No, I am just a broken man sitting and remembering
The myriad failures that drove me to write the very words now read
By another soul dissatisfied by the image facing them
As they sit and ponder their reflection in the mirror

What esteem there is between lovers
Whom time has allocated a chance
To prove that not all obstacles
Require tears
It's the years spent together
That true value can be found
Like hidden gems in a simile
Where the relationship between two
Is best expressed through relativity
Shared within a hearts journey
As it ascends and descends the mountains
That represent the highs and lows
Of our loves ebbs and flows
Where our fingers can brush heaven
Tracing our names in the clouds
Or where our feet hit the valley
And the only way left to go is up
So we climb in effort to summit
The esteem only lovers can know

The light retreated as he stepped forward from the shadows

Recoiling away like the hand from a poisonous snake

Casting the world in a semi-luminous glow of a crimson washed patina

He struck a bell seven times to announce his arrival

With every strike the sound became less pronounced; distant

Until at the end of the seventh, ghostly silence reigned supreme

As he moved the air started to sizzle, the energy overwhelming

An oppressive heat boiling the air itself into a darkened conflagration

The stench of decay followed in his footsteps, putrid and wretched

Life held its last breath begging with eyes pleading for lights return

The last leaf fell into the wind
Soaring high above the world
As it hibernates in its cool embrace
Dancing the leaf spins and flips
Burnt orange and red outline
Creating a juxtaposition of gesture
As if the leaf itself were cognizant
Conscious of its high altitude journey
And its low altitude destination
Below the foothills
Beyond the mountains
The leaf crested the final peak
A near miss by leaf standards
Stiff fir trees with prickly boughs
Waved their farewells with a flourish
With a tilt and a final gust
The descent began
Faster and faster the leaf fell
The valley growing nearer and nearer
Until...
The wind stopped
Leaving the leaf to glide
Rocking side to side
Like you would a screaming child
Gently
Ever so gently
To sleep
Joining his brothers and sisters
Children of the earth

The great flood had begun;
Replacing the land with a waterworld dotted with mountain top islands;
Arks of mammalian preservation.

It was there I stood as the moon fell.

Night had never been so bright;
Luna inching ever closer;
Craters becoming more and more visible;
Resolution broadcasting high definition;
I raised my hands to the sky;
Reaching out to catch the massive satellite;
First contact came as my hands bore down;
Soft silt of the gray quality puffed;
My arms and legs began to bend;
The weight so tremendous that the effort shook my body;
Hers as well;
My left knee struck the land;
Terra redoubling my efforts;
Heaving with all my might I shrugged;
Sending the moon back towards the heavens;
I watched silently;
Luna was returned to her orbit;
The flood began to dissipate as tidal forces resumed;
Leaving me alone;
Hands to the sky on one knee;
Looking down at the world;
From the mountain of Everest.

The gust has a chill
Reminiscing the warmth of days past
It carries with it the soft embrace
Of lavender and dew
As the mourning sun rises
And nature awakens
A deaf pall falls with the leaves
Gently stirred by the growing gusts
Tilting just enough to reveal
The myriad of flashing diamonds
Common to the seasons first frost
Deflated the trees grown as stiff
Sore from the cooler climbs
They groan in protest at the push
Pulling back only in agitation
Somewhere in the canopy
A lone squirrel barks for love
Only to be drown out by the howling
Ever present within the autumn tempest
...
Then time freezes the landscape
Into a frozen panorama
Painting the anticipation for fall
In a quiet longing for spring
...

The sustained winds of our life
Blow strong in the direction of love
Consistent in its endeavor
To engulf the "I" with your eyes
With you I am grounded
Compounded with the rushing pulse
Of my hearts buffeted beating
Such that, with every gust
I realize how deep the roots go
That prevent me from falling
In any direction other than into
Your arms

This is our true strength
Stronger than any hurricane
Brave enough to cross the path
Of our loves typhoon

And so the corruption began
Spreading like oil drops in water
Pooling like ***** into the eyes whites
Black the irises dilating large orbs
Frantically dashing to and fro
The enlarged vessels sickly green
And blue pulsing yellow ****
In jets to the bodies rhythmic beating
Of a dying hearts last effort less
The panicked mind give in premature
To seizures electric rigidity
Locked tight such that the leather boils
Erupt in the beautiful mitosis
Wherefore the contamination plagues

The skin sloughs ever so slowly
As it parts from the blade and body
Slipping into the pail of past identity

On top I can see the newest addition
Eyes burning with golden bursts
Accentuated by cool emerald outlines
Staring back at their owner
Accusatory
The narrow pupil dilated in question
"Why go blind?"

I ignored the orbs
Instead turning back to the business
At hand
Where I was carefully removing
Fingernails and thumbprints
One by one joining the flesh
That had once been me

My eyes glared at me
I stared back
Empty sockets dripping
Drip
Drip
"Never have I seen more clearly
For without my skin I truly feel
Without my eyes I cannot cry
Nor nails nor prints to conceal
The real me is not outside
He's inside wanting only to heal"

How can one year seem like ten?
Is love just a form of multiplication
Stacking seconds on top of minutes
To the point that each hour
Somehow violates the laws of time?
Or does the weight of our hearts
Bend the very fabric of time
Creating such gravity that our
Beats move like a wave throughout
The cosmos?

To the outside world we appear normal
Whereas the seemingly everlasting days
To them seem brief at best
For our love is anything but general
It is special to the extent
That the faster we move
The heavier we become
As we grow and learn together
Within the shared experiences
All contained within one year

365 days
8760 hours
525600 minutes
31536000 seconds
Of the special relativity
Between us and the cosmos

The oppression of life can be sweltering
For as it is with responsibility
Not all directions are chosen via choice
Nay, sometimes we can feel as slaves
Bound to a way of opposition
Against the natural progression
That would otherwise define happiness

Nature, therefore becomes operative
In the language of experience
As from childhood to adolescence
We are free to live and choose and fail
All-the-while learning from each
What it means to be a unique
Individual from the herd that
Silently stalks its prey
Patiently waiting to strike
With its conformist claws
Coated with such vile poison
That the freedom we once had
Becomes a shuddering hallucination
Quickly fading into the obscure
And routine dance of the day to day
Operations that progresses the opposite
Impression of oppression

The heat is unbearable
Just ask the sweat dripping
Drip...
Drip...
From your forehead

Without you I am lost
Awash in this sense of dread
That permeates the very core
Of a rationality held in such esteem
That never could I think
To see myself dripping and bathing
In a pool of my own blood
Intertwined with thoughts of you
And completeness and purpose;
Without you I am insane
Left to tremble with your absence
Felt as sharply as a needle
Knowing that you are too far
Beyond walking distance
Such that my heart seizes it's beating
Forgets it's meaning
Begins the ending
Deathly sending
My final thought
About living in a world
Without you

The sky was foreboding as we set sail
Dark tendrils dominated the horizon
And the telltale BOOM of distant thunder
Predicated a storm we will never forget

In defiance of mother natures fury
We pushed on
Uncaring and willing to face whatever
Obstacles she dared throw our way
Be it hell or high water
We would not quit

Neither the first disrupting sprinkle
Nor the darkening gloom could dissuade
The course we had set
As a cool chill began to soak to the bone

We yelled at the doom:

"Is this all you have to offer?
Nothing easy is ever good!
This temporary drizzle
Will never sour our mood!"

As if in response a thunderclap rose
And white lightning lit up the riverbank
Illuminating the disappearing islands
We had so stubbornly named
Engulfed by the swell of oncoming
Floodwaters filling the river to the brink
Pushing us ever onwards towards
Bank after bank
Hoping to capsize or submerge our hubris
For a monument to all who dared challenge
Her wrath

We yelled at the monsoon:

"We see you there
In the miniature big bangs
And the millions of bouncing diamonds!
We see you there
In the rising depths of oblivion
And the countless tons of tears!
We see you there behind it all
And we still love you
Mother nature dear!"

We yelled until we were mute
We rowed until our hands seized
We shivered until we were frozen
We pushed on never to be seen

It was a plainly written script offering little explanation into the intricacies of life after death.

To quote

"For every new beginning there is a new ending"

Perplexed, I took it upon myself to attempt to explain such vagueness in a way only a poet can.

What follows is to be known as:

The Prime Covenant

As I stand on the thresholds of death
I can see the landscape of my life
Spread out against the horizon in frames
Within one I see my birth
Kicking and screaming as I met the light
(Curious because, in life, this moment was fast forgotten following the burst of new experience)
To take in the sights of my mother
So proud to have her only child
That she clung to me through joyful tears
Then my fresh eyes caught my father
Shaken to the core after experiencing
The recreation of his own birth
For I was like him and he was as me
(In between all these new wonders rose my first breath, which was so sweet that even the frame of the memory shuddered from excitement)
Through it all I see the memory of love
That can only be found in lifes first moment

From the corner of my peripherals
A new frame caught my eye
Where I stood for the first time
Following months of incessant beckoning
From my parents to abandon the crawl
That had led me away from infancy
Flashes of fear and pure joy mingled together
Leading to my first step
Which led to another
To another
So rapidly I couldn't control the momentum
FREEDOM!
And then I was running
(The fastest toddler alive if you ask my father)
My legs taking me far and wide to explore
The wide world around me as the frame shifted

Orienting itself into a picture of me
And my first favorite tree
A magnolia standing taller than any God
A child could hope to fathom
But also small enough a mountain
To not stay my freshly found love of movement
Until I was at the top
Looking down at a world wider than comprehension
As flicks of terror stained the frame red
When the screams of my mother
Snapped me back to the reality
That I was a toddler in a tree
My tree

Driven away by panic the frames spun forward
Like that button on old school casset players
Comprised of two sideways triangles
Where every frame appeared frozen
While also moving
Until I sickened of the pace and settled
On a frame seemingly dark
(Bits of angry red and sad grey completing the new patina)
That revealed a new memory of forgotten times
A time where tears prevailed for all accounted
There stood my father, frozen in the door
(The screen partially open to allow his head to poke through)
And my mother, hand on my arm in a vice
Incoherent through sobs of lost love
As she dragged me away from the door
My arms flailing as I made a futile effort
To reconnect the two
...just two more steps...
Then I was in the car
(An old Ford pento if the frame is to be believed)
Reversing away from the driveway that was my home
From my first moments to my first tree
I wailed in what seemed agony
At my father's outstretched arms
Protruding from a screen door
Illequiped to hide his tears

Within the frames I became lost
Neither direction nor time having meaning
(For what end can be more traumatic then divorce for an innocent five year old?)
Here and there were glimpses into yet more
Beginnings lost to even more endings;
My first day at school...
The death of my grandfather...
My first kiss...
The end of my first friendship...

Friendship

The frame broke my distress and stole my focus
"David, my mom said it was alright if you stay the night at our house!"
I was excited
(Finally a reprieve from traumatic rememberances)
He said "Alright, I'll tell my dad and be over after school!"
He was excited
(His mom had died the year before due to something called 'overdose' and was constantly sad so it felt good to see such life come into him)
The frame grated into place a few hours later
My mother stood in the kitchen of our small trailer
Crying as she told me "I have something to tell you."
(I was eight and seeing her cry made me cry)
"What's wrong mommy?" I asked
She said "honey, we can't afford to live here any longer, your aunt is on her way to pick us up."
(According to the frames this was the fourth such occurance)
"But I invited David over like you said to stay the night!" I pleaded
To no avail as my aunt pulled up to take us away
From my first friendship

Distraught, I raged at the horizon
"Why do you toy with me so?!
You tease these memories of beginnings
Only to destroy them with endings!"
As if in reply the frames shook,
An internal earthquake occurred
And there she stood
My wife
Frozen in the frame of the first time we met
A memory I could never forget
As beautiful as a late afternoon sunset
Fixated, I took her in my arms
Refusing the frame to let go
Holding on through the fast forward
Of our first kiss...
The first time I met our kids...
Our first argument...
To my last breath...
"Though there may be endings to some beginnings, my love for you will never die...
I...
Love...
You..."

The frames ended similar to the last reel of film from an antique video
The light across the horizon faded
Yet I still held her frame
...never to let go...

You see, the Prime Covenant is the deal we make with ourselves upon entering this life.

We agree to feel love as equally as we agree to feel loss.

Life after death is the reward for making this pact so that even in the darkness that follows the light, the most wonderful beginning will always be with you beyond every end.

Symbols are signs,
Assigned by design.
Representing the ideas,
Concepts reside.
In the language we speak,
The words we write.
Symbols are to blame,
For contradiction plight.
So say what you mean,
And mean what you say.
Letters and numbers,
Symbolic Array.

When faced with limits
Art goes to die on a mount
Born a deity is

Rules that restrict life
Natural order of things
Resenting our art

Break the rules and see
With haiku is prophecy
Limits are the start

To fly you must jump
Free falling before the ground
Breaks apart your skull

Atlas may have shrugged
But you're a fool
I wish the weight of the world
Would simply crush you
And your blind faith
To which you hold esteem
That is quickly draining
Your life as you bleed
To death do us part
Theres always a plan
Whether divine creation
Or evolutions hand
You think I'm wrong
We'll let me teach you
For in every situation
My philos will be true
Never succumbing
To popular notion
The wisdom of your words
Like an empty ocean
So tell me again
The master plan
Because blind faith
Creates a blind man

We're all weightless
Compared to the mass
Of the sun
And moon
Yet our minds
Can carry more weight
Than an entire galaxy
Maybe this is how
The universe communicates
Across the ever expanding
Cosmos
By creating the byproduct
That we can observe as time
While the space we occupy
Is minuscule
In comparison
To the big bang
That is a thought
Without weight

There are bodies lying everywhere
Decaying
Home to thousands of wriggling maggots
And flesh eating flies
Devouring
The remains of your victims
While slowly mulching organic material
Into a fertilizer of death
Destruction
Where each corpse is marked
By bleach white bones
Crossed in such a way
You can visibly feel their pain
Decrease