The red roses melt,
as does her smile.
But that’s not surprising
when she pulls out her deck of tarot cards to play poker.


She never respected living.
The TV screen illuminates her face
in the darkness of the small room.
The clouds outside feel like they came from her eyes.


Everyone in the world gathers
outside her home
to watch, trying to understand
Only to be met with a wall of indignation.


There is a coldness in her body
but a warmth in her glass eyes.
Her home is just a shell now,
filled with things that wore out their usefulness.


Only the white door to her bedroom
isn’t covered in red splatters.
It’s locked. Everyone’s afraid of what’s behind it.
They’re going to tear down her home.


But it’s too late.
She’s already succeeded
in proving this is no
Utopia.

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens

You linger still...
your
perfume embedded deep
within my memory

I am well aware that my lines lack an audience,
that the words of others are more beautiful
eloquent, passionate?
than mine: I have accepted that.

It is within my capacity to write about how
lost love, flowers, sunsets and cigarettes
evoke deep emotions within me.
I can write
that Great God will guide me through darkness
and I will find happiness in the end.
I can do that. More people would read that.
Perhaps I could get an audience
that way.

I'll keep my ambiguity
And I'll keep my countenance.

Disregard these words (as I know you will)

No one hears the cry of beating hearts,
No one sees the nightmourner,
desolate and quiet in its misery.
I have not read a poem written by a Shadow,
I know that they haunt us all the same.

Do not read these words I fear you'll read more.

Her bare feet slapped against the pavement.
Tulle skirt stuck to her sweaty thighs.
The first drop fell.
Rain came that day.

Arms outstretched, she started to twirl.
Until the footsteps came near.
Out of time with the thunder claps and bursts of light.
She stopped and stared.

He was there.
Drenched in the rain.
Watching.
She laughed and pulled him to dance with her.