who am i that your eyes shine not
                   but are gray as smokey dust?
          there is no courage to be found
              in an empty fire-pit.
                 there is no light.
don't look to me if your eyes don't shine.
                 where is my courage?
         instead look with me
                high and low
             for timeless fire.
what will shine our eyes as stars?
who are we to make them dull?

I can’t breathe among these aspen leaves
Wind washing over a war washed face
My embrace feels lifeless now
I long for the tropical beaches of an unexplored love
With palm trees of emotion so tall
That I could climb and give the sun a hug
but a shrug is all I give you to tell others about me
So they can see if we
Should be together forever like I always thought we should
And we should
But now I’m starting to think differently
I come home and all I hear are the deafening blasts of artillery
Fill a canteen of coffee and ration it out until the battle is over
I hardly ever win a fight
And I’m not worried about victory
I’m worried that I might not survive the war
What more do you have in store for me
And I can feel the sea breeze on that piece of paradise that I pursue
That peace that I pursue
You think I’m only giving up the war to stay with you
and I would’ve gone AWOL
But I was already missing in action
You were a witness to that
But didn’t think that it was the last time you’d see me
Until I didn’t come back
Defeat became too much
and I’m happy being lost
For the time being
I’m being awful, but this isn’t my mind seething
It’s someone else’s, belonging to the stranger that came back instead
And my eyes see that I don’t belong now and the past is dead.
It’s like I’ve come back to a foreign place where the war is needless
And even though it’s beautiful
All I want is to storm the beaches.
And bring storms that reach down
to rip the trees up
at the roots that sink down
in the earth that seized up
Please just let me be
while I spend my time reading up on weaponry
And safety precautions
Studying the rules of engagement 
So next time I feel like I’ve lost it
There won’t be so **** much collateral damage
So now I manage to escape the blasts
But there has never been a peace treaty
Only cease-fires that we spend resupplying
And re-arming. I see the way you’re looking at me
A little bit alarmed because you know that I’m trigger happy
And I think it might be weeks before the peace talks will resume
so I dive for cover any time you walk in the room
because the boom of mortar fire mortifies me
And makes me wonder if there is more to life
than my thunder fighting a war with lightning
and hiding my battle scars
Resting until I’m two quarters tired
half dying spark
fading ember
But then I embark on a journey into flashbacks of landmines
in no-man’s land where the lines are drawn
where the danger never shows it’s face
after the light of dawn
because day time in the open space is a ****-zone
our memories take it slow through the cold darkness
fighting a guerilla war against me
and it’s those same memories of our war that tempt me
back to the combat zone
where the sky is split in half by an unmanned drone,
where the land is scarred with bomb craters and tank treads
where the dead wash up on the river banks and the lakes edge
where you talk in hand-signs
and you push on cause there’s no choice
but to survive the bad times
And ****** I’ve had mine
but I’ll put up a last stand
ship off to the battle again
load up and roll out ready to exact my revenge
But there was never a stranger
I’m ready to embrace what I’ve become
I admit that I’m a product of everything that I’ve done.
I’m a war criminal.
I torched the rules of engagement,
Scorched entire cities and reduced them to pavement
And you should be afraid every day that I’m alive
Because now I’m out for blood and I don’t care anymore if I survive.
I thrive on the cold glory
Gunpowder smoke is my air
I’m the saboteur
In our fight between hope and despair
knowing this war rages on
and that you’ll never make me retreat
even though I’ll hate victory
more than I hated defeat.

I never felt a fear quite like
when flipping pans of eggs
with perfect grace
and fluid poise
I flick the wrist
and raise the arm
and know they'll land
in perfect form
unbroken yolk
to simmer warm
yet as they fly
some panic joins
and carries through
the narrow arc
where topsy turvy
eggs now rise
and twist onto
their fragile heads
my world with it
my face of dread
for one mere second
I know I have control
but do I?

I wandered up a mountain pass
     to leave the world behind.
  I have no children, nor a wife,
  nor anything to call a life.
This sojourn through the world, alas,
     is all I know as mine.
I was a denizen - the last -
     and here I am, one still,
yet wand'ring through the wooded path,
     and o'er the rolling hill.

My heart went to the mountains bare,
     into the wooded night,
  where darkness fell as thick as clay
  and murdered memory of day,
to see if dawn could conquer there
     and set the woods alight.
Though, when she came at last to see
     the darkness falling thick,  
She reached out to the tallest tree
     and lit it like a wick.
The embers danced from leaf to leaf
and spread the flame from high to low.
The mountains turned a burning wreath
of blinding light from morning glow.
The forest smoked and fell to ash -
my heart fell with it, smitten dust,
and blanketed the earth at last,
my birth; now death the only must.

The rains fall on that mountain high
     and soak the ashen earth
  then wash into a small ravine
  that widens to a narrow stream -
my heart and blood flow with it, nigh
     upon a gliding mirth.
Then suddenly, it turns to wrath
     becomes a river wide;
the torrent cuts a canyon path
     into the mountainside
and digs into the world deep
     and chisels through her bones
and courses through her weathered vanes
     and echoes in her groans.
The river and my blood flow through
     the underground below,
  in silent limestone caves, alight
  with glow-worms in their cavern-night,
emerging at the ocean blue
    to join the ebb and flow.

My soul went to the mountains clean,
     unfettered by the mind.
  A wind - turned from the gilded plain
  now drinking deep the ocean rain -
whistling through the valley green,
     delivers me from time.
The Mountains rise and crash like waves,
     in laughter at the Tides:
  a frenzied chase around the world
  the moon, that pale translucent pearl,
with crests that reach for heaven, crave,
     eternally deprived.
Why hurry on, sweet crashing Sea,
     Why rush? The Mountains ask.
   Dear Mountain, you have much to learn
   of seas and oceans, how they turn.
'Tis not a frenzied chore for me,
     but an unhurried task.
But you, the Ocean says, I see
are more laborious than me,
though you see such splendid heights
it takes ten thousand days and nights
to raise a peak, to break a crest
against the wind and fall to rest.
Indeed it does, the Mountain sighs,
and goes about it's steady rise.

I went into the mountains lost
     and found myself at last
  in sun-bright forest, mountain stream,
  on rolling hill, by ocean green.
I went into the mountains
     and I lost myself at last.

Maya, little beauty, just turned five -
her joy lights off like sparks through emerald eyes -
   all mirth and shyness, from a heart of gold,
flutters to me like a monarch flies
   and says in gleeful tones, "Grandpa, you're old."

And I, of course, might quickly melt away
at every word this child cares to say,
   if she should babble nonsense all day through,
and so I smile at the game we play,
   "Yes! In fact, I'm twice as old as you!"

"No, Grandpa, I'm small. You're way more old,"
she objected, daring to be bold;
   but even so, her words dared to be sung.
I asked her as her gentle laughter rolled,
   "You mean to say that all things small are young!?"

"Yep," she simply said and skipped away,
then, dancing back again, began to say,
   "But not an elephant, they're always big.
Even when they're babies. And they play
   around in mud sometimes, and so do pigs."

"Hey there birdie, I see what you did -
You changed the subject! What do muddy pigs
   have to do with young and old," I smiled.
"Is it true that all things old are big?"
   I asked, in playful tones, the beaming child.

Step in, stage left, my own sweet little girl,
her mother, Mary Lee, my very world.
   I remember her in younger years,
innocent with joy, a soul unfurled,
   always smiles, rarely any tears.

But now she's grown, and grownup thoughts abound
inside her pretty head, and hold her down.
  Where there was happiness, now worry grows...
Her eyes find Maya monkeying around
   on my old lap and poking at my nose.

"Maya, dear, you'd better come inside,"
and stop climbing on grandpa!" Mary sighed,
  "He's getting old. Besides, it's time for bed."
"It isn't even dark yet," I replied,
  "and I won't be too old until I'm dead."

the eyes that see
  are not the eyes that yearn
it seems the eyes that seek to find
  are not the eyes that learn
yet eyes on fire set afire
all that earns the heart's desire
  passion lights the pyre
    and the fire keeps
      all that the fire burns

The truth is, my dear,
that I never loved you.
I loved an Idea
that you can't live up to.