Pluck the pedals
Snip the stem
This is
Romance

Ravens fly out of her eyes
swirling around her amber hair
A vortex of elegance,
intelligence, strong,
and fair

She shatters the wind
as if the entire world sat
upon
a single pane of glass

She does not ask for lasting youth
truth is not naturally given
as rights of humanity
drunk from crystal cups
stained by her lips

And her blood drips
from a single thorn's *****
when offering a rose
in condolences
to the death
of  our
daydreams

I can't afford the mansion you crave,
but I can visit the forest from where
it's made

And laugh as birds put holes in timbers
that you've spent a lifetime
chasing after

We sat on shore rocks
Where massive waves break
I knew the chance I needed
to take
So I grabbed her hand,
and felt the warmth of my
throat rise
As she turned to me I looked deeply
into her eyes
and asked her to be with me
to watch waves until the
day we die
and with a tearful yes
I became the happiest
man  *alive

To witness the power of words
is to witness an exploding star
Dangerous and beautiful

Essential

Raining down elements
that collect like snow
to flow down streams
and to flow like time
build and destroy
barricades
That try to hold back waves
that we ride

****** into the city where chaos prevails
camouflaged beneath the innocence
of a white bridal veil

We breath its air
and eat its streets
our bones fuse with concrete
our blood flows through pipes
that lay hidden beneath

Slowly we morph into the places
we can no longer
escape

My mind was hazy
after over drinking
when I first saw the figure

crunching its way towards
me on a winter's night
holding a flashlight
and walking its poor excuse for a dog

The iced trees drooped
swaying from cold breath
as the figure trudged on

The closer it approached,
I began to hear its song

Nothing drowned out its
performance in the stillness
of a New York winter

Nothing to compete with this
derivative, pop radio, Siren
Calling out to me as flakes
melt on my exposed face

I could taste the diesel
from the exhaust
expelled from the truck
that left tracks in the snow

Lost my attention for a second
then the figure's song
regained control

The flashlight grew brighter
and brighter
When the figure was just a few
feet away
the brightness over powered
my vision
and the figure asked
"do you know your way?"

"Sorry?" I replied as my
mind was not clear

"do you know where you are going?"

I replied,
"Does anyone know where to go
when their purpose isn't clear?"

Weight of my footsteps
crunches snow
that blankets
the once grassy knoll
full of life and dotted
with those yellow flowers
I can never recall their name
but I know they were your
favorite

Now they sleep under
frozen geometric shapes

We held hands
Our mouths full of dust
Sharing our passions
As our thoughts
Danced
To the sounds of
our decay
Celebrating the death of
time
Toasting still air
and static winds
Cherishing the pulse
Lost in pantomime

Midnight eyes pierce
through the sky
Liberated
Like the river
that finds
the sea

Beautiful dancing
light
bending into color
Carry me  
to the highest
peak

Where I can sing
to you
a dream

My heart floats on a turbulent salty sea
Drifting towards a whirlpool
Ready to devour me

Pulling me in as I sink down
Feeling the weight of heavy water
Forced to kneel at the sacred crown

I want to escape and I feel bright light
But no matter how hard I pull
These shackles pull tight

I can remember those happy days
The simple pleasures of youthful bliss
Kissing the sweetness
Of pre-earthly decay

Stolen hours of what I cherish

To see something beautiful,
must you first see ugliness?

Before you can be at peace,
must you first suffer?

In order to feel alive,
must a part of you die?

Or can we learn from
the trials of the past
exists
in a blissful state
from first breath
to our last?

Have you ever sat
and thought of a long
lost
love?

Day dreaming of
what
they're currently
doing? What they're seeing?

Maybe, they're kissing
their new love

Or

Maybe, they're just
washing dishes from
last nights roast

Or

Maybe, they're
just sitting there
Holding a photo
of you

Letting out a little smirk
with a mild chuckle
at the awkward looking
teenage couple  

Remembering what it was like
to brush your hair with
their fingers

The softness of your cheeks
before your
scratchy beard invaded

How it didn't matter
that it was 3am
You were going to count
the stars

When we didn't argue
over this stupid election
The only direction we moved
was the furthest from
reality

But,
eventually we were caught
and time pulled us
to our current state

Holding photographs

Am I the brick
that smashes glass?
Fountain of shards
spray
Like the paint I used
to write your name

Elegant curves and
black bold lines
dripping wet
with sharp highlights

This wall will
serve as a reminder
of the day
A testament of time
where we came to kneel
before textured
skin

Stand defiant before
opposition
wipe the blood
off our hands
as shards begin
to
spray

The taste of summer
is the smell of fresh
cut grass

The joy of heat
seeping deep
within
your surfaces exposed

When the sun goes
and says its farewells
to skyscrapers and mountains
It sets to greet the other
side

While I try not to
fall in summer love
with the passer by

I ask,
Is it more poetic
to write the most
beautiful of stanzas
devoid of any truth
or meaning?

Or, writing
from raw emotion
where beauty resides
behind the words
and ink flows
like blood and tears?

Impressionist Monet,
Was rejected by his contemporaries
À Paris

No longer wanting
To be a small fish in a
Large pond

He moved on to form
Anonymity amongst
Those who created
Independently

Resulting,
In Starry nights
And dots that
Transmogrify
Into tranquility

Time,
You are a thread
Undone stitching
stretching from a beginning
to your breaking point

Time,
how have you changed me?
Am I no longer
who I was?
Why must you trap me
in this endless thicket of
unknown horizons?

I hear your knocks
on my door Time.
They've been echoing since before yesterday
shaking walls, my picture
frames,

Framed happy faces of youthful bliss,
the kiss of
eternity,
The missing childhood friends
and a
family that used to be complete

Before Time's hand
choked their
breath

My life is a
match,
striking the box,
exploding into flame

The power of friction

Burning brightly,
hot
with youthful energy

Slowly the flame dies
until a smoke trail leads
to a burnt match tossed
to the floor

smoldering in place

Sometimes I feel that
we are all
messages in bottles
Floating with currents
Rising and falling with waves
Anxiously waiting for the day
to be read
by affectionate eyes

We read through books,
roll the dice,
as we gamble that their
words will not confirm our
disillusions

Only to reach conclusions
that our choices
are vindicated by
trails
past spirits took

We set sail for fertile lands,
lands that give promise,
of yielding an abundance
of hope

Lope in the fields
of swaying tall grasses
indulge in landscapes
free of the
huddled masses

And no matter
how much we experience,
it will never be enough,
We'll always long for more
and to drink from
silver cups

I inhale air
exhale clarity
the purity of the cosmos
consumes
my ever exhausted body

I morph into
the tiniest of particles
dancing in the breeze
finding strength in
the gaze of star light's
dreams

Numb to change
the removal of a
innocence being
from where
I came from,
shallow screams

I drift upon the energy
of winds transporting
me

To the seas of nebulae
where I can witness
the birth of
energy

To write poetry
you need to be born
You need to grow
consuming the energy of the sun
and the nourishment of
love

Years of change
hundreds of days
of pain, love,
sorrow, growth and
loss

A universe needs
to be born
out of the unknown darkness
before time ticked

Just so that we can write
a few elegant lines
a prose of our time
drifting, riding, on
Earth's dancing
orbit

Trapped in solitude
the noiseless screams of torture
dream devouring creature
of the black sea

I constructed a raft,
from timbers of fallen
ambitions, crossed the ocean,
cursing the climates that
engulf my body as I drift
away

Alone on the
pulsing membrane of earth's
diaphragm, I gaze upon
the mystical twilight

Pull out a piece of tattered paper,
crumpled and wet,
saved from my great escape
and write not
to dream, but write to live

discover the truths that
are hidden within my own head
until I reach land, full
of sharp teeth, and shrieking
masses

I'll befriend the rats
and the worms in the ground
the life we deemed below ours
for they treat me as an equal
one with the honest
one with myself

The rain fell not from the sky
or from dark anvil clouds
It fell from within myself
Flash of lightning
Night becomes bright
for a split second
trees can be seen swaying
in the
dark
Wind gust in every hollow opening
found within my heart
the rain came
and washed everything
with a
beat
of a steady
hand
drumming to beats
as thunder
crashed
the voice from the sky
dark piano
trembling keys
in low pitched notes
dark harmonies
I loved you for your
beauty
but not
for your soulless dreams
the rain came suddenly
and
flooded the roads
lost in a river of cold water
forever
remote

I find the truth
Causes suffering
And
We exist
Within as many
Lies
As it takes to
Barricade
Ourselves from
The heartache
of truths

Her beautiful silhouette
explodes
Into a flock of birds
scattering in all directions

I scramble to
catch them all
hoping to reassemble
the original form

I witness the sky split
in two
One half filled with doves
One half
wolves

They slash and cut deeply
Bite with forceful hate
Pouring my life into
The streets below

I lay there motionless
And watch
The sun set
Within the glowing orb
balanced on the horizon
I only see her
silhouette

The moon pulls the waters
of time
forwards and backwards
along with the yellow sun
eroding the shores of
the people we know
the people we love
until
they disappear
from our lives
completely

Cut me open
explore
what there is to
see

Label what you find
with beautiful
letters

Arrange them
in poetry

Soft reflections of the things we have done
this life is kept within mason jars
Their volumes filled with
Uncontaminated droplets of passion

Our hearts are held within the hands of time
Cupping its beating energy
Purifying the savage rhythm known since birth

We ride along rails to stations
Greeted by shadows of our past
Embracing their kindness and their
Pursuits of diamonds mined out of
Reality's sacred grounds

I spread my arms wide and take capture
of the wind
There's no other option
for the life that I'm in

The windows are
tinted grey
and dotted
with
cold
raindrops

We've added windows
to walls
to escape these
barricades

But today,
they should
be covered with
thick red bricks

Stamped with
warnings
not to open
as we will see the
world as it
is
Which can be
dangerous

Her gentle smile radiates
Captured
Stored
It's there when I need her
When I need to feel
something
In this world that
walks past me without a second glance

I spend my days dreaming
of her soft whispers
It's nothing but a tease
As she's always hundreds
of miles
away

Billions of people
walk the earth daily
nightly
tomorrow
today

and I only want to walk with her
to watch her ******
expressions
when I tell her how I feel

I imagine her kiss
As I stand next to her grace
And her face is facing me
Head on
I'm lost in in the space
Within her eyes
Trapped between
What she sees
What she feels
Her hand holds another
And I remain still
To daydream of a never future
A place that will never
Physically be real