Search. Search. Seek. Seek.
Cold. Cold. Clear. Clear.
Sorrow. Sorrow. Pain. Pain.
Hot flashes. Sudden chills.
Stabbing pains. Slow agonies.
I can find no peace.
I drink two cups, then three bowls,
Of clear wine until I can’t
Stand up against a gust of wind.
Wild geese fly over head.
They wrench my heart.
They were our friends in the old days.
Gold chrysanthemums litter
The ground, pile up, faded, dead.
This season I could not bear
To pick them. All alone,
Motionless at my window,
I watch the gathering shadows.
Fine rain sifts through the wu-t’ung trees,
And drips, drop by drop, through the dusk.
What can I ever do now?
How can I drive off this word —
Hopelessness?

Let not my love be called idolatry,
Nor my belovèd as an idol show,
Since all alike my songs and praises be
To one, of one, still such, and ever so.
Kind is my love today, tomorrow kind,
Still constant in a wondrous excellence;
Therefore my verse to constancy confined,
One thing expressing, leaves out difference.
“Fair, kind, and true” is all my argument,
“Fair, kind, and true” varying to other words;
And in this change is my invention spent,
Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords.
    Fair, kind, and true, have often lived alone.
    Which three till now never kept seat in one.

Autumn moonlight--
  a worm digs silently
    into the chestnut.

some days

some days i wake up
feeling warm and lovely and happy
feeling whole and right in who i am and what i appear to be

some days i go to bed
barely holding my eyes open against the weight of dreams
barely staying in reality a moment longer

some days i want to create
a dream of imagines on paper
and spill the ink of my mind out onto the world,
eagerly showing the creations of my mind and what excites me as far as
what i can imagine and bring out of the ethereal into the only slightly more tangible inner chambers of my mind palace

other days
i want to destroy
to tear, end to end, the world i have created in my mind and every piece of it i have brought into existence
to shred myself to pieces to rid the universe of such and inadequate creature as myself who dares feel more comfortable as a fluid being, more free to explore and weave in and out of the norms set by society

and then i fall, weak and hollow, to my knees,
full of life and brightness that has been pressed to aside by the gaping holes of heaving singularities within my gut and soul
and i feel dark
and wrong
and numb

but then every so often i get a spark of light in the inky dark of me

and it flutters close

circling my form slowly and giving out the slightest bit of light and warmth

sometimes this first Good Thought or Good Feeling will be crushed
snatched from the air in the claws of a demonic and wild gargoyle

but even so, one by one the light spots will gently blanket the gargoyles,
forcing them to lie in wait once more

for who can fight the gentle persistence of a butterfly

Take a left at the willow tree
And picture an artist's brush
Painting colors not known to man,
Celestial images replacing the devil's handiwork.

I am learning to dance again
Even in this dreary downpour.
Rain can't deter me from
The sunshine of grace.

I will become an artist
And learn from the hand of God--
I will hold a paintbrush,
My new colors I will paint.

THE BEAUTY OF A WOMAN

The beauty of a woman lies IN HER SILENCE
rather than her speech..

The beauty of a woman lies IN HER VEIL
rather than her face..

The beauty of a woman lies IN HER SUBMISSION
rather that her leadership..

The beauty of a woman lies IN HER SMILE
rather than her laughter..

The beauty of a woman lies IN HER PATIENCE
rather than her inquisitiveness ..

The beauty of a woman lies IN HER ABODE
rather than her adventure..

The beauty of a woman lies IN HER OFFSPRING
rather than herself..