There she was covered in her mother’s nourishment.
The doctor removed the cord and freed her spirit.
The nurse fussed, wrote, cleaned, and wrapped her in her
Gender’s color.
Being experienced with first timers she bent and adjusted my arms
And hands creating a cradle to place my daughter.
No crying, only a dove’s coo. Eyes like Caribbean seas stared up as
She nestled in soft and sweet as a chick.
A bell sounded.
Cathy looked on sweat glistening and spent and smiling.
That wonderful smile, her smile
In a moment my eyes truly opened.
Just a moment.
Such a moment. There she was covered in her mother’s nourishment.
The doctor removed the cord and freed her spirit.
The nurse fussed, wrote, cleaned, and wrapped her in her
Gender’s color.
Being experienced with first timers she bent and adjusted my arms
And hands creating a cradle to place my daughter.
No crying, only a dove’s coo. Eyes like Caribbean seas stared up as
She nestled in soft and sweet as a chick.
A bell sounded.
Cathy looked on sweat glistening, spent and smiling.
That wonderful smile, her smile
In a moment my eyes truly opened.
Just a moment.
Such a moment.

My brain sits on a bed of white-hot embers,
        Feverish with nightmares of failure and loss.
My heart is a furnace burning in passion for a love no more.
She who’s cool body wrapped mine and moist kisses quenched
        the blaze is gone.
Her tender soul and ethereal ways now watch over from so very far
        away.
My soul is ashes.
Above flies a phoenix.
Many eyes look up filled with awe and inspiration.
My flames are fanned by the mighty wings.
          I’ve become the fire. I will burn forever.

Between my dreams and reality,
Lies the lens I peek through
And capture my illustrated story

I travel the back roads
Running to places I cannot return to
I am not lost

When
            Did will be
Become would have been?

Gathering the fragments of shattered lives.
We must enter the chaos
Follow Dante’s path into the fires
Where innocents are dragged to the molten evil,
Boiling in the dark caldrons of the abominate soul
We are not born of heaven
Yet salvation can be ours to give.
Fighting deep within the chaos
Finding each lost soul, embracing the disparate
Even as our minds seek solidity
Battling the chaos of the unanswered why