I am very afraid to face tomorrow.
I am very afraid I won't face tomorrow.

Five, seven, five, held in
Syllabic prison, save me
Subjectivity

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.

the tragedy of finding your love,
the one that fills the empty vessel that is your heart
the one that join with you completing a new beautiful life
like the dawn of a new day full of blue and gold.
is that you may die twice

the blessing of finding your love,
is that they fill the empty vessel that is your heart,
they join with you completing a new beautiful life
like the dawn of a new day full of blue and gold
and you may die twice.

Do not hide little one.
The brief chill is only winter exhaling its last breath
Arise, unfold your leaves and open your bud.
Let the mellow glow of the new day dry the dew.
Let all creatures that would, take of your nectar
You sit on God’s palette from which he dips his brush and on an emerald canvas,
Paints red and golds and colors of such extraordinary beauty,
The artist’s hand is staid.
The poet is speechless.
You join in bringing a grace to the world which my words cannot adequately describe little one.
I am thankful and humbled.

Standing in shock, emotionally pummeled,
My life a wooden house washed into the sea,
Lashing waves peel the clapboards and the sea takes it.
The fabric of my being slides in tatters over my fingers.
She bundles the strips and ties them to a kite made of prayer.
Hand in hand we watch it rise.
I see everything I had leave as I grasp all I need.

You’ve touched my body
My heart, my soul, casting a
Mesmerizing spell

She took the tip in her slender fingers.
It glowed as she drew a breath, her red lips forming a kiss lighting her cigarette.
How our love ignited into a blaze on the embers of past romances
I ***** the **** out

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

I am a son and
Husband, father my roles in
“Life”, a one act play

You love completely, uncompromisingly me
You are all about me
You are inside me.
You are the soul of me.
You are the essence of me.
If you let me be
Would I be me
Perhaps it’s time we see

Pretty wide eyes looking up at me
My reflection in a liquid cerulean pool
Elongates in a tear rolling down your cheek
You blink
I’m gone

I am surrounded by the beautiful mosaic of people
Each fitting into their place
A harmonious tiled portrait of kinship
My sides do not run true
I am alone

On Easter morning,
I stood in prism light lifted on hymns of glory
I thought how Easter is based on death
How life lies between the quotation marks of birth and death

I’ve known the gutter and a home
Fellowship and adversary
Victory and collapse
Love that made me a better man each day
Love went away leaving me incomplete but blessed

Now little cherubs dressed in spring scurry about hunting for treasures
Moms and dads with guiding hands
Onlookers, clearing their throats and point fingers

Jesus, perfect and loving, gave the greatest sacrificed to save us all.
This I do believe
I do not believe Jesus now waits at some distant future
To embrace us and guide us to our rest

Jesus is by a bush nudging a plastic egg a little more in the open
He celebrated each up and got me through each down
He is the essence of spring, a world newly born, life renewing.
How does one say thank you for just a gift?

“Thank you”

I lay amongst the yellow chiffon flowing about your knees
Blue and gold play between the leaves
My cheek cradled in your soft palm, scented with meadow and wild flower

I reach up entwining my fingers in a silky web of flaxen hair
Lowering your head, I am flush with anticipation as you sultry breath reaches me
My lips raise to meet yours, sweet and moist as strawberries

I drink deeply of your wine
My cheek brushing your breast
Eden is open once more

Our love has reached heaven and made it so

Low gold sun
White angels float by
Do I grieve

Winter surrounds me.
grey and charcoal clouds stretch horizon to horizon
wind howls over a white land
I cry and my face burns
but under the shivering is a summer’s warmth
my heart is a furnace that warms my soul
soft eyes and ethereal touch, with each embrace, each kiss,
the steel around my heart grows red, casting a golden glow
you are and always will be my fire

We were great friends who
Fell in love, lost our friendship,
Then fell out of love

I can speak of a warm buttery sun dripping into an azure sky
A cool mint green lawn rolling on down to a cerulean pool, white clouds swimming beneath the surface
A billowing quilt of wild flowers settling on an earthen bed
But I cannot tell you how beautiful a day is

I can speak of my fingers running through chestnut brown hair, soft as spun silk
Eyes sparkling like sunrise, and as comfortable as a sunset
Velvety skin against mine causing delightful trembling along my body
But I cannot tell you how beguiling you are

I can speak of my soul joining yours in a celestial dance
A wanderer who’s journey is ended
The precious gift of you
But I cannot tell you how much I love you

There are no words

None

Ah revelation.
Morning sky opens, red, gold
Pen falls from my hand

You’re a realist
A wanna-be soulmate, a
Lie that stole my soul

Once I feared dying
But I have died, bit by bit
With each loved one lost

Susie and Jim fell madly in
Make believe love and swore their devotion before a
Make believe god standing under a
Make believe arbor beneath a
Make believe cloudless, azure sky, a
Make believe Van Gogh golden sun.  They moved into their
Make believe dream house in a
Make believe community of the young up and coming. Their
Make believe children went to all the best
Make believe schools, pre through advance degree.
Make believe friends filled
Make believe weekends hosting
Make believe parties.

One day an ethereal mist creeped under the simulated
Wooded front doors with the frosted glass windows.
Strange feelings of a different world filled all with an uneasiness
Some remembered growing up being told of “reality” but dismissed it as
They got older as a scary story children were told to behave.
Reality touched make believe.
Like matter and antimatter,
Annihilation.

“That’s it?” she said.
Careful not to fall off the twin bed she rolled on top of me.
“That’s just sad.”
I cupped hers cheeks in my hands and moved aside here
Raven hair.   There were clouds in her cerulean eyes
I bought my lips close to hers and before a long soft kiss, I whispered it’s only
Make believe

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

Your leg lying across mine woke me
Your body sweaty against me
I see you face in moonlight shadows lying on my shoulder

I dare not move disturbing you
Disturbing a moment as perfect and brief as a single snowflake
As wonderful as a first kiss goodnight, you taste in the morning

We met at cross roads of our journeys
I took your pack, you took my hand,
We’ve been traveling together for bit now.

In the dark, your breath a warm gentle breeze across my chest
I know not who authors our stories, the chapter of you and me
Will it be a finale chapter for one of us or will you take your pack at the next   fork

Now, this moment

I will not move

Come to me at dawn
We will rise, embrace the day
Come to me at night
In the dark hours, with my thoughts
Leave me as I am

Why can’t I die? Why Can’t I die? Why Can’t I just die?
Over and over and over again in my head.
Absolutely imploring.
Why can’t I die? Why Can’t I die? Why Can’t I just die?

Draw in a deep breath.
Such a fool.
An iconic rhetorical question.
I know why I can’t die.

But maybe for a short while.
My soul so wants to visit home.
Enjoy a little bit of peace.

We are midwifes to death
Acting like little gods
Changing what is right and beautiful into abominations
How can the hand that strokes the mane and scratch the chin
Deliver the blow
Little snots press into holes begrudgingly poked in sheet metal prisons
Trying to escape the scent of terror
They feel the warmth of the sun they’ll never lie in
Legs that ache to bound across verdant fields
Will be force to wobble one short distance
Pleading eyes tell us the butcher’s knife is not the cruelest cut
Plates are full
Is there enough drink to wash it all down?

The unlovable loved
The fallen lifted. Embraced
Christ unending gifts

I have no verse today.
God’s in heaven, angels watch
What more can  I say

The sound of the clink of two bottles,
I’m transported in time and space,
Sunday morning throwing out Saturday night.
Hot summer’s nights with friends in the backyard sharing stories and dreams.
Giggles dribbling down from children pretending to be asleep on the big bed.
Snapped back,
I’m graveside,
Early morning throwing out yesterday.

Why are you lonesome?
You seek, you welcome, you wait.
Many come and go.

Still you are lonely.
One wishes in. Your door is closed.
Open wide your heart.

From the living well
God offers all the ladle
Each soul to be quenched

I’m raised on Christian salvation and
I’ve no argument with the good news.
The fisherman of men has walked upon troubled waters.
Plucked me out and I’ve spat bile, standing by his side.
Yet I cannot abide starched preachers,
Finding loathsomeness in scripture,
Bringing me to my knees
Slapping the back of my legs with a yardstick,
That measures me an undeserving wretch,
I am part if the majesty of creation.
I take my place along with
Beast, fish, fowl and botany,
In the beautiful mosaic of life.
As the artist smiles placing the tiniest brush stroke,
Enhancing his masterpiece, God sees me.
I belong.
I deserve.
I am saved

Today I saw a flower,
A rose,
I did not look at the rose,
I saw the rose.
A yellow rose just opened,
The petals straight in a spiral,
Slightly flared at the tips.
“Beautiful” is subjective,
Who am I to label the rose?
Seeing the rose,
The intricacy of creation,
An explicable force,
That formed the rose,
That formed me.
I was filled with wonder.
Awe,
A sense of belonging
All this I would have missed
If I looked at the rose.

Rise, greet your new day
A joy to receive knowing
It’s given in love.

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

Let my heart erupt
My spirit will rise above
No longer tethered

Sometimes the mind is sharp, but the body is failing
Limbs that hang useless now form a prison as strong as steel bars

Sometimes the body is healthy, and the mind is lost
The world beyond the eyes unknown and confusing

The glow of living is blocked,
as quickly as grey clouds blown by hurricane winds cover the sun

From tears of joy to tears of grief
God is behind the curtain
Heaven is a promise that can’t be broken

Strip me of everything
Oust me from my home
Undo all I’ve done
Leave me nothing.  I am still blessed
My riches cannot be possessed
All that is of value cannot be owned
Try to hold, a sunbeam, a spring breeze, a new-born’s cry, your lover’s laugh
Everything of man will decay and pass, but these things are forever
She is as ethereal and eternal as all of God’s blessings and she keeps my soul

You called me soulmate.
Love me for time without end
But first be a friend?

Three maidens from a long sleep did rise
Their skin as white as winter’s snow
They opened eyes that sparkled as rippling brooks in morning sunrise
A potion from the colors of wild flowers gave their skin a radiant glow
With voices light as a gentle breeze
A song they sang so sweetly
Lyrics they learned from birds singing in the trees
A passing stream gave the melody
One is birth
Another hope
The third love
Their time is now to touch each life
Open your heart, your spirit to renew
Like frost in the spring, they melt away yesterday’s strife
Close your eyes, open your soul, see the world anew

When we enter this life, we cry.
If someone loves us they smile and laugh, we took our first breath.
When we leave this life, we cry.
If someone loves us, they frown and cry, we took our last breath.

Blood red sky
Fire in your eyes
Comes the storm