Whose to say that the dreams
I have just roused from,
Are any less real
Then the waking dream
I find myself in now?

Horns of triumph sound,
showering the day with a golden glow!
Apollo in his blazing chariot rises from the east horizon, reigns in hand as he flies towards the stars with the morning light tethered tightly behind
his shining carriage.

Eyes long blinded ache from the coming morning,
the dew on the grass shines in radiance
and an emerging smile escapes from lips tightly held together.

A laugh escapes!
The head rolls back, the eyes begin to water!
A gasp for air, a friend held tightly to your chest!

The mournful songs of the lasting night fade to blurred memory, drowned in new light.
The flicker behind a smile that was lost in the white moonlight cracks open again, one that was forgotten deep within the darkened cave.

The first time come again!
A child’s giddy laugh tolls from a mouth set in stone.
A stomach full of nervousness, a mind that will not rest.
I exist on a single beam of light in between two oceans of stretching, black infinity, and I walk the line as a tight rope, balancing deftly with my eyes in the clouds, and a pen held tightly in my hand.

Shades of blue, the morning doves throaty coo,
each second leaps and bounds, elastic stretching and it’s twanging rebound.
The tension in the rope that can’t help but reverberate, and love in exasperation, shiver as the chills come once again.

Eyes met twice, a joy to be now with no questions asked, no thoughts but what the others thoughts are, and how long a moment can actually last.

Nostalgic tones of youths throaty chords ring through the dreary sea, sending the still waves tumbling and crashing, setting a tranquil man into motion once again, releasing the tension in a brow long furrowed, in shoulders tightly hunched, and ending the silence of a tongue held once too many times.

The Sun Gods booming laugh echos down the valley,
a reverberating sound that even the soaring eagle must stop and perk his ears too, losing sight of the mouse he had planned for breakfast, forgetting all but that musical tone.

When the light comes, when the dawning sun rises again, let your eyes water and overflow, let your heart swell and stomach twist, let the chills flow like the white capped river, feel the rapids of emotion that erode even the strongest rocks in the way of the current.

Now I am and I am now,
I bathe in the light and let a smile touch my lips, with my arms spread softly apart.
I take a deep breath of the cool morning air, filling empty lungs to the straining brim,
Oh, the first time come again!

So tired I have grown, of building castles
only to have them overrun by cresting waves.
So tired I have grown, of tasting water on my tongue
but spitting, complaining of its salty burn.
So today I take a dive,
for I've grown sick of the shoreline and
smelling life's salty scent only upon the wind.

So today I took a dive,
head first into that salty steep
and was pulled here by current arms
and pushed deeper by ocean nymph charms.

My body flung about,
counter currents tossing me in circles,
eyes itching red with not a second to blink
and my nostrils jammed full
of the salt that hinted my senses before.

On the brink of drowning,
vision fading from blue to black,
I am pushed to a surface
far from the shoreline from before.
A gasp for air and the seagulls call
beams of sunlight carefully fall
onto the white crests of traveling waves,
and upon my blinking eyes.
Here, on the bobbing wakes of erasing waves,
I begin my ocean days.  

I had become so tired of my earthly ways,
so tired of hating the cleansing dawns
hiding behind the ebbing tides.
So today I took a dive
and began my floating ocean days.

The lotus, I choose the lotus!
The ebb and flow the shore it goads us
Static focus, a layer peeled off and cast aside
The tide it whispered it spoke to me
but I turned I looked the other way
Upwards roads and downwards roads
Set the rock aside Sisyphus,
Bear the weight no more
Stare in lost, in vacant eyes at a boatless shore
The lotus, I choose the lotus

Wayward streams, down and around it floats us
And spits us out,
Our isolated Elysium or tortured chamber
It’s a matter of where you spend your days, in or out
On what you rest your eyes upon,
The whirlwind, the spinning cannon
Fates bolt it shoots us in twirling spiral
And all along from the corner lit dim
Float the soft tunes of a harpist,
Deft fingers pluck the taught strings,
And her eyes overcast, cloudy grey
Stare vacantly out like person drowned

The lotus, I choose the lotus!
The sweet nectar it covers it soothes me
Puzzled pieces glue me, paste me together
Pluck me, toss me, say that I flew
Let’s play who knows who
Be honest who really knows you
Reflection from the lake,
a familiar face it greets me
Whirlpool tides, how they rip they pull us
Oh the lotus, give me the lotus!

The wind felt different on my neck today,
Slightly colder, unfamiliar,
It was not a feeling I was used to.

But this breeze hasn’t changed at all
There was a spark on the nerves of the cuticles where hair stands ensnaired there had sounds of foundation rock breaking and cracking a lump of clay stepping out of the mold under its own power it’s own fruition at first its unseemly bordering on crude then your curiosity strikes like what will this lump of clay do? will he crash off the table damp too much water tear himself in two brand new asunder asunder asunder I see a rock we have to peek under I have to keep searching but my search has all been for naught but then again looking on those days in the rays I couldn’t wait to find shade is this really the only way yes she says with a sigh so I position my head so my eyes meet sky i guess it’s time to retry so here I go again and again and again and again and again so many times I’ve tried to take flight and sometimes I can’t be but filled with spite but I know The Wheel she spins goes back and goes forth
So it’s on to the next and the next and the next this life is only a quest but that is only a guess

The melancholy eyes of departing,
The lingering taste of love’s last kiss.
To the skies I've been sentenced and
In the soil you've been left, softly sprouting.

Oh, what I would do, to spread my roots
There next to you.
Our petals caress with love unstressed
And our leaves would collect the morning dew.

But I’ve been plucked,
Snatched in the claws of the bird!
Cast to flight, cursed to explore
A life without you that must be endured.

Upwards dragged but eyes cast down,
Drinking in the sights of her last frown.
The wind pulls me clean, and I see
The last of that morning's dew
Falling with a shimmering gleam.

A plane of faces turned upside down,
Somewhere along the trail to the Underworld.
The long corridor stretches indefinitely,
Torches spread sparsely along the walls.
The spiraling stairs push deeper on.

“Do not look back, he said
Do not looked back!” He thought.
Terror struck, for he remembered clearly
the lessons the hushed voice had taught.

A grief struck chord plucked from within,
As his sobs began to form.
“Oh, the fool I am!” He cried,
“Why could I have not held my gaze,
Held my vision steadfast
To the closing morning rays?”

As he reached the bottom,
He readied his lyre
And stuck strings in frenzy dire.
Rounding the corner to the banks of flowing Styx,
He saw the same creatures he once tricked.

Determined eyes and sure hands,
He struck the chords at the essence of man.
But this time the creatures lining the Styx,
Were not so surely bewitched.

They closed nearer, vicious growls upon their lips.
Back met stone, an exit long gone.
“The song had always worked,” cried the desperate man, words falling on unhearing ears.

Yes, his tune had always worked,
But not twice tonight.
To mortal love you have given your life,
For you cannot fool Pluto twice.

A Midnight bell rings through the night cloaked village.
The high standing clock tower has surveyed the night,
and deemed it high time to sing its chime.

A procession of men in crosses cloaked
sway forward with eyes searching dirt.
A humming unison, softly painting pictures
of mankind's final days.

Their humming chorus carries slowly down the empty streets,
an approaching fog creeping through the alleys,
smelling of soft odor sage.

Ever building ***** chimes build,
Frantic hands introduce each note to next
All culminating to its bitter end,
an apex, each note cryingly rings at once
deep into the fearful fox's core.

Upon Death my thoughts have been anchored
much to the dismay of my creaking ship.
The precious drops of life's morphine drip
siphoned away by the gathering storm clouds
of my coming decay.

Move forward I shout, go past even the veil!
Pull up the anchor, wind it tight and toss it
out of sight, to be used when the time is ripe.
Each passing second, hoard together and hold
give a soft kiss and then mold.
Mold it, as putty in the hands of a child
or wood and whittling knife in the
hands of the wizened man rocking in his chair.

See the seconds, laugh loud and clear,
let the echoing chorus reverberate off
the imagined walls at the limits of you,
shaking them, loosening the containing
mortar and bricks, reduce them to ruble.

This all should not have been
the crisp morning air, the damp thunderous nights,
my ears perk up at each just to see,
for just the chance to be.

Do not bargain the waking seconds as they tick away,
do not auction them to the impatient void,
it will feast on them and demand evermore.
Run to the skies, drown in golden light!
Cross red stained eyes with your other,
clasp hands and rejoice
for we are all in this together.

Remember the hues at the edge of the forest,
memorized and lost in them my eyes once again
catch the flashing greens of wind blown leaves,
surrounded by flies heavy with maggots to breed.

The cracks begin to show, I pull back the battering ram
once more and push, crashing it into the barrier,
chiseling away the limits of the barricade,
the limits of an anchored ship,
and prepare my stock for the open sea.

Seas of swaying green reduced to gray city skylines (the triumphant results of our modern enlightenment)
Slicked oil waters pulse from the refineries, defeated heads held down against the cold winds walk the streets.
Malaise grips the populace,
our attention at every turn deftly averted to the trivial.
Welcome one, welcome all, to the Anthropocene.

Smoke stacks bellowing, pockets full of printed greenbacks thickening,
the overwhelming scents of greed and gluttony bleed into everything.
Throw your trash to the streets, stomp the last embers and smear ash on the wall,
Look around and you will see humanities closing scenes.
Welcome one, welcome all, to the Anthropocene.

It seems in the end truth has left us,
hope has evacuated,
it’s speakers replaced with puppets
That dance and masquerade on taught strings.
Come in my friends, take your seats in the audience,
The show has already begun!
The lights are dimming and the pieces well set,
Welcome one, welcoming all, to the Anthropocene.

Continents ablaze, reduced to decayed black.
The streets of your home flooded,
Mother Nature holding on by a trembling thread,
And in all of our brightest intellect,
We do not reknit the thread.
Instead of reversing our own mistakes, instead of adjusting our sails to the changing winds,
we hold the scissors to that trembling string and begin to cut with a smile.
Manicured life,
Monocultured lawns perfectly maintained through the drought, appearances kept up through the drowning monsoon winds.

Welcome, my dearest friends, to the end of our days, whether you agree to them or not,
Welcome to the first conscious mass extinction, brought to you by the height of human innovation
Welcome, my brothers and sisters, to the Anthropocene.

Irony brought to its greatest extent,
the rain drops race down the window
to join the growing puddle.
Raised eyebrows and a voice layered in
smug confidence is shattered
by the hopes of whispered reassurances.

A reoccurrence, Yeats’ falcon flying
ever farther from its bellowing falconer,
whose advice was once heeded but
is defiantly unheard now.
Nietzsche’s ever repeating cycles,
the same lives lived 100 times,
past voices whispering script softly
into my calmly waiting ears.

Meager fears and joy draped in hollow blue,
the dance of body and mind with no metronome
to give a cue, no orchestra to hold its tune.
Clap clap, tap tap, and resounding boom.

I grasp the gilded knocker and gently rap,
respectable at first, for courtesy,
and then more assertive, social conduct leaving
and desperation filling as I bang on the door,
painfully aware of it’s glossy paint with each hit,
and then I am kicking the door, trying to break through,
pleas rasping out with each lunge,
Until I give up,
And slide slowly down the wall
and cradle my head into my hands.

Deep in the night he lays fast
asleep, his chest rising and falling
in long, steady breaths, his mouth wide
and eyes carelessly shut, unaware.

A light turns on and he groans awake,
disoriented at first, wiping his eyes
and mumbling incoherently about
something he thought he saw
deep in a dream already forgotten.

He gains bearing on his surrounds,
the white painted room lit by one
dangling fluorescent light, illuminating
the chips and the cracks in the walls.

He stirs, becoming agitated, his breaths
begin to rattle from his lungs.
He grasps around, patting hands
to concrete, a desperate search
for something solid to grip.

A resounding boom sounds above
and dust falls from the ceiling.
Specks fall into his eyes
and he curses,
eyes watering and blinded.

He wipes his eyes, clearing them
and takes one more look about,
searching in vain for anything
and lays down once more,
an acceptance.

The light turns off, and he drifts to
sleep once again, escaping.

Searing memories of love gone past,
pillars of sand that buckle
at high tide's first crash.
The castle carefully crafted with ***** firmly
in hand, but the waves destroyed it,
my walls, my structure, my protection
and then ran, leaving trailing footprints
outlined in the sand of its receding wake.

Touch tone Speech disabled
Truth relabeled, Fantasy Endured
Story book fable world
watch as pages they turn
(It All Passes)

Rip fall far from the book, paper back
Held loosely, ruined by constant rain
The muddy side of a forgotten river.
(Isolated Inspiration)

Ink bleeds to puddles, swirls down the drains
Be be be I must remind myself
Just be
(Becoming Brings Pain)

Fiend life, Up under the Moon and Starlight searching
For anything, fleeting symbols of the thrill,
Lust to set out, before the dust settles
Before the sun rises,
The sweet taste of the next to offset
The bitter taste of Before.
(Distractions Never Work)

Under a hex, encased in shimmering shields
Of my own sight and experience
My own processed thoughts
And left wherever the puddle dries up,
(Elysium)

I dance in a field of honey Lilac
A giddy laugh escapes behind my smile
Like the Fool, on top of the mountain
One foot on solid rock
the other suspended in the air
Leaning forward,
my eyes lost in the sights
Of an ever illusion skyline.
(Chase In Vain, You Stubborn Fool.)

When is when is when is
The next moment I will stand on this shore, looking out into the bay?
Who will I be and how will I see this same scene then?

How will I see again, the morning rising illuminating the tide, it’s misted glow refracting in all directions?

How will I hear again, the gull’s cry, a higher song hovering over the soft sway of the water, it’s lapping connection to the shore, gone now but always on its reverberating journey back?

How will the water feel on my feet, in early spring and then in ebbing twilight? Will I stand strong and blooming, or will I hunch and wither in decay, in memories of a long forgotten brighter day?

Will the salt spray still fill my nose, will its memory be etched in me always?

There is no sure way to know, no sure path we can follow, I say to myself.
When I return I will be him and he will have came from me, formed in the bubbling foam of my memories of this swaying sea.
But in my melancholy daze upon departure,
a vision appears to me as if a dream:

“Be gone!”
A mirage of the goddess Brizo comes to me, sitting alone in a galley bobbing along with the waves.
“Be gone! Hold not your journey in contempt, be scared not of the changing tides!
You have your vessel as I have mine, the sea is strong but not impassible!
Adjust your sails, redirect your mind, the wisdom of the sea follows, to any height you can climb!
The power is you, shed light on what you know to be true, look in the water and be calmed, know that you are you!

Be gone! Go from me, away from this fading part of your journey,
There is still much of the world to see!
Do not linger, do not hesitate,
Do not be contented, with a hazy view of the sea from your seat on the shore!”

Coastline yellow dawn,
Overflowing fountain
Untrimmed garden,
Left to Decay
Rot in the sun

Bluebonnet field,
Honey suckle sweet breeze
Left to flourish,
Their petals reach to the sky

Light step, on the untreded
Birdbath with feathers flashing about it
Dawning spring, swallowing following
Enchanted breeze, dew on the leaves

Break the cycle of the illusion
Never ending we march along
One step higher another step closer
At the end, Door Closer locksmith
I have to see beyond this

Illusions dance before our eyes
for we see how we think to see,
soliciting our growing fantasy.
What appears to be to what is
becomes lost in amateur's translation.

A chameleon's shade cloaks green
when a predator's eye is on the prowl.
Shaped to our reality, we adapt to breathe,
we see what we need to see,
to continue growing our fantasy.

And at its peak,
The act is bought! The drama continues
and the script is dutifully rehearsed,
fooling even myself to think
That I could be Hamlet,
the coward prince,
and her my Ophelia but breathing,
from the words I am reading,
printed on a blank sheet of paper in
Times New Roman, font twelve.

Blossom Blossom
Spring is Dawn
Blossom, petals open my palm
went too deep, In for too long
the image fades and then shifts
fizzing And purpling smoke
boils Over the edge
blow a kiss to the wind but I choke
what did I mix, why am I mixing again
the wind shifts
and it goes Missing again

Bliss field Bliss field
walls all Falling down
hidden grove They do not make a sound
dreams Make sense when you’re in them
(I Guesss) Eerie, how I see it so clearly
held in my palm like a Bubble
fissiOn fusion Cracking asphalt
one day one day one instant
Flash

you Make too much sense
why do that to yourself and to me
why exist Coexist cross lights with Anyone
im Vain do not look for me
dont watch me fade fade
dreAm lotus field it all Made sense to me

Hide from fate but it keeps finding me
Hide from fate but it keeps finding me
Hide from fate but it keeps finding me

The bus is running late tonight,
I eagerly tap my foot and check my watch,
tapping its lens to make sure that
the arms are still ticking, roaming.

Lights flash bright down the street
and a smile leaps to my lips.
The lights hold steadfast,
coming coming!
I wave my hand and grab my bag!
It’s here it’s here!
I run to meet it
going going,
Where are the lights going?
Sped by in a flash
And then past, gone.

Throwing my hands in the air,
Exasperated and pacing
Ranting and raving
I walk back and forth, I
cursing my luck and the luck
of ones like I
stuck at this empty bus stop
having light tricks flashed
in their eyes.

winter’s chilled stillness,
atoms in ice bundling tightly together
senesced trees, rotted flowers
songless birds, misted sunlight
crushed leaf step, a coat tightened

memories or dreams
What is the difference to me
light or illusion
it all seems the same to me
lie in the shade,
count gray clouds and decayed petals

page turn page turn
the pictures keep flipping
damp moisture dripping insistently
consistency, mortality
totality and ending
happen time and again
true end, broken wheel
impossible,
flickering sparks jump from the ash pile

yellow daisy river sways in the breeze
blonde beauty white dress she runs her fingers over the petals
cicada song, buzz on lilac tongue

Blue skies sun peaked over head
No clouds a kiss of wind
Direction, arrows on a compass
Point to where and why
Startled doves rise divides the mind eye
Motion and stillness
Control and fluidity

The peeling of tangerine shell
Releases its soft citrus smell.

Tottering at the cusp on the brink
Floorboards in the night hear the creaks
A *** overfilled and it’s constant leak,
Minds connecting, a dangling link
Blinking blinking light shrinking shrinking

Line splitter the vultures pecking at my liver
Time quitter satellite eyes swimming above the river,
Lit by moonlight, desert sand dunes and their silver shimmer

Wind on the Sahara and behind the sky
Sits the great tailor plucking at the seams
Knocking and shaking the supporting beams
And sending bricks falling and smashing
Into the floorboards of the empty room
With a porch overlooking the swaying ocean

I once heard someone say that
Life is like being aboard a slowly sinking ship
Or trapped in burning building, I cannot remember,
But I believe it is a body left to rot
On the forest floor, steadily feasted on
By maggots and the other feeders,
Decomposed till all that remains
Is an ivory skull with vines growing
Through hollow eye sockets.

Why does the morning pass by so quickly?
The grey light fades steadily away
as the sun reaches the top of its ascent.
Empty coffee cups, the bottom layered with grounds,
sit on the desk by the window.

Sewn into the fabric, intricately woven,
the multi colored threads begin to overlap
and are tightened, pulled through by the sure hand
of the passing hours.

The outline blurs,
the voice of memory begin to dissolve.
The faded face mouths the words
but I cannot remember the sound,
lost to the piling sands
at the bottom of the hourglass.

Words of honey and liquor would flow,
At temples along the rolling hills,
they would grow and ripen and
be uttered at sacrificial flame
If I was born in the vein of Apollo.

Words would meet paper
with crackling energy loaded, ready to burst,
robust in power and accompanied by crashes of thunder
If I were bred of the mighty Zeus.

My speech could flow like lapping tide
and slam against the sterns of braving ships
If I carried within,
the flowing will of Poseidon.

Perfectly forged syllables struck on metals
passionately burning. Resounding clangs
and crashes from my shop would ring,
If the strength of Hephaestus guided
my hammer swing.

But as portraits are painted and
are gone to wind,
Their light touch fleeting pass,
Remorse not felt but only desire
to express and to deliver,
to paint, drop off, and be gone.
My words dance with winged feet
and then exit in retreat, with a bow
and a dashing leap,
Disappearing down the street.

Caduceus snakes wrap about my pen
and whisper rhymes softly in my ear.
Rising laughs echo down the trail,
a man dashing to his next delivery.

Light feet dancing forward,
hand whirring from line to line
and his eyes posted firmly to
the nights sky,
The stars singing his Siren song.

My head is stuck at the peaks of youthy rooftops
trapped in moving circles and daggers rotting brain.
I hover, gliding above the generated, empty plane, tracing the moving shadows below and tracking the nights that rain.

i was so careful but the lines oh the ever running lines they vibrate frantically, I cannot look away they dance back and forth between both crests of their prison, their XYZ axes gripping them trapping them within definite images between associations and contexts, between gleaming ascent and its tumbling recoil.

The ride hick-ups and pollutes the clouds
filling my scent and descent pulls at my stomach,
gravity yanks me back, pulling on my rope and
laughing all the while.

At first you fear it but then you are laughing and shouting
and throwing your arms in the air and having the wind rush
into your lungs and whip your hair it is so beautiful it is
unlawful it is unreal i cant be seeing this and it spirals and tumbles and shriekingly grinds to a halt, panting.

Always in the night
you’ll see the lights flashing
through the window in my room.

Home alone on a summer night,
hunched over my desk
or pacing around in circles.
Lost in imagined worlds so grey
grasping at straws of fleeting thought
half of which are left unsaid,
forgotten and unreal.

I thought of something once
and I let it slip away
So I’ve scribed my words ever since.
My phone lights and rings but I flip it over,
Ive had it muted since I was a boy.

Alone alone alone
baby I’m talking to myself again.
I can’t even feel myself again,
the picture sways and shakes
slowly rotating right in front of my eyes.

On empty days I have empty eyes
and I never catch the words they say.
Who are you?
What is this?
Could you please describe the form you saw
In the form of flowing mist?

Don’t call me, I’m sleep walking.
Don’t text me I won’t reply.
I’m laying sprawled with my back to the dirt
trying to pick my place among the stars
a place where I can recline into eternity,
my own place to pace through the heavens.

A crowning flame,
the man with the beaming gaze
still wanders down the dreary lane,
with the sky crimsoned by the yawning
sigh of the Sun
as it waves its hand in goodbye.

Medals on the chest, stripes on the collar
are garnish on an ever crumbling tower.
The height once reached,
at the apex he stood
the forest engulfing him
and the chill air flowing around him.

But as he reached his arms high,
at the very apex of his climb
why, why, why
did he still close his eyes?

Every step I take
Is to escape the latching chains
Of human utility and efficacy
The working man comes home worn
Sore and hungry (emptiness is the source of vice, sin, and cruelty)

All minds and thus eyes are divine
When when when
Will we realize the limits of our hands and mouths and functions

Please don’t ask because I don’t know
Most are on the corner begging,
Peddling their wares
To the hoarder who retreats back
To a gilded lare

Blank stare blank stare
I know he is not fully there
Divide my mind
Wind up and hurl it into
The open, unresponsive sky
And hope it catches wild
On wings spread wide
And flies flies
Far away from here

You control your eyes
You control your sight
You control where your mind
goes each and every night

Stars realign, searching reading signs
Walk along the borderline
exit life, I got bored of mine
Molasses’ slow drip,
Lost in the Divine mind

Shoreline shoreline
Ego Bleed to the ocean
Sap myself away,
Searching for yellow rays
through the drowning gray

Count the days, count the days
Tightrope over the borderline,
Exit life I got bored of mine
Told the truth and I heard them sigh.

I peek out my window and see her,
Lady Twilight in her shimmering black gown,
walking up my cobblestone path.
She walks slowly, at ease, looking from side to side
and moving in her flowing stride, up to my doorstep.

I creak open the door and her eyes rise to meet mine
and she grins, a soft smile etching her smooth face.
Her head tilts ever so slightly to the side, her raven hair
hanging from behind.

The warm rays of the day have given way to the enveloping gray,
a hanging light clings to her outline, lit by a hidden source.
Hues of deep blue and violet shades mingle through the air,
suppressed to black as the sun makes it steady retreat.

She takes a step to me and raises her arm slowly,
placing her softly on my shoulder.
I break contact with her eyes and look down,
trying not to see as Lady Twilight quietly fades away.

The leaves dance for the breeze,
birds hop and glide from tree to tree.
Cicadas throaty song and the crickets cracking chirps,
the vibrations sent into my ear
in a humming tornado swirl.
Life moves with ease, if you let it.

A memory recalled and the scene brought back
found in the sleek motion of a pouncing cat.
Shown to forethought, brought under the light
a recollection lost to the wind
lit in hollow tones of hazy purple.

Nuzzled between the layers in those forgotten days,
Life will pass with ease, if you let it.

Turn turn turn,
the globe on it's rotating limb it turns.
Light shines, line fades,
time aches but quickens its pace.

The flame it should burn the blurred heat
rises in mist all around,
I can't i can't i can't
feel the flame forming, lashing at my feet.

The shoreline night breeze sends my bones
shivering and knocking and aching,
can someone tell me why
the horizon will not stop shaking?

A look above,
breath found within the shining eye
of the crowded moon, behind a blooming star
their retreating dance in tempo with the lights
as they shake and dim.

Clear and vacant eyes,
Cleared out and left to rot
in the twisting tumbling weeds
of memories you thought you had forgot.

Time has its hands around my neck, strangling me.
A diamond clock around my neck like Flavor Flav,
hanging off me, pulling my head down to the dirt.

The tortuous second, an arduous minute
I grind my teeth at the passing hour.
I squeeze each passing day, holding tightly,
but it always escapes between my fingers,
liquefying and dripping through, evaporating.

Wake and pace,
I wake and begin to pace.
Weaving a trail through the leaves at my feet,
the meadow floor becoming my revolving door
with only one exit, a blinking red sign
flashes, its arrow pointing directly down
imprinting itself in my pupil.

Sing the song of the day!
Whether it be swaying morning Jazz
or a night owls rhythmic hoots,
sing it loud and let it ring,
for you never know the last song you will sing.

Walk in circles, hum the tone,
whatever it takes to get you past that
glaring sun high in the sky at each passing noon.

I lay in the center of a meadow,
My eyes trail the drifting clouds above,
tracing their paths and drawing sketches on the blue canvas.

Towering evergreen trees surround the meadow,
their leaves creating a ornamental border,
A frame for the flowing sky.

The clouds drift past, into and out of the frame,
a slow parade of shapes
shifting and changing, coming and passing.

This slide show of white swirls dances for me,
in drawn out motions like molasses ebbing from a tree.
They envelope my sight, roots spread from the
back of my head into the meadow floor,
connecting and expanding,
melding me to the ground.

I lay for hours, the clouds morphing to the clear
nights sky, bathing me in moonlight.
Shining stars vibrate, shake in their molds,
and I listen closely to their hushed advice.

On sun-filled days with few clouds,
We pray for just one to pass and
Provide that sweet shade, offer
A reprieve from the sweltering heat.

But deep in those lonely nights,
With bone chattering chill and the darkness blinding,
We claw the skies, searching for the cutting
Beams of moonlight.

The illusion is shifting again
The columns melting stone to blurred sand
Kiss the River bed, saturated nutrient flow
Estuary, opposites mixing like friends

Meeting our ends, meeting our ends
The Compost heap rots and withers,
In preparation to add to the cycle again
The moment is fleeting
Gather, pull the light close to your Chin
Hold it on the sides of its head
And gaze, gaze deeper and deeper again

Home is a bus station
A byway between,
A place to rest my head
Before the next departure.

I’ve seen rain through the windows,
I’ve sat through cool midnights.
The station fills and empties,
People with their luggage arrive
And wait for the next bus out,
Standing in a line at the door.

Home is the next station,
The nearest side of the road
With a view of the stars.
It’s an x on the map,
A hazy line connecting the dots
Between me and you.

My ticket is stamped
My bag tightly packed,
And with time I’ve come to know
That where I’m truly at,
A map can never show.

Life is a bus station,
With its comings and goings
Its periods of waiting and of rushing.
Charon, the perpetually impatient,
Drives his bus into the loading bay
And checks tickets at the folding doors.
With teared eyes I wave,
At the back of a bus as it drives
Into the dreary autumn sun set,
Down the interstate and out of the city.

Life is a bus station,
The place between
Where the crooked lights are on
Through the windows they shine
a lighthouse’s winking eye to a captain
Trapped in the tumulting waves
Of a wrecking sea storm.

The bus honks at it leaves,
And we wave to the driver
Who bravely heads down the road
That we all walk down in the end

Have so many days passed
since those shining lights were to
iris pressed, or have I just
covered my eyes?

Every man speaks of time
and how fast it flies
but I believe that it
gets off a hard day of work,
barges in the door,
founds its spot on the couch
and then collapses
with a gentle sigh.

You see I was I was
reading this book right
this real great book
and i had it in my hands
and im seeing this scene
that its describing
im not gonna go into the details
right now per se but im seeing it
in my head, you know
you know like how when
youre reading the words
but not really because they
are becoming blurred
and the picture just
kinda appears
in your brain
like you are living it,
like you are actually there
but you can't be
its just something that you see
without eyes
it blooms and engulfs the inside
of your mind
it opens the door and enters calmly
and makes it self at home, like a
painting on the wall
or or
like a number youve been meaning to call
do you see what im saying?

so that got me thinking, hear me out
you can imagine anything, yes i know duh
the pictures can sprout and bloom
become overgrown and be trimmed
maintained or treated with disdain
or with some good ole TLC,
really anything you want
a home a gnome a crystal phone
in Rome trapped on the wrong end of a honed
pearly white bone,
what does it mean oh let me tell you
i havent got a clue not one
but what about
a light you were shown when you were
younger but somehow still aware
that what you really need is somewhere
out there
or in there I should say,
does that mean something or does it
only hold significance because its your memory
of what you did when you were young
because right now you arent moving you arent seeing
anything you are just there with a blank stare
and if you measured the time that was lost
in this state it would be sad it would be
disappointing yeah if you watched it from the side
but from my view its fantastic i see lights
in different colors and see crystal worlds and
different others, thoughts borne of differing
mothers from different places
but all the same
down the same path
from the same origin,
its all really a walk down the map
to find your own x
but thats a discussion for another day
but as i was saying it could lead
to so many different places
filled with beautiful faces and cases
left shattered and broken on the ground
and everything is sound and safe
but then there is a clap or a pop
and bam you are awake, aware
that you were stuck staring into thin air
trying to see shapes  
awake awake awake
and then its all gone like an old song
that youve forgotten the words too
but sounds so so so so
familiar,
you know?

Blinding light with hands outstretched
A silhouette dances on the horizon.
It beckons me, with hinting grin etched lips,
To follow, so I grip her hand and on we fly.

Soft warmth caresses my skin as the light surrounds,
Harp song flows as smoothly as river sound.
Eyes turn and smiles break
Carving the faces of paint I've seen
In my visions of the Sistine.  

Those high walls stagger above me,
But the gates stand ajar.
The moat forded and oak doors entered
But no harp song drifts within these walls.

Cold stone meets feet as my
Hand bearer retreats.
A gaze cast back, met with doleful eyes
And a nod to enter on.

So on I cast my senses,
Until upon an ornate throne they rest.
Crafted in shimmer, white with golden hues,
Hand rests embedded with artisan jewels.

A throne worthy of Zeus,
Yet skies of lightning do not greet.
The seat sits vacant,
Webbed stones of an owner long gone.

In a fit I turn,
The light fading from those arching windows.
I reach out for the hand,
A clawing search for reassurance
But solitary I stand,
In this abandoned Palace of eternity
With a vacant throne so grand.

If I wrote of Love and her soft caress,
would the crowds gather to bear witness?
If I spoke of her words and
the spells they cast on me,
would they gather to witness its gripping affect?

Oh, if they could only feel her love through my verse,
the whole world would gather round,
pushing and shoving, clawing to near front,
for just one glimpse of proof,
An Angel’s holy love.

A feather falls slowly, arching downward,
swaying from left to right,
curving from side to side.
I rock my head alongside, tracing its path
as it floats on air so light so soft.
To reach and catch and hold its white
texture in hand
or to watch solemnly as it drops to the
ground?

White jet stream splits the blue sky
Serenity, I ignore what they say to me
Maybe daying be’s, laying fading beneath swaying trees
Dawning years a tease, burn away the grease
Wipe the grime away, I’m searching for signs today
Pried myself outside the lines, you stayed behind it’s okay
Thought grenade, cicadas and bees serenade,
Peeling back layers, the sour tang of marmalade
Garments handmade, dip my toes in the bluing lake
Vibrations I feel a wake, a dip in the curve
Butterfly stomach I can’t help but squirm
Serenity, I saw a white jet stream split the sky
As I wandered, I wondered why

A stirring breeze, the cracking of twigs
A cup full of wine, overflowing to the brim
Passed around the circle, with my happily chatting friends.

The pops of logs sing ablaze,
As the orange flames slowly fade away.
The friends scatter, each take their leave and bow their heads,
And so begins the inevitable bleed of today
into the coming sunrise of tomorrow.

In the flames flickering shadows I lay,
With the chirping insects I mingle.
Allow me to catch up with my mind,
Become closer to the baton, extend my hand in reach
If even just a little.

They hummed to the tune of Hallelujah,
While passing tools along the rafters.
No harness worn, no rope in sight,
They sing and dance and spit and shout,
On two foot wide boards,
On the side of a concrete mount.

Arms around shoulders, a creaking smile covers my face, a camera with a flash
And stamp on the envelope,
I watch as the colors of now fade into the past.

A shimmering fountain, the water runs over the sides
And the bottom is lined with copper coins.
The water reverses, falling upwards,
A dream I saw once of a haunting tune but in reverse.

Lay down my friend, I pat the dirt beside me
Give me a tether point to grasp, a rope to hold,
Something to catch, to pull me from the trail that never ceases to wind, In on itself in spiraling descent.
I can feel the one beside me start to give me slack.

And down I go, jerking at first, in intervals
And then I am let loose, the spiraling of the coil
As the rope rages between the mechanism
And a final snap as it breaks from my momentum.

The entrance to the maze opens in front of me,
I try to turn my head, my heart pleads and it begs,
But I cannot stop my legs from pushing forward again.
Into the labyrinth, my first few steps echo against the stone walls, as I turn my head and it begins to shift, tossing me to the side and on my back and rolling and sliding, as it laughs
At my vane struggles to find a grip on the smoothed stones.

Oh Janus, oh Choice, the gamblers dumb luck
Which door to choose, which life to live
Which riddle to pick, which answer to find!

A tragic heroine, I watch as the dice they roll
I see it unfold and I know with sighing regret my tale will be told.
A quiet bow and an exit to the right,
I take the steps off the stage and out of the light,
Making my way to the auditorium seats, all packed to the brim, but with space enough for me, and one more after that.

Ah, once more a day in vacant rays
A webbed window, cracked gently to let the breeze by.
Through,
a minute an hour,
a bee lands on a flower
succumbing to desire,
a move with a purpose
It’s assuredness I admit breaks a chunk from my confidence

What is what isn’t what could what couldn’t
Is of no concern to a bee, imagine how free that would be
A beetle crawling up the bark of a tree,
Oh, just for an instant
I wish I could see the life that you see!

the same the same the days the same
loops in twirls in rounds and rounds
the same the same
the game played the same in shame
the same the same it’s quite the same
as it was and as it wasn’t untamed
the same the same in flames in ash
the same the same in frost in love
the same the same the nights the same
the sane insane same lane blue days
accept the days the same the same
it rains it shines it pours they snore
the same the same the lines the same
at shores in reefs on mountains in sheets
the same the same the effortless same
in heat in frost in bliss in loss
the same the same it goes on the same
play the game the rules you know
the same the same the days the same
in shame with a kiss indeed I insist
the same the same we all bleed the same

Smoke filled dens of drifting ***** scent,
Imagined worlds dancing behind the eyes
of the laying men.
Heads fall back and pupils roll to face brow,
revealing a cloudy unseeing white.

What lies behind the eyes of laid men
that makes them respond to the sweet song of
lotus flower time and again?
Are they taken to that Mediterranean isle visited by
Odysseus in his journey, the idle isle where time lazily flows
and sunrise and sunset have no meaning at all?

If I was bunk mate to Odysseus on his mission home
and our boat met sand on this secluded cove,
would I see it for what it was?
After tasting my first sweet lotus petal, offered
to me by beauty divine, could I resist a second kiss?

Would I have bravely boarded the ship away,
eyes hard and mind set on my destination,
or would I have planted feet firmly to sand
and wave as the brave ones sailed away to face
the ever abundant misery of reality?

The poles have shifted, the tide retreats from the shore!
Shanty lines revised and rehearsed
upon a crumpled paper covered with speckled dirt,
to make a lasting impact at the foot of the blackened hearse.

Does she hear me, this woman trapped in portrait?
The frame it yields and shakes mid rotation,
teetering back and forth as a compass without
magnetism, in circles as a ship lost to the starless night.

The painted woman with her knowing smile bores
her eyes into mine, her flashing irises projecting
from her world into ours, from her reality into mine.

My eyes blur and a vision dances for me,
a water color flow, with daisy tunes lost
in a shimmering and shifting mist,
swirling colors bear together, mixing and connecting,
rubbing and repelling, crossing my eyes in its intoxicating motion.

My mouth slacks and my shoulders sag,
lost in the trance of this melting scene,
and it’s dragging pull.

Excited I ran to show them, to show what I saw,
but they didn’t listen, to them I speak in gibberish.
I smirk and feel my face begin to melt, my ears drooping and my nose falling, the drops fall
and a puddle begins to form under my feet,
before dribbling slowly down the drain on the floor,
In a watercolor swirl.

It’s not real (Why)
it’s all in my head
But in my head
it is all so painfully real.

How do I know how to feel?
I try not to dwell,
But the bubble keeps swelling and swelling
In my chest in my heart.
Im sailing but there isn’t a sail,
Im drowning in air,
Climbing a staircase winding
upside down
But yet I don’t fall…how?

I try to take in my surroundings,
I reach out to touch
And my fingers make contact,
An electric shock travels my nerves
An image forms
A sound I didn’t hear,
A sight I couldn’t see,
A voice I recognize
But only through associations
Never ending vibrations.

It’s all unraveling me
Im stuck in a senseless sea
Yet the waves keep hitting
the hull of my ship
Hauntingly rhythmically.

Mother Nature grabbed my hand,
And Guided me when I did not have a path myself.
I followed my nose, the scents of honey suckle dragged at me
I followed my eyes, watched the damselflies glide
I reached my hand out and brushed the bark of a grizzled oak,
I learned what it meant to be strong.
My ears caught the soft reverberations of the babbling brook,
When I caught myself dreading a new dawn.

Oh sweet and awing mother,
You brought the rain and lightning
When I had a storm raging inside of me.
You crashed a tree in my way,
When I needed to learn to climb.

Snakes and spiders may scare some others,
But they remind me that we all have our places in your world.
You made the clouds move west,
When I needed a sign to move on.

When the path forked and diverged
And a queasy indecision rose into my spirit
You sent a single bee,
Who hovered in front of me
And lead the way through the forest.