Dark rivulets in dust
Like rivers through canyons
Trail makeup down your face
Each  channel a lifetime

Grey rain from grey sky falls
Upon half lidded eyes
That lazily await
The smell of earth after

The lines upon your cheek
Could easily be traced
To star fall tears from space
Or raindrops down your face

Renege your crown and open vast
These gates within a troubled past
Embrace anew the morning dew
That knows that naught in life it true

And that is why they hang so thin
A film upon the early din
To burn away with fiery light
All to return with waning night

To live and die and live once more
Perhaps upon a forest floor
a field, a hill, a lonely glen,
Forever born to die again

Forever forced to thrive and ebb,
A diamond for a spider's web.

What do you do when it all fades away?
The Life, The Love, The warmth of the day,
The sweet tranquil night, The sights, the sounds,
The swift, fleeting wind, The feel of the ground.
It slips from your grasp, away from your hands,
The steady, hard falling of much older sands
That once filled this glass, and now nevermore
The raven's fell crooning still perched on the door
My own deadly herald of Love I once knew
My heart softly screams as my body falls through

Each story has a girl
Locked in the lively circle
Rolling in the Spring of youth
And as the year, the single year
Is bordered by Winter and Falls
Through the Seasons
Spring, Summer, Autumn,
To settle, umber and rouge,
Into the icy night
Before the crisp landing of feather’s touch
Snow Drops and a Summer’s Rose
Are, by time weathered mind, remembered
They, like the purest of Diamonds
Adorn that briefest Day

So here shall I stay
Amidst those thorny bodies
And Apple Blossom Skies
Waiting to be remembered
By that girl next Spring

I stand here on the brink, the gate
Awaiting still my time, my fate
The moment held in old youth’s eyes
Black robe, our long awaited prize

Sweet release from repeated wrong
Five days a week, extending long
For five Sol turns, now here we stand
To the face the world, the cage of man

An inch away; I turn the lock
The hammer falls; I hear the knock
Of age and think back on the past
Heart, hold these smiles and make them last

White smiles: young and wholesome and new,
Their limits yet to spring anew
The world seemed large, yet now so small
Compared to that behind this wall

I reach my hand to know the wood
Worn smooth and carved by those who stood
Before me on this cusp of life
Upon the fine edge of a knife

They, like me, have cut the trail
Listing ‘twixt, succeed or fail
They, like me, have faced the trial
And trodden down the lonely mile

And now we face the point of light
The Tunnel’s end, our own, in sight
And now we push upon the Door
This Portal to our distant shore

There stands upon a silky spire
A man who wonders what transpired
What quirk of fate or Fancy's whim
Did bend itself to torture him

What brought him to this lonely place
A tempo change in time's slow pace
Perhaps it was a simple thing
Sweet chaos from Vanessa's wing

What if this ledge on which I stand
Were the product of mine own hand
As toddlers tumble, so does time
No cause nor reason for this crime

If, as it seems, I do impose
My will as thorns upon the rose
The ruby of my heart's dismay
Is one more step towards the grey

This man who always lived his life
Wading through tides of unjust strife
Finds solace in the way he strides
A step that marks the great divide

Should I pay mind to this man's plight
When cutting wind meets rising night
Perhaps that man bound for the sea
Shall end my life for he is me.

Silence remembers the shadow of a sound
Like a shadow is the remant of light
What was and is, simultaneous yet distinct
At the fore, the latter, naught else

Winter barren branches, trophies of warmth
Sun that once flecked the air, kisses
One sided, denied their mate
Cruel company, an apt partner

A figure in the refuse; wax in white gown
Loved and cherished for but a day
Quelled by an extinguished flame
Forgotten in the settlement

Warm, fall, harden; even as the source dims
Love, blown cold by loneliness and realization
Upon a sill keeping watch o'er the dark
The heart and hope: trapped by longing

Life, silky residue on a smoking gun
Each instant is but an echo
A shadow. Dead before life's touch
Lived in retrospect