Night has fallen, my head hits the pillow,
Knowing there will be kisses tomorrow,
Kisses, embraces, love at every sight,
There upon daybreak, gives me peace at night.

Night has fallen, eyelids darken my eyes,
Knowing there will be an end to all lies,
Truth, joy and happiness, hope in my hand,
There upon daybreak, I now understand.

Night has fallen, I slip into my dreams,
Knowing there will be love real as it seems,
Love, adoration, anticipation,
There upon daybreak, heartfelt elation.

Night has fallen, all my thoughts of your smile,
Knowing there will be kisses all the while,
Kisses, embraces, love you in my sight,
There upon daybreak, but for now good night.

My pillow warm with light dampness
Rejects my head with suddenness,
Last night welcoming in comfort,
At dawn sends me away in hurt.

How shall I start this weary day?
What do faint flickers of dreams say?
Last night I slunk into blackness,
The dawn hurls me into madness.

The frightened embrace of a ghost,
All I have of my lonely host.
Last night I put the light to sleep,
At dawn held by darkness I keep.

Woke to disjointed consciousness,
And left behind my peacefulness,
Last night I plotted my escape.
The dawn of life has taken shape.

Impervious.
The defense of age.
Our hearts become small.
We’re loathe to engage.
We put up a wall.

Impervious.
In an armored suit.
Seeking protection.
To be resolute.
Avoid connection.

Impervious.
To one more heartbreak.
We like to think so.
But that’s our mistake.
Our hurt makes us grow.

Impervious.
I have tried to be.
It was just pretense.
For your love found me.
It pierced my defense.

Impervious.
Was never a thing.
I was closed off to
Almost everything—
Everything but you.

The wistfulness of new love between us,
Those sweet smiles that accompany surprise,
That unexpected love must have been us,
Love at first sight each time before our eyes.

I pretend you’re someone I haven’t kissed,
And laugh because inside you know me well,
Our love is new but there’s no time we’ve missed,
Our love is growing in this youthful spell.

The longer we’re in love the more we start,
Playing out in delightful random ways,
Surprised and overwhelmed I match your heart,
We pass our years as if they were but days.

Our love renewed each day promises more
Of unexpected I’ve been looking for.

If I shared with you every thought I think,
If I shared with you every dream I dreamt,
If I tried to see you each time I blink,
If you’re the meaning of each word I meant,
If yours were the heartbeat inside my chest,
If yours were the voice I hear speak to me,
If my need for closeness gave you no rest,
If being yours is all I want to be,
If some part of you is what makes me whole,
If your hand were all my hand ever held,
If your love alone inhabits my soul,
If you were the only grace I beheld,
If all that I have is my love for you,
I have enough if you feel that way, too.

Quiet, still, afraid and alone,
I cried out, “Who will hold my hand?”
I felt a voice I had not known
Say, “I will.”

Paralyzed and drowning in fear,
I cried out, “Who will hold me close?”
I felt embraced by a voice near
Say, “I will.”

When loneliness felt close to death,
I cried out, “Who will kiss my lips?”
I felt a voice with tender breath
Say, “I will.”

Hopelessly desperate, no control,
I cried out, “Who will be my love?”
I felt a voice that touched my soul
Say, “I will.”

Her voice I felt set my love free,
I cried out, “Who will love you back?”
I felt my voice outside of me
Say, “I will.”

To love the dawn.
Not the sunrise,
But the moment
The black, gray world
Morphs to color.

To love the dawn.
Not the daybreak,
But the dark blues
As they emerge
To make color.

To love the dawn.
Not the morning,
But the changes
From the dullness
To a pale sky.

To love the dawn.
Not goodbye moon,
But hello life,
When greenery
Gives way to red.

To love the dawn.
Not hello day,
But a rainbow,
Every dawn.
Birthing color.

A thousand hearts could not love her like mine.
Ten million artists fail painting her smile.
Billions of galaxies dull to her shine.
The runways of Paris envy her style.

Pursuit of her beauty drives dreamers mad.
Bees wish honey were as sweet as her lips.
Her beauty exceeds what numbers can add.
She captivates men more than an eclipse.

She makes ascetics succumb to desire.
The blind cannot look away from her face.
Lust for her hotter than infernal fire.
Infinite angels less than her grace.

She’s beyond anything under the sun.
She’s more than everything and only one.

That which is invisible moves the most.
The greatest forces those that can’t be seen.
To feel we are influenced by a ghost,
To feel what our fragile emotions mean.

Wind, electricity and gravity,
Anger, kindness, sorrow, comfort and pain,
The measure of a heart’s capacity,
Missing a loved one you won’t see again.

Happiness and joy, mournfulness and peace,
The connection between two lovers’ souls,
A sense of time where time will never cease,
The need to be under divine control.

Manifestations of our God above,
His unseen force a model for our Love.

Monday has come,
To divide the earth from holy.
The firmament,
Transcended by humans solely.

The second day,
The water below and above.
I start my week,
Present and aware of your love.

Monday has come,
To connect my heart to the sky.
The firmament,
Across which I feel God’s reply.

The second day,
The day God made the color blue.
I start my week,
To honor this day God made you.

A circle.
Two enclosed in endless togetherness.
A square.
Two aligned and side to side as equals.
A triangle.
Two begun far apart destined to meet.
A rectangle.
Two beside each other through thick and thin.
A rhombus.
Two as equals leaning on each other.
A diamond.
Two joined at the sides in perfect balance.
An oval.
Two turning as one with each the focus.
A trapezoid.
Two in parallel until they converge.
Amorphous.
Two can be as unique as love makes them.

Long, slow walk,
Of steps in contemplation.
Low, slow talk,
To self in concentration.

To the end,
Where unknown in time or length.
To defend,
The self’s unknown source of strength.

Keep going,
Meek in determination.
Keep growing,
To find self-revelation.

Patient trail,
The beginning left behind.
To prevail,
In the meaning that you find.

Quiet thought,
Coaxing stubbornness to yield.
The road sought,
Inner secrets are revealed.

My love is vast and infinite,
Heart falling fast and intimate.

My love is strong and powerful,
Not feeling wrong or sorrowful.

My love is deep and without bounds,
It’s yours to keep as it surrounds.

My love is real and forever,
Our kisses seal us together.

My love is you and yours alone,
No love more true I’ve ever known.

An autumn leaf, once so green and so full
Fallen, dried, trampled in broken pieces.
A blade of grass, green, slender and alone,
Uprooted, lifelessly floating away.
A flower, once bright and full of nectar,
Wilting, pale, petals heavy on the stem.
A ravaged elm, as tall as it once was,
But hollow, gray, refuge for emptiness.
A shell, home to life, spit out by the sea,
Cracking underfoot, dead, a mere object.
Me, strong in spirit, alive and grateful,
More dead than those things, if not for your love.

The whirring ceiling fan first sound I heard,
Low hum of traffic outside my window,
Pictures on my wall still bleary and blurred,
Cheek warm and damp from head on my pillow.

This is the moment when life awakens,
Senses still calibrated to my dreams,
Haven’t yet moved but feeling I’m shaken,
Wrapped in the embrace of the world’s extremes.

Beauty! You can’t be escaped or denied!
Beauty! Once seen you will never depart!
Beauty! You came and I locked you inside!
Beauty! You are what I see with my heart!

Beauty! Here from sunsets to sunrises!
Beauty! You! Who my love realizes!

If I met my soul, wandering…
Would I even know who it was?

What of me would I recognize?
The pimply skin of teenage years?
Who says it has my color eyes?
My wrinkled face so on in years?

Walking with my familiar gait?
Which of my many styles of hair?
Would my soul dress in clothes I hate?
Or look like me enough to stare?

I’m not familiar with my soul.
Life’s only constant that I get.
The very thing that makes me whole
I’d ignore if we ever met.

My soul’s the me that I can’t see.
Strange here but in Heaven clearer.
To know my soul with certainty,
Know myself without a mirror.

To love is to wonder, “What is wonder?”
To find myself lost in, her eyes of green,
To quake from my heartbeat, strong as thunder,
Dreaming that she loved me, what would it mean?

To love is to wonder, “What is wonder?”
To never unsee, her angelic face,
Utterly helpless, her spell I’m under,
Could I feel her love, held in her embrace?

To love is to wonder, “What is wonder?”
To not have her image, out of my sight,
But not let this dream, tear me asunder,
Dream she’s in love with me, all day and night.

To love is to wonder, “What is wonder?”
To vanish in love, the moment she looked,
A love forever, that never shunned her,
Wonder, O wonder, on her love I’m hooked.

I see it in my dreams,
And everywhere I look.
In forests and in streams,
In pages of a book.

I see it when alone,
And when I’m in a crowd.
It feels so much my own,
I’m blessed that it’s allowed.

I see it in my heart,                                        
And right before my eyes.                    
In every work of art,                                        In all I realize.

I see profound beauty,
And I can’t look away.
I feel it’s my duty,
To love it every day.

I see the world’s beauty,
No matter where I stand.
It shall never mute me,
Whilst pen is in my hand.

My voice cries out from forced silence,
Thunderous volume in my ears,
Words preparing to do violence
Against my fear to face my fears.

The times I spoke I have been heard,
But poetry’s not for today.
The world needs action, not a word,
Though I’d prefer to run away.

I wish my writing would suffice
So that I never have to be.
But still, I make this sacrifice
Real life needs the real me.

O silent voice, speak through my pen!
A spirit to articulate!
You will be heard, not if but when!
O voice, it’s you I cultivate!

If he resists his tendency
To inhabit his fantasy,
Would he welcome reality,
Over his made up tragedy?

Open to let his eyes be true,
Perceiving real as something new,
Made to feel life like his dreams do,
When dreaming is all that he knew?

To live for real to no avail,
His fantasies would never fail.
He kept the world behind a veil,
No real people matched his tale.

You’d say all his fantasy does
Is fantasize imagined flaws.
He’d love the real him because
He was fantastic as he was.

A broken heart is
A heart
That hasn’t forgiven
Yet.

Your forgiving heart is
A heart
That hasn’t recovered
Yet.

Your recovering heart is
A heart
That hasn’t loved enough
Yet.

Your loving heart is
A heart
That can’t be broken again
Yet.

A broken heart is
A heart
That doesn’t really exist.
Yet.

Beneath the paleness of the autumn sky,
The tired ground takes respite from the heat,
Life departs with green of leaves fallen dry,
Barren and ready for growth to repeat.

Cold wind crackles against the branches bare,
And mornings now too quickly greet the night,
While the birds and butterflies disappear,
Warm raindrop kisses wet with chilling bite.

The weight of the gray air wilts the flowers.
Have pastels washed away for evermore?
Weary nature calls upon its powers
And from its weakest point starts to restore.

I shield my eyes in refuge from the cold,
Imagining the life there is to mourn.
Then I’ll recall the lesson nature told.
You need a little death to be reborn.

Forgive me, my heart beats too fast.
I suffer from lightheadedness.
In frigid sweats I shrink aghast.
I panic from my breathlessness.

My weakened legs won’t let me stand.
My skin sizzles like it’s been shocked.
Can’t calm the tremor in my hand.
I’m speechless as if jaw’s been locked.

My eyes are crossed in confusion.
I’m frozen like an icy blue.
I’m afraid it’s no illusion.
My body’s broken around you.

The guiding hand, clenched in its fist,
Cares not for the chances we’ve missed.
Bony fingers tighten ‘round us,
Of Devil or God confounds us.

Fate’s hand places us where it will,
Objections met with an eerie still.
The Devil’s hand or of the Lord,
Punishments can look like reward.

The benevolent hand at play,
Requests for which we blindly pray,
Indifferent which powerful font,
God or Devil gives what we want.

A hand from beyond has control
In return it asks for our soul.
What if ere we die we live good?
Is the Devil misunderstood?

If God created the World
        and all its Beauty to see,
What Beauty inspired Him,
        like your Beauty inspires me?

If God created the World,
        As Art for eternity,
What vision did He behold,
        Like yours is beheld by me?

If God created the World,
        where Love makes Man want to be,
What Love motivated Him,
        Like your love motivates me?

If God created the World
        within His own timelessness view,
What causes God’s timelessness
        Like those moments I’m with you?

If God created the World
        to bring living Life anew,
What made His life worth Living,
        like mine was not before you?

If God created the World
        but lived in His Creation,
What a World He would create,
        with you as inspiration!

Quieted by my solitude,
Serene in my tornadic thoughts,
Alone this peaceful interlude,
Escaping feelings overwrought.

Immune to chaos and torment,
My heart is in the typhoon’s eye.
Though burned I’ve felt my pain relent,
Your love for me’s the reason why.

Anguish my one and only friend,
Loneliness meant desperation,
And I could never comprehend,
Feeling loved in isolation.

I thank you for the thought of you.
It’s the most present thing I’ve known.
This is what makes a soulmate true—
You’re here even when I’m alone.

I see fine art when I look in your eyes,
And your voice sings in perfect melody.
E’en the thought of you I romanticize,
I read fairy tales in the you I see.

Your eyes a subtle pleasing pair in rhyme,
All history’s beauty found in your smile,
Your touch beats my heart in meter and time,
Your moves transcend every poetic style.

All of the poems written about you,
Inadequately composed by myself,
Are merely shadows of art that is true.
You are the words of a poem yourself.

I’ve escaped, slipping through a narrow crease.
Here I was, trapped by every emotion.
One instant, overwhelmed here’s my release!
Intensely, feelings put me in motion!

Slowly traversing flesh from which I came,
Others like me sharing in my descent.
Mortal grief and elation all the same,
I can never know what my presence meant.

Unwelcome, destined to be wiped away.
I was fine, watching the world in my eye,
Bewildered, thousands of feelings per day,
Now no more, which feeling bid me goodbye?

I come in truth impossible to lie,
And oh so hard to hide when I appear.
Wish someone would have warned me she would cry,
I’m nothing but a single wasted tear.

Searching with a ravenous smile
Beyond depravity to find
Lustful home in a woman with
Pinup soul and centerfold mind.

Like prowling wolf under full moon
To find in habitats untold
Attracted to a body with
A chest that shields her heart of gold.

Sensuality unrestrained
Approaches as innocent knave
Seeking that woman who has too
Naked Eros towards the brave.

Drawn out by libidinous need
That only making love can cure
His darkness only wants her light
Everything about her is pure.

The incessant need for togetherness,
More alone than a single blade grass,
Relationships that need foreverness,
As fused as are the grains of sand in glass.

Relentlessly seeking love through giving,
From an abyss of generosity,
To connect with loving souls is living,
With such self-proclaimed virtuosity.

To be close is just to make someone feel,
To give just to elicit emotion.
And love returned for giving is the deal
Like a returning pendulum’s motion.

This instinct brings innocents elation.
Why does it reek of manipulation?

I’m so immersed in thoughts of your beauty
That I see it when I see anything.
I can’t describe it,
Angry at myself,
That my poetry is insufficient
To tell how beautiful I think you are.

I’m so immersed in thoughts of your beauty
That I see you, always, effortlessly.
Just seeing you once,
Though it’s not enough,
Was enough to make me always see you
So beautiful is always in my life.

I’m so immersed in thoughts of your beauty
That I’m not sure you actually exist.
Are you just a dream?
Imagined image?
Maybe I can’t describe your pure beauty
Because reality can’t measure up.

I’m so immersed in thoughts of your beauty
That my heart is broken with frustration.
Give me forgiveness.
Wish I could tell you…
But no words or verse will ever convey
That you are all the beauty in my world.

If I loved as much as I were able,
With all my heart, all my soul, all my might,
What love in return would I enable?
Could giving that much love ever feel right?

If I could feel as loved as I desire,
With all of someone’s heart and soul and might,
Could I survive the flames of such a fire,
Sustaining burns of focused blinding light?

What is the limit of a human’s love,
If loved with all their heart and soul and might?
Who could withstand it besides God above?
Love is the sun but we love like moonlight.

To love as much as Heaven might demand,
How much can heart and soul and might withstand?

I spent one day in tomorrow
Before my one day in today,
And I let tomorrow borrow
What I was feeling yesterday.

I spent one day in tomorrow,
Spent it with worry and regret.
I had let tomorrow borrow,
Past fears that hadn’t happened yet.

I spent one day in tomorrow—
A day that was a total waste.
One I let tomorrow borrow
With countless regrets to retrace.

I spent one day in tomorrow
And found that that’s no way to live.
I had let tomorrow borrow
The only day I had to give.

With gratitude to failures and to pain,
Good fortune from descent to the abyss,
With clarity from living life insane,
And headlong tumble from the precipice.

With thanks to heartbreaks gone from bad to worse,
And tears that washed away my will to live,
For times my good intentions were a curse,
All that was bad had something good to give.

From loving wrong more times than I can count,
I now have learned to finally love right.
My darkest days are lessons paramount—
Thank you darkness for showing me the light.

What’s the worst thing to ever befall me?
Nothing if I love who I’ve come to be.

You come to me like a wave soon to crest.
I wait with open arms upon the shore.
The distant ocean smooth like glass at rest,
Belies the energy it has in store.

The distant plane of water so serene,
That ripples faintly as it nears the beach.
Our love is fury like a wave unseen,
Its strength in evidence when within reach.

From far away you now are in my sight.
Inside me my emotions hit their peak,
Like the ferocious waves of frothy white.
Our love was never calm, was never weak.

The waves derive their power from below,
Beneath the calm your love is all I know.

My love for you is defined by smallness.
The time before I miss you when you leave.
The space between our lips.
The connection of our hearts,
        No matter where we are.

How long before I reach out to touch you.
The space between our skin.
What we see in our future,
        Aligned to destiny.

From how we feel now to eternal bliss.
The difference in our thoughts.
Shock of coming happiness,
        Shrinks to ever present.

My love for you is infinitely close.
Together in every dimension.
Time, space and spirit.
Two souls once divided,
        Together in one heart.

This cloak of self-deception blocked the light
So shades of darkness were all I could see.
While the radiance of truth shined so bright,
Intensity of blackness blinded me.

A sorry past saw all future as lies,
And faithlessness had closed my every door.
While I knew light was just beyond my eyes,
My dead soul would not let me see once more.

But hope’s the curse of a defiant mind!
My need for love begged my heart to let go.
Accustomed to the darkness, I was blind,
When I looked at my future’s shining glow.

Squinting I let my faithful eyes adjust,
To happiness beyond me I should trust.

Spaces
Between the letters of a word
Between the words on a page
Between each breathless sound I heard
Between those moments as I age.

Spaces
Between my eyelids and my tears
Between the sniffles of my cries
Between the drums of my two ears
Between the whites of my two eyes.

Spaces
The nothingness of emptiness
A place no physical exists
The center of all loneliness
The comfort of the pessimist.

Spaces
They’re places asking to be filled
They have meaning in their presence
To those both soulful and strong-willed
Space is where they find their essence.

I wish I’d known you longer,
Met earlier, been stronger.
I wish I’d not spent those years,
Without you, with all those fears.

I wish that our paths had crossed,
Met earlier, I’d been lost.
I wish I’d have had the chance,
Without you, knew not romance.

I wish I had known your name
Met earlier, it’s a shame.
I wish I’d known who you were
Without you, past life’s a blur.

I wish that though we never
Met earlier, forever
I wish endless love and so
Without you, I never know.

The meadow, fragrant of hyacinth and lilac
I lay among their stems, dewy grass in my back.
The pale blue of the sky holds the corona true
Swelter beneath the star, yellow at war with blue.

Distant petals, floating on gusty zephyrs fly
Squinting at reds and pinks, pollen dust in my eye.
A rushing bubbling stream carries away my mind
O’er pebbled bed beneath through twist and turn and wind.

A droplet escapes free and nibbles at my toe
As nature overwhelms with what the meadow knows.
Love is to be immersed—Just dipped my toe and yet
It was a pool of you, and my whole body’s wet.

Dear God I’m overcome.
I know no other way.
I’ve heard it works for some,
So finally I’ll pray.

No reason to rejoice;
I have so many needs.
So God, just hear my voice,
And please ignore my deeds.

I’ve never asked for much,
Or anything at all,
But my issues are such,
It’s You I need to call.

I pray for better health
(My back is always sore),
And if I had more wealth,
I’d probably pray more.

If you could help my son
To make the soccer team,
It would help him a ton
To realize his dream.

So what else should I seek?
I’ve never prayed before.
If I sincerely speak,
Then You just give me more?

To pray this easily…
I’m not sure what I mean…
Is prayer supposed to be
Like a vending machine?

God, forget what I said.
This prayer is not the best.
I need You in my head
To make any request.

I should not seek Your grant,
Without seeking Your grace.
The unrepentant can’t
Come to a holy place.

I think You’re there to find.
I feel I’m on my own.
So let me clear my mind
As I approach Your throne.

I want to try again
But this time not for me.
Your concern is for man.
Prayers not for “I” but “we.”

If You send the world peace,
Our needs are not a must.
Give our ego release,
And please just grant us trust.

You’ve seen this mortal man,
And things I never saw.
Whatever is Your plan,
I’m humble and in awe.

The act of prayer itself,
If prayer is to be true,
Will purify the self
To feel closer to You.

I don’t pray to save me.
If my sins You forgave,
Then I pray just to be
Worthy of being saved.

All of my life I’ve been known by my name,
And yet as I’ve grown I’ve not been the same.
Hoped my identity would be clearer,
No answer when I look in the mirror—
Who am I?

Born in a world of infinite places,
Encounters with these infinite faces,
My restless spirit seems destined to roam,
Wondering still when I think I’m at home—
Where am I?

Not accidental that I came to be,
But may have missed out on my destiny.
And though I’ve done things of which I am proud,
None of them stop me from asking out loud—
Why am I?

Each moment I age life’s completion nears,
And I regret I might run out of years.
I’m meant for something I need to make so,
But all of this time and I still don’t know—
When will I?

Oh you bless’d eyes, how can I forgive you?
I trusted you to find beauty unloosed,
To hallow it, beauty from Heaven true.
But you wandered, looking to be seduced.

Oh you bless’d eyes, how can I still trust you?
I closed you at night with dreams as your guide,
And bid you find each day’s beauty anew.
But you opened, sought fantasy and lied.

Oh you bless’d eyes, why should I let you see?
I gave you the rainbow’s colors and hues,
To enjoy life’s beauty and majesty.
But you went dim, after the darkest views.

Oh you bless’d eyes, what sight now shall remain?
No beauty below, no solace above.
Please find me beauty to ease my heart’s pain!
But you’ve gone blind, useless to find true love.