I stand there by that rocking cradle,
hands shaking by my sides
Quivering with fears unnamed
and horrors ill-described

Yes, I hesitate beside the cradle,
on my brow is a sweaty sheen
How can I place my hand upon it
when his innocence makes me appear unclean?

How can I fail to impart the negativity,
the hurt and pain I've known
How will he stand to look at me then,
when he is a man full grown?

As I step forward and claim my duty,
I pick him up, my burden bare
And I wonder will I always stand here
feeling so alone and scared

The rocking cradle gives no answer,
it continues its swaying tread
Immune to despair and joy,
deaf to laughter and dread

Seeing all, it takes no sides
Knowing much, it claims no authority
Instead its rocks its steady course
as it was made to be

And perhaps this is the answer,
that motherhood is not an adept's game
That each of us comes to the cradle
ill prepared and yet forever changed

The secret in rocking that cradle
is not to be the mother figure etched in stone
We all must sway to course that works
for each of us alone…

If the fallacy of thought
lies within the indifference
of a heart's indrawn
breath,
would there be a second
chance to mold a circle
from the intangible
fluid epic of dream?

Could so much blinding
light encompass the
derelict and the saved,
bathing all that is seen
in the breeze
of fairy wings that just
learned how to fly?

There are no shadows here
beneath a full moon of
illumination where
everything is cast into the
shade of pearls and silver,
one tinged with the sea,
another with air

At the core of a spiral
tree, in the hollow center
of a peach's eye
we could then look into
the unveiled truth of
Nature's simplicity,
separate the *******
from the poetry,
and the muse from the song

But if we're gathered here,
does that mean we're
about to meet our maker,
that this mystery of life
should be released in a sonnet
written through a fiberglass pen?

There are no strangers here
beneath the harsh glare
of a full moon,
where everything is reduced
to pearls and silver,
varying shades of pink
and gray

And if this litany is so
much scattered stardust
on the surface of an infinity
that can't be asked to care,
does it matter either way
if what we say is set
in stone or sand,
that our words remain
here as whispers caught in
the seashell of unending time?

Because there are no
secrets here beneath the
illumination of a
full-bodied moon
We are all children playing
amongst pearls and silver,
not knowing yet that our
trinkets have worth

We are still innocent
to war and strife and grief
So let us toss up our
circles of pearls,
let us trod over these
streets of silver,
let us gather here once more
before Eden fades into
the dark side of the moon...

In the morning,
they shriek their
arrival with a cry
of effervescent doom
before the dawn
has so much as
shed a sliver
of light into my room

Standing tall,
these birds of black
feathers,
dark and deathly
apparitions
perch upon the pallad
bust of my building
with malevolent
intentions

They stalk my daytime
landscape
with the cunning
of a thief
reminding me,
enticing me
with the chaos
just beneath

I've no chance to
enjoy the daylight
when they cast their
shadows on the ground
These Ravens flock
together silently
as if immune to sound

They are the
Birds of Eventide,
the witnesses of the
****** and derelict
Brash and unsanctified,
no one can hide
from the portents
they predict

And around me,
the people walk unbidden,
hearing not this
beacon's call
These subtle squawks
are voices that talk
on the horrors of The Fall

I listen to their
Eventide prelude,
my soul trembling
at its core
because I can't pretend
that I can't hear
the message anymore...

It is the essence
of all things,
standing here in
flagrant opposition
and calling ourselves
friends

And yet through
the fights and opposition,
there's the bend and
sway of latitude
where each word is but
a shadow on
emotion's battered
skull

Can you see me
as I see you,
here now within the
present moment,
underneath a sky
that doesn't care
whether we laugh
or dance or cry?

Can you hear it now,
that drum beat of
indifference,
threading through
the certainty of
footsteps etched
in stone?

Oh, these contrived
things we share,
and our sanctimonious
musings that
tell nothing and give
nothing but
the languish of
a soul deprived

And in these brick
edifices,
we would cling to
our salvation within
a solitary world
we need to believe
corresponds with us

There they are,
these moments
and damnable expressions,
cast like lots
onto the stage
where the curtain is
just beginning to rise

And if we were truly
honest,
if our truth was so
undisguised
then it wouldn't take
the very breath of us
to turn the other way

But a black hole
is mesmerizing,
the unknown is
a desired thing
for if you can
walk into those
darkened rooms,
you can come back
to spread the tale

About the Carpenter
who wasn't a Walrus,
and the Dark Man
who possessed light,
and the Woman who was
a ****** Harlot
yet somehow set it all
to rights

It is there,
you see,
in the rhyme,
the single rhyme
that tells the mystery
of this riddle
And I am only its instrument,
sitting down like a flute,
pressed to the lips
of infinity
and screaming out its
breath

And here's the part
where we rise now,
here's the portion
where we say "Amen"
and walk away towards
translucent horizons
and ebony dreams
filled with alabaster
musings written in gold

It's all symbolic,
you see
The alcohol of the
intellectual,
a summation in
a single stroke
of lines

So I can weave my web,
and you can weave yours
but the meaning,
that subtle meaning,
will be a secret to us
that's etched in stone...

I said my prayers
by the lamp of disease
Cast up my lots to
a heaven I didn't
know was there

I asked the question
in the back of a
left-over imagination,
scratched the pages
of my life until
they were somewhat
workable

And with the confetti
that I'd made
I forged a collage of
aspirations and
disillusion,
expression and
desperate pride

This artwork I
cleaved to my breast
as if it needed
nourishment,
held on even when
the hourglass had
long since disappeared

The sand had drifted
towards the oasis of
my sanity,
obscuring every truth
in drifts of
golden unmade glass

All that's left
is the art,
All I've got is that fusion,
the locomotion of
creation that keeps
me glued right to my seat

There's all that's left
is this unrealized edifice,
a synchronization,
an episode where realities
all boil down to one

And then we're standing here,
with a lamp and the heavens
Now we're crying here,
with the disease and a chance

that if something were
to come from this,
it may just be called a life...

No one told me
there are whispers
in the lacy print of words,
that with secret voices
wrapped in silk
they can reinvent the mind
leaving velvet sands
pouring into waves of thought
that swim on,
all solitary

No one shouted at me
that there are warnings
etched inside volumes
all but overlooked
except by the
discerning gaze
And that once looked upon
can crumble the foundation
of an individual
or that I'd question my surroundings
in accusation of all I
did not know

No one stopped me
from this learning,
these eyes upon the words
that history forgot to erase,
etched by fingers as human as
my own
whose tears ran clear
just like my own

And how could I return
once I knew,
wrapped in silken knowledge,
touched by sheerest lace
that I would not see the world
the same
or that my world would alter
beyond my most fanciful dreams
or decadent nightmares

For the words,
with all their beauty,
Those words,
with all their stains
were now both my
liberation and my prison

I could only chose
the view...

Wear your corset,
cover your hair
remember to be prim
On your doorstep
standing there
Is your master, yes, it's him

We reared you well
in chastity and quiet
What lovely piano you play!
We smothered passion that dwells
in the ****** diet
and kept the intellect at bay

But now you **** us
with your wiles of independent hue
You, the rebel mare!
Now you scandalize us
with your brazen truths
on t.v burning bras and underwear

And then to think
you'd walk into our boardrooms
once filled with burgundy and smoke
Can't you see you push the brink
of the fires churning fumes
on which now we choke?

Who let you into the books?
Who gave you a say
in a world that belongs to men?
Knowledge is no bubbling brook
beside which you play
Remember your master- Him!

In birth, we raised you by the cross
In childhood, we saw you cry
In adulthood, we saw you shake if off
and from our wisdom fly

We didn't want you there
with us in the muck and the mire
the dirt and the grime
We wanted you spared
from the damnation and fires
and a reality now sublime

Can't you see
that we only wanted
you to remain pure?