Her voice is flute-song upon a wind
Known both in tall, still trees and coastal gales.
Every pleasing sound,
If of nighthawks or of August rains,
Gathers in breaths, both in and out,
In notes forbidden to all others.

A waving blade of grass, or a tumbling leaf
Will half-obscure the slight nothings
That escape upon her tender breath,
Or punctuate a moment’s surprise.
Illustration of a serene purity and tenderness
That dwells sweetly within.

Too upon those lips,
Escaping from tender cheeks softly,
Quickly appearing, yet sparse,
Between those pillars of her smile,
That restrains poorly mirth and glow,
A name comes quickly,
And delivers opulent wealth and pleasure
To be my own.

Waist deep.
The thick black syrup meets skin
A sharp black/white line
Across the pores
Like a moving limb of day/night
Across the distant craters of the moon.
To tread deeper and pulls the surface down
The mirror-black surface bending, pulling.
A meniscus
A relativistic bending
Of space and time around a star.

Deep below the surface
Wiggling toes are sluggish
Movement of legs are impeded
A tug at each hair on legs and toes.
And the hydraulic squirt of the liquid
Below the soles as your weight shifts.

Ah, but sometimes shallower now,
Withdrawing belly skin pulls with it
The deep brown-black rubbery surface
That will not be left behind.
It will not relinquish this new intimacy.

What horror comes with the rising depths?
Liquid darkness comes over shoulders, chin and cheeks.
A sweet salty taste now upon the lower lip.
A tug, a pull at the chin with every breath
Every attempt to lift it above the surface.

Fear. Darkness. Unknown.

Over mouth and nose.
Sticking to eyelids.
Thick and warm into ears.
A bubble of air tries to escape from under your chin
And tickles as it pulls up on the hairs it passes.

The cool open air irises-off above your head
Only a momentary depression in the top surface.
Until there is no record, of your having passed here.

Silence.

A sweet and sticky seal, impermeable between this world and the void.

Silence.

Push up now with strength in frightened legs.
The suction is immense, the pull strong.
It does not wish to let you withdraw.
But you push and breaking the tension of the surface
You emerge.

Great thick layers of darkness remain.
Hands claw great gobs of blackness from nose and mouth.
A gasping, stuttered pull brings icy, bitter air.
Standing now, a black shadow-ghost emerging from tarry blackness.

Velvety and warm was the invitation,
Soothing and intimate was the gentle touch,
Silent and heavy was embrace,
A smothering, airless dark at the end
And silence.

But sweet, oh how sweet and warm.

Crack.
The past cleaves from the now.
Your surprises and concerns
Lay in the street,
Until dried and fragile
They take flight on the wind.

A hum,
The future like a freight train
Slow but massive,
Inertia like a mountain
Pushes you forward, aside
Or goes right over top.

The moment –
If you can grab it –
Is the now.
Find the handles and pull them close.
Silence and stillness from the gale.
It is a seat beside the heater
On a cold frozen night.

Tomorrow I will need to go
To a place I'll never know
I'll go there again next week
And find some more of what I seek.

I look for silence, sharp and ringing
I look to leave the things I'm bringing
There among the nothingness
I'll stop, and drop, then quick egress

Tomorrow you will find me there
Within a space I know not where
You'll find me there again next week
In silence where we dare not speak

withoutshapeormeaning
withoutreasonguidenceorrules
selectanddivid­ethepiecesasyouwill
weallmustdecideforourselves
wherewewillexcise­ourmeaning
andclaimourstakeamongthebrambles
thataretheseethingcur­lsandstrokes
inaworldofhintslookstouchesandgestures

feelfinallyw­ithyourfingertips
donottrusttheeyesandears
seekthecracksandbreaks­
sensethestrengthsandsinews
butchoosewiselywheretosnap
foryoumust­keepthepiecesyouchoose
youmustbuildyourworld
withthechoicesyoumak­e

A window into the soul
Water rushing along a gutter
The awaking to raindrops
Hard upon ancient metal flashing.
Gurgles echo in the drainpipes
Droplets join with a chaotic torrent
That interweaves fingers
With the cobbles in the street.

A window into the soul?
But memories melt like softened snow
Down off a high fence of wrought iron
Caked with ice
Though the blacker the metal
The more warmed by the electric afternoon sun.
Crystals drip into syrupy tendrils
And dissolve the moments past.

A window into the soul
The melting left the cold cinders
Once hot and glowing
Now long extinguished.
Even the ash is long washed away.
They sit among stones,
Tendrils of weeds.
Can anyone identify and name them
Among the petrified earth?

A window into the soul
A drought across the landscape.
Whiffs and wisps of smoke on the wind
Crackling sounds of burning trees and grasses.
Waves of flame sweep over a landscape
And even forgotten charcoal
Glows red again.
Flames dance and animate
An inner fire, that only rested
But was never extinguished.

The illusions we chase in our work-a-day world
Our actions paint allusions to the person we try to be.
We neglect the elusive goals we proclaimed in our youth
While they sink silently into alluvial beds of time.
Ultimately we wax effusive about how we flew so high
And evasively rationalize the 'here' to which we have drifted.
As if we, exclusively, had missed that bus.
We wear obvious scars of the abusive universe.