Part I - Words

Don’t play word games with a poet
a poem is but a skeleton waiting for mind
and imagination to fill the open spaces
fragile, fleeting thoughts arise
like Frost upon the windowpane
they write themselves
pieces bombard like pebbles
words with no more weight
than the fluff of a yellow chick [are]
magnified into the Pillars of Hercules
[resembling] a jumble of colors wild and bright,
juxtaposed and scattered  

her words are so airy
his thoughts are so keen
perhaps even [saying] the things
we wish we had
making it a page in [our] book
[but sometimes]
they don 't go down easy,
these words meant to soothe
I want to take them back,
embarrassed that I ever set them down
wishing I could forget playwright’s evil pen,
[and now]
my brain is uninhabited by rhyme.


Part II – Nature

[Evening]

it rains… I want to try to count the droplets  
[as] the breeze invites a crimson leaf
to dance one last dance
geese give a melancholy voice to leaving
their dark v-shape splitting a cloudless sky
breeze ruffling trees at evening as
stars appear to transport me home
the Daystar pulls up its night covers,
letting the darkness take hold.
…the moon pregnant with the sun’s light
round full lake of fervor
the moon holds up the sky
on silver serving tray

[Day]

the sun burns the horizon  
white foam, salt spray,
forlorn cry of gull, brown sands,
hot sands rhythmic roll of waves
[Earth]
traversing an endless “sea” holding us tight
yet leaving us free

[Home}

like me my garden is wild and free
like flitting butterflies [children] come
and pick the flowers they prize
they keep on being tulips
they keep on being red
the fragments are dandelion seeds
blown to the wind  


Part III - Melancholy

I slice the day up like a lime [because]
there’s an acutely thin line between
the total lunatic fringe and that which is acceptable

I see you falling through the purple air
like a blind hungry tiger
tiresome journey seems unending
then death
some too soon [give] up the ghost
if you die so early are you forever young?

sound and fury, sound of silence
when will the bleeding end?
I cry for the grandchildren I'll likely never have,
for the grandparents I never knew.  
if I cried as much as I need to
my 60-some percent water would dissipate,
evaporate into the abyss that’s forming,
I look at the abyss [but] it isn't mine anymore,
it’s yours
as you walk, your body tries to fold into itself.
who was your beast and where have you buried him?

what if…each person’s belief is what unfolds
if you believe in nothing that’s what you’d become

the ground is your bed, the stars your night light.
soon morning will break and melt the frost,
moving it along [your} frozen pain


Part IV – Love and Longing

if you don’t want the real truth perhaps you shouldn’t ask
[but still]
be gentle with one another the world is harsh enough
she didn’t seem really loved
didn’t seem cared for that much
clothes dropped like the delicate
gray feathers of fledglings

I've heard people say they can control
what they dream
but most are who they are and will remain

I could have loved you,
madman though you were,
sometimes the less said,
the better letting go of love
[yet your] soul goes with me always
running through me like a river...
put your hands in the earth and touch me.


Epilogue: how hard did you have to work to do it well? (a line not used)

[I worked hard but didn’t do it all that well. In spite of that, I enjoyed doing it!]