She sat cross-legged on a deserted highway
all dressed in silence
her eyes spoke of how she used her paper weapons
to defend her glass heart

And I told her
the stars are (g)listening
because I didn't have the heart to say
"I think you're beautiful when you cry"

Dust collected on her eyes
like memories of old Polaroids
but she looked like a paperback
with dog-eared corners and a bent cover

In the hushed hours of the night
she looked flushed
and I'm not sure why
but she breathed out,
a tiny, nervous breath.

She told me how she missed
the boy who laughed in the sky..
she wished to be here again
shooting fireworks; dancing with sparklers
she wished to hear his laugh from then
she wished to feel her smile again

Then, she told me how she felt so small
I sympathized with her
as only empty highways and broken hearts do
and she dropped lit sparklers
to find her way back to civilization
and like her, the sparklers died

I lost her that night
but I know she's somewhere
halfway between the gutter and the sky
staring from vacant eyes
I wonder if the half-rotten forest
could ever breathe
as quietly as she did when she cried.

©️ Dark Water Diaries

spear point
sharp as glass

cutting sinew
separating flesh

the blood letting
never ends

somewhere someone
just died

murdered
in their bed

happy birthday Ron i miss you every day
i know you are safe now where the angels
in heaven up above where your life is free
safe for ever more you will always be

oneday i will join you when the angels come for me
you and i together once again will be
flying side by side in the sky so blue
once again united together me and you

flying side by side with my mum once more
together up in heaven where the angels soar
sharing our birthdays on our special day
in heaven up above where the angels stay

empty noise
disembodied

skinned cat
tooth and claw

in the ear
a spiders web

Butterfly wing beats
leaving for winter

bed for a Bee
toasted honey.

yellow Sun
orange Moon

rainbow stars
blue Earth

red blood
white bones

electric mind
bright thoughts

"And now! What did we wish to say, that we were not able to say?" --St. John Perse
"Love is a stranger in an open car" --the Eurythmics



When love is a stranger, things can get twisted.
A girl can get sick, being the McDonald's drive-thru of eating ****.
She may cop an attitude, or hear the cop say
to his partner, "That chick might as well just shoot herself."
That stuff sticks.

When daddy and his strophe wife, the replacement who shoots up Thomas Mann say,
"We'd like you to move out," after just a month of nervous dumbshow confusion,
the mulligans are running out and the road calls.
Where else you gonna go, baby?

When love is a stranger, there are still poets, painters,
failed academics, leering dittybops, locust nutjobs
and grandfathers walking with canes into
the roaring pandemonium of downtown San Antonio.
There are still stricken drunks on pulpit stools
to tell you, baby,
let's get out of here,
I know a slaughterhouse on the south side
where a girl like you could see god in fumed gold Krylon.

When love is a stranger and the bones bend
like spines of books with pages knifed out
to hold some lack-rent new straw man's works,
it's time to get knocked up with an idea,
blood out a new plan and join the shanghaied sailors
at the 12-step dock in the free lunch church downtown.

When some oxford-cloth **** tells you not to come back,
You come back anyway, you find a new high,
you start scudding down San Pedro with no idea
and no wheels, but a sacred heart, a votive candle,
and maybe a shine-ghost mirage of something better.
Slide into the Olmos Theater,
start tatting together the film edges until you spill
out with the rest of the film buffs,
find a tarantula on the pavement on the way home and say,

"I will not die here."
That's when you pick up some pride, some Spanish
and some mom and pop Texican deliciousness
before doing the dishes to pay.
Hey chica,
it doesn't have to be this way.
New friend Jake tells me that til it rings in my ears.
He buys me the leather jacket I was jonesing for,
and suddenly it's my world too,
holy ****, I have the right to be here,
and I am walking down Alamo towards the cenotaph
thinking maybe being a live coward or dead hero

are not the only choices that I have.