I am riding through the old-time suburbs.
The city of salt pillars
I pass a bike or three
A jeep
A van with a six-inch lift and chipped orange paint
I round a corner
And suddenly all is quiet
Except for the squeaking of my old bicycle chain.
And I ex-
Hale

If you were here you would ask me why I sighed
And I would reply
"It's not a sigh, I just forgot to breathe"

I just forgot to breathe.

And I'm breathing now
My shoulders are at ease
And my bike is squeaking.
I wonder how often pockets of silence bubble up in the city
For a moment-
In this one spot-
It is still-
And then a car drives by and we resume.
I found myself in a pocket of silence in the center of a beehive this afternoon
And I sighed
Because the silence made me realize that I was holding my breath
So I exhaled
And relaxed

And then a car drove by
And we resumed.

Petals of flower—
Impossible freshness, breaks day,
Her eyes opening.

Cold sun reminds me,
Her forgotten voice in dream,
Her breaths in the wind.

Your face,
Tender, round and dimpled,
Framed with gilded, carved, tawny curled
Whirlpools of hair, long, lighted, and sparkling,
Your face is the face—
Of Ireland.

Your lips,
Full, moist and deathly deep,
Are wells, not well for me, not safe, taboo,
Tantric, tall told tales of brave Odysseus
Under Circe's alchemies
Of forgetfulness.

Your *****,
The zenith of blossom in fabled
Elysium, gateway to the forbidden gardens
Of sage and sinners, warrior-poets, Aphrodite's
Envy, Poseidon's drowning
And smoldering Zeus.

I'm choking

                  Gasping

                                    ­I drown

For my lungs collapse in the water
Like my heart interprets your words
My adoration and lust for both
Leaves me breathless.

Music is much like Life:
it begins and it ends
it goes through stages
it has an ebb and flow
it is arbitrary yet structured
it is abstract; relative only unto itself
and once it stops, it's over.

The first thing that happens
defines a point of relativity
and around that rhythmic, melodic and harmonic axiom
everything else is free to move;
but, once it has ended,
silence;
perhaps applause.

Otherwise, peace.

An encore wasn't in the contract.

The only dissonance
is internal;
cognitive.

But,
once it has happened,
if if it significant enough,
it creates waves that ne'er cease to ripple and refract
and in such a way they are immortal
and in such a way they are free
to have a causal effect on the rest of Humanity;
on the rest of Reality.

Music, much like Life,
comes from Void
into Existence,
then it suffers the physical world
and then it returns again
to motionlessness,
perhaps even Void again,
and from there,
who's to say?

So, I suppose, the moral is
to not be afraid of who you are;
learn it and come to terms with it
and learn what drives it forth
and then utilize that
and do it to the utmost
that others may see thy, as well as their own, Light
that they, themselves, may be inspired
to shine bright
that Light of their own.

In that way and that way alone
shall we bring forth an Enlightened World.