the yellow glow of the rising sun
gives me the gift of renewed hope
and gratitude for my breath and life
today

Beloved,
may my naked desire
rest in You
with delight.

Beloved, may Your eternal flame burn in me.

A fire that purifies and
illumines the darkness within
my thirsty heart.

I am grateful I can feel thankful for life instead
of just hating on it like I used to.

I am grateful for choosing real connections instead
of checking out and isolating into myself.

I am grateful I can be a son to my parents, a husband to my wife,
a father to my daughter, and a friend to my friends instead of
drinking myself to death a day at a time.

you may not know me
face to face,
but you and I have connected
heart to heart through words.

Our lives are woven together by
the tapestry of words,
and into a living breathing poetry.

you and I are no longer strangers,
but fellow poets and sojourners
on this journey of creation.

I lived
a life filled with futility,
where each day faded
into another.

I live
a life filled with moments,
each one humbling me
into sanity.

I will live
a life when I reach out to
others still fading
into oblivion.

nothin' like home cookin'
to revive my soul and belly

the summer heat is oppressive
it's so hot and humid in the south
you become drenched with sweat
just standing still

the running streams of mountain water
rushing through rocks and then crashing down on ya
the chill of the waterfall freezes the intensity of explosion
on your skin as the water beats down on ya
there's nothing like it in the world to standing underneath a waterfall

I hug the wall of stone and feel the cold slimy surface
and my hands run through the moss growing on the side

what an amazing reprieve on a hot summer's day
God bless the mountains of North Carolina
God bless Appalachia
God bless this place called
home

home of my heart
where living waters flow

I wish I arrived at humility out of love,
minutes often I arrive at its doors
through the pain of humiliation.

My self righteous anger brought me
to this moment of the beauty of humility
as I cradle my bruised hand after punching a wall.

I am a human being that makes mistakes,
and the beauty of a spiritual life happens
through progress not perfection.

I am growing little by little,
and slowly breaking the cycle of violence
passed from my father, passed to him by his father...

I cannot spiritually grow alone and without help.
The beauty of humility is that I am not alone, and
I am neither the worst or the best.  I am human.

the crisp morning air
embraces my skin
greeting each pore
with a welcome
to wake up

i never knew a love like this
to hold you skin to skin
heart to heart

i can feel your breath
against my chest
and feel your warmth

i feel my heart expanding
to love so fully and completely
without expectations

i am so grateful for meeting you
heart to heart

sometimes my feet feel so heavy
I want to give up,
then someone walks from behind
and I realize I am not walking this path alone.
somehow, I feel a little bit lighter and filled with purpose
in my step, and I catch up to the next guy and help him
get up and walk the path together.

the cool wind in my hair
as you and I glide across
the cement jungle.

You make my life tolerable
in this crazy urban landscape,
my trusty metal steed that
helps me duck and weave in
stand still traffic of the Nation's capital.

nothing like flying through the city on you, my bicycle,
on this beautiful spring day.  I know you can't speak,
but if you could, you would also say "wheeeeee" with glee.

1.  I am grateful for having the freedom to share my thoughts freely without censorship.

2. Grateful for my wife and our daughter growing inside of her.

3.  I am grateful for something greater than me keeping me alive multiple times, when I tried to take my life multiple times in a dark period that almost lasted a decade.  

4.  I am grateful today that I can start the day free and at peace with my life, and not drown out the voices with substances or compulsive behavior.

5.  I am thankful I can breathe, and be in touch with my heart.

6.  I am grateful for Hello Poetry , my online community of poets that I can share my experiences and learn from others to continue living with hope.

an easy choice
but sometimes
so **** hard
to make

the cicadas are singing
and the cats stare in quiet contemplation

a cool breeze passes through our window
and my heart perks at the sound of  your foot steps

love is knowing your steps
and greeting the rhythm of your breath
with wonder and gratitude

O Beloved.
Wound me with tenderness
as I embrace Your living flame of love.

Burn away my fears and self-pity
that holds me back from being
consumed by the flames of Your love.

Ignite the hearth of my own heart,
so I may share Your living flame
with tenderness to spread the flame of divine life.

Melt away my insecurities and dishonesty, so
I can stand before You as a living flame burning
wildly to embrace everything as a gift from You.

the summer rain washes
my blues away

makes everything new

your love is like gravity
it grounds me to the earth

I just have to hold on
and put one step in front of the other

some days I want to float away into nothing
but then I remember I have love that
roots me here in reality with all its gravity

my body
            wants
                 to move
                               in
                   rhythm
        to your
heart

beauty lies in little moments
when i pause and breathe

a fearful thought or idea
enters my head and
robs me of my serenity

the center of all my obsessions
is me, and the only things that helps
me get out of myself is
being of service to others

I ain't no bodhisattva,
but I think they had it right.
Even if you become an englightened being,
what's the point of being aware and free
if you aren't willing share it and help
others to be free.

sometime I feel so much
rage inside of me

deep seated anger seethes
usually lying dormant till
it's called out

no matter how spiritual I get
I haven't been able to befriend
my anger

anger boils to rage
and I want to take it out on
the people closest to me

the wheel of suffering turns
and I feel so powerless

time is an infinite stream of possibilities
may this blessing flow to you across time through love
I pray for you, the me of my past who struggled and
lost your way in depression.

May this blessing find you across time to you, from me the you of the future, to the 26 year old that I was in a moment in time,
where I was lost.

May you find your way out of despair and hopelessness, and
may you find the courage to set the radio outside of the filled
bathtub.  I know suicide seems the only way out, but you have
so much to live for. I am you of the future, as I speak to you of my past.  

May my love and hope travel across time to help you find joy in that little moment, where you turned on the radio to make sure power was flowing before you electrocuted yourself.  But in that tiny moment, reggae music blasted through the speakers bringing a spark of joy and rhythm into a dark moment, where you could not distinguish from the true and false.

May you find the wisdom to know that your pain will not last forever and all wounds heal with time, even heartbreaks.  I know, because I am in this very present moment the future self of you.  I know that your present feels bleak and each day feels more painful and pointless than the day before.  It feels like the whole world is against you and people who are supposed to love you only judge you and ridicule you.  Somehow it feels like who you are is not enough and you are sick and tired of feeling this way.

May my love and hope travel across time.  Love is infinite and collapses the space that separates us.  May my blessing find you
through this dark moment and many to come, so you may know
and experience joys, sadness, and full specturum of emotions
with an open heart.  You will someday embrace pain as one of your greatest teachers, because it has lead you to the other great teacher of life, love.  May you have the courage to really live, so you may face death, another great teacher.  May you live and die with love, and not with fear and hatred in your heart.

May this blessing travel across time in that infinite place in your heart, where hope will rise out of the heavy despair that is pulling you down to depths of pain that goes deeper and deeper.  Somehow, pain upon pain becomes comforting, and you begin to be trapped in yourself.  All you can see is this moment.

May my prayer and blessing find you and guide you to a future you cannot imagine in your present, but you would not want to miss.  Thank you, I love you.  I'm sorry for ways I failed you.  Please forgive me.  

May this blessing of hope and love find you across time and space to bring you home, so you and I can live in that infinite space of love in our hearts, where we are connected to life flowing through and in us.  May you find your way to me, to the now that is always being created.

my heart explodes with joy
as I flutter my wings

I will never fly as gracefully
or as long as the other birds

but when I am in the air
even for a moment
I feel free

my broken wings lift me up
to where I do not know,
but somewhere etched in my heart

a strange thing happened when I
started singing songs of gratitude
for learning to fly with broken wings

other birds with broken wings
started to gather around me
sharing their experience and hopes

I am free as my heart sings joyfully
my own hopes and dreams
as I share my experience
to help another bird with broken wings
to journey a little closer
to the place etched in their hearts

and somehow I am exactly
where I am supposed to be
flying with broken wings

bask in a love that frees
a love like that first ray of sunlight,
after a cold and dark winter.

a love that is freely given and helps us grow,
and not the codependant and addictive love
that binds and controls.

I laugh and dance in the sunlight of God's love
that makes me whole and safe.  
no thing or person can ever take away this freedom,
unless I give it away.

Beloved*
help me
open my eyes with loving attention
so I may see the world with a lover's heart.

everything                   illuminate
is                                   the
a gift                            darkness
freely                  ­         of my
given                            soul

my spirit
will not be caged
by conformity
and ignorance

I have hungered to be filled,
satiated down to the very fiber of
my being.

Am I crazy to crave food with such
carnal intensity?  Expecting chocolate
sugary goodness to satisfy the soul's
hunger underneath my physical craving.

But not everything has to be about God,
does it?  Sometimes, I just want to savor
the rich decadence of dark chocolate mingled
the burning fire of a chili pepper.

Am I coveting?  Am I being sinful to be too
material and sensual?  ******* it!  I bet
God loves taking a slow bite of chocolate.

I keep dividing the world into
material and spiritual.  
Maybe that's why I'm so hungry?

the breeze whispers
sweet love songs
and lifts my soul.

the tides swell
and hearts quell

my body shakes in anticipation
of profund ecstasy of liberation
and not the emptiness of libations

the bright moon light keeps the revelers out
thirsting for soemthing they cannot name
in a drunken fanatic frenzy they shout
claiming a new change in life when they remain the same

the ocean waves crash
and so do my thoughts
an uncontrollable maelstrom that spreads like a rash
only to find peace in the still silence I've always sought

Finally I am home and I bask in the light of the full moon

I too was a reveled once howling at the moon
but now instead I drink in the spirit of life
I might have spoke too soon
because my heart still feels stife

my mind is in a fog
your love is the breeze that
clears it away

I am sometimes hit with a
heavy dose of doubt,
does anyone care about
what I write?  

maybe I shouldn't write?
no one wants to read this stuff.

but then I remember that
I write for me,
and I write simply
because  it comes
out of me.  

who am I to stand in
the way of creative expression?
So I just get out of the way,
and put pen to paper.

the sea rises and falls
in rhythm with the moon

my soul ebbs and flows
in  rhythm of our love

.                                              duality           ­                    diversity
                                               lost                                      found
                 ­                              in                                         void
                                               yin                                       yang
                                               male                                     female
                                               energy                                 flowing
                                               dark                                     light
                                               finite                                    infinite
                                               destroy                                create
                   ­                            death                                   life
                                               in                                          out
                 ­                              loneliness                            intimacy                                               

                 ­                             
                                   ­            letting go                            holding firm
                                               walking with                     walking away
                                               moving out                        moving in
                                               embracing silence             cuddling chaos
                                               making out                         sitting alone
                                               loving fully                         craving love
                                               loosing fear                         desiring power
                                               past actions                         future promise
                                               healing wounds                 festering resentments
                                               being aware                        choosing ignorance
                                               centering prayer                running away
                                               sharing life                         hording death

fear paralyzes
then I fall back to
my old self