I hear it before I see it -
A steady everywhere-roar.
A sleepy tumble
to slide the slats of blinds
confirms:
Turbulent and torrential
puddles seem to leap
ever-so-slightly skyward
with each wet wallop.
It is the determined,
slantwise
rain of change,
blustering with purpose,
washing winter woes.
I dress -
  pink galoshes
  pink slicker
  pink smile
To greet this
Gray April Shower

Please, please,
Don't be a ghost discreetly -
Please, please,
Don't let me go completely.

The days that are most full are the days spent pretending we weren’t waiting.
Our organs churn like machines producing twice their expected amount
Of free-flowing adrenaline, which we give a task to circle, rather than the drain
Of lonely, gut-wrenching “what-if-tomorrows”.

There’s the waking struggle of swinging your feet from your bed and testing your floor
And hearing a scream bubbling forth from the lethe, tickling at the daybreak,
And knowing that you must wrestle, mash, and toast it into a tasty breakfast morsel
Lest it overwhelm the dawn with restless shadows.

We drag the lengthy hours through the mud, fatiguing their thread, living mercilessly
Until they no longer resemble time, but immeasurable intangible everythings.
There can be no counting of patchwork days, only the art of making them count
What a productive little distraction, so I can pretend that I’m not waiting.

And me?
I'll be fine.
I'll go through waves of feeling everything
But I will always be fine.
Wearing Band-Aids around you,
Then running,
Running my mouth,
Running my eyes,
And getting high alone.

I woke with the grey dawn again,
Thinking of you,
And couldn’t fall back asleep.
I brewed some tea again,
Thinking of you,
And did the ******* dishes.
So that was more or less productive.

Disbelief -
I am
Not a "thing"
I am just interactions -
Stories.

He's a rare kind
With rare kindness
So he'd never
In a moment
Of electrostatic tension
Close the gap
Between our lips.
And truthfully,
It has been so long
And I've learned so much
About consent
And ruined friendships
That I don't remember how.

First sun-warmed sand
First boots-and-socks-off beach
First ankle-deep stand in rushing water
First SPF rubbed on my face
First crocus pops up in the yard
(Delicately)

Nearby, a young father begins
to teach his toddling young
how to fish.
(Patiently)

Last high-country snowshoe
Last low-country woodstove fire
Last hot bourbon toddy
Last dreamy days of Pisces
Last longing for lost love melts away
(Finally.)

Early over the mountain
the nearly-but-not-yet worm moon
spies the confluence and I below.
(Knowingly)

Here at the place where things change,
the wild world fills me
and I devote myself once more.
(Wholly)

For one who is in love with the chase
And the glory of all things yet-to-be done,
The true rapture of Nature is in knowing
She is too Big, Wild, and Free to own.
(Like me.)

Where there is love, but there is no passion
There is a hearth that has gone ashen.
It is a sleep where there is no dreaming
Day will break, but there is no gleaming,
A familiar dish, lacking in heat,
A well-known dance, lacking in beat,
A complex wine sans maturation,
A photograph sans saturation.

This fire
That he inspires
Has lived a million lives and
Died a million deaths.

The narrative's reinvented each time,
My hands pass over it each time,
The flame changes form each time.

Spring and rebirth,
Help to give this gift meaning
And shape this light into
Something helpful,
Something healthy,
Something new.

She invites me up,
And it has been so long
that it's the first time again.
Tumbling onto hot sheets,
Shirts, shorts, socks,
Everything innocent,
Everything snug,
Everything hot.
And suddenly lips,
And suddenly pulse,
And suddenly fingertips grazing
turn something inside me
turn to hands clutching and grasping,
and arching and pulling,
and the missing puzzle piece
is suddenly about to fill!
I know her -
is it...
could it be...
And she slides away.
She is me,
and she has had her fill,
But I am still hot.
I wake in sweat,
pulling layers
from my sticky flesh.
Even in my fevered dreams,
I am too much.

I stand on the precipice -
Feverish yet clear,
Shaking, consumed, saturated -
Overlooking the valley of the year ahead
Stretched out below.
I must somehow chart a course
Using only these distant glances from aloft
Which shall be revised again and again
As I forge my path.
But in this moment,
On this mountain,
All is still.
There are no words.
Only a pure tone
Ringing forth from my heart.
It is the quiet breath before.
Before questions.
Before answers.
Only this breath suffused with light.
Only truly being.
This state of awe.
This heaven.

I stand with the Shepherds of Wonder.
The leaders of spirits, hearts, and minds
To places within and without.
Those who can wrangle the wandering cries
into joyous song.
Those who can speak their minds
defending justice in word and deed.
Those wily leaders of sultry passion
who dance the pleasures of flesh.
Those whole-hearted carousers
who invite raucous laughter to exhaustion.
Those who know that truth,
however fragmented,
speaks through passion.
That reality,
however subjective,
is anchored to our place in all this.
Those who know that fear is the arrow
pointing us where we must go.
I stand among them,
Gathering the Pause,
Eyeing and toeing the cliff's edge.

Then suddenly
The swell
The stirring excitement
The revving
The sudden skip in heartbeat
in anticipation of
All future Loves, Losses, Silences, and Laughter.
The sudden idyllic nostalgia for all future cycles
Yet to pass into life
And out of time so quickly -
Future stories yet to be told
And soon to pass from all memory.
The suspense of the unknowable
In a race against mortality
Draws me nearer the edge.

I draw a breath on the outcrop.
Once again,
Like the Shepherds of Wonder before me
I find the spark to journey on
In the calm
Before the leap.

It is a strange moment -
a change in the wind, perhaps? -
a shift ever so slight
when I discover
that the next time your eyes drift skyward
and you brightly propose,
"It's nearly the season
for us to go stargazing!"
I will not wander through the valleys
of misplaced envy, grace, and doubt,
before laughing, sighing, and shrugging,
"Yes! We should! Well... Goodnight!"
That instead
I will send my eyes aloft
to meet those flecks of dreams and dew,
before laughing, sighing, and shrugging,
"Well... How about tonight?"

I have woken up too early
For a sun that will not rise
And my dreams have flown with moonlight
Leaving cold and clouded skies.
But maybe next breath,
Next hour,
Next sun,
Or next moon
I'll be warm?
I must hope that I will.

I'm supposed to pretend that I don't hear
Sobbing and swearing in the next room.
I usually turn to my ear-buds,
Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and Ke$ha...
But my playlists,
So carefully crafted
from dreams and moonbeams,
are now mine fields -
Nearly unnavigatable
Without triggering an explosion
Of him.

I want my name tattooed on your lips
stars tattooed across my back
my name to be a star
I want you to hold me on your tongue
to leave stars in your hair
when I run my fingers through
I want you so bad it’s driving me mad
playing on our radio
I want your lips so bad on my stars
-want stars when you taste me
your fingers to ******* tattoos
the stars to taste our fingers
when they wander through our lips
I want our fingers touching lips
by the stars that bathe our tattooed names
in the music of the madness twixt our hips
I want our ink all over our skin
A stellar map to lead us in

A reminder -

It is still winter,
We are still in the thick of it,
Chains and snowshoes
are still requisite,
Imbolc and Candlemas
are still to pass,
Groundhogs hibernate,
Tarns still as glass,
The tumbling finch song
has yet to be sung,
and even the false spring,
has not yet sprung.

So lie still a while longer,
Let the chill freeze you through,
Warmer days will return
in their own time,
And so will you.

We could have jumped
directly off the cliff
but instead,
we're paragliding.

These winds of change
are terrifying, tough, and turbulent.
Still, our stomachs are in knots.
Still, we wonder where we'll land.
Still, we will coast,
eventually
to the bottom.

And maybe I won't be scared
of heights,
falling,
or the ground
by the time it's over.

Even in my dreams
We just run around
Being stupidly clever
And when you leave
I still turn around
Wearing a stupid grin
As if to say
To no one in particular,
So that's him -
Isn't he amazing?

Supersonic Skydive
Tell me, what's your helmet like?
Can you hear the roar of breaking
barriers of sound?
Or is it silent in your dome
Have they built you like a home
A cradle for the jumping few
Who chose to do as daring do?
Supersonic Skydive,
Tell me, what's the view there like?
Can you see the rounding planet
Arching back in every stretch?
And do the stars look different here
Beyond the blinking atmosphere,
And when you rushing, sink away,
When do you find the blue of day?
Supersonic Skydive
So lucky to be so alive
And as you plummet to the ground,
Tell me, do you look up, or down?

Freezing fog
Trees protest
They can’t shiver
It’s a test.
Wait for spring
Hold all breath
Patient trees
Denying death.

Stagnant air
Hanging white
Building daggers
In the night.
Grim to breathe
Grim to touch
Patient are trees
That suffer such.

Winter cracks and
Winter cleaves
No bitter words
Are heard from leaves.
Watch the trees
For they will show
The path of patience
And way to grow.

I can pinpoint the day,
The place,
The hour,
And the clothes we were wearing.
You stood too close
As you murmured a joke,
And the scent you wore filled my head
As I laughed and laughed.
I marvel that this subtle quake
Could set everything in motion,
And yet,
I've been adrift ever since.

When I see the tension creep into your shoulders
As you hunch over your keyboard,
A spring coiling, about to explode -
When I hear the expletives crashing on walls
From outside my door -
When I can no longer breathe
The caustic, charged air -
I have two choices:
(I will not - can not fight)
I can freeze,
Make myself small,
Become the doe
With eyes locked straightforward,
Glassy, removed...
Or
I can grab the headphones,
Change into running shoes,
Caress my lithe curves,
And feed my body to the sky,
As I fly.
When you refuse to take care of yourself -
I must be my own protector,
And this fierce goddess
Is beholden to no one.

I am a champion of Longing.
Full of gratitude, yes,
but born with an irrepressible
Desire to Chase.
I am always
peering around the corner,
staying up all night,
and stoking the fire
for only the greatest of dreams
of art, adventure, and pleasure,
of science, nature, and mind.

The beginning of romance too,
is taking on the role of explorer,
setting forth into the unknown,
getting my feet wet,
and splashing forward
by drawing a map.
I am exuberant,
(sometimes forwardly so),
not because I seek to plant a flag
and claim connections as my own,
but because I seek to chart the boundaries
of hearts unknown.

I wish to delight in each waterfall,
spelunk each hidden treasure,
plot and survey each peak!
Is that not the greatest joy -
getting to know
that which finds your soul,
multiplies it,
and hands it back to you anew?

Perhaps after thorough study
One may find a home.
And yet, there is also magic
in just passing through,
an extended holiday,
a retreat when healing is needed,
a reminder of that which makes us
ourselves.

And thus,
I will love, and love, and love.
Not always thoroughly -
sometimes in small explosions,
sometimes not as much where I'd like,
sometimes too much where I'm not needed -
But still I will.
Still I will create, do, inspire,
wonder, and love as much as possible,
Knowing that which does not nurture Longing
is temporary.

The thing is, you can’t ignore that graceful lament-
The teal heaving of your chest-
The wash of questions in your head
That exquisitely hold pinpricks of the future.

There’s a brand of groan you know well
That belongs to feeling unresolved.
That noise you make when you’re a painting without a face,
When you’re two lines of a song that’s lost to the breeze,
When you’re a cup of water dribbling through careless hands,
That noise is the growl of restless dreaming.

There is a struggle to unpin yourself
From the avalanche of time
That has pooled thickly around your legs.
You try to kick, but it moves like molasses.
Slower than a hard thwack to a non-newtonian fluid.
Pointless as collecting antique doorknobs.

There is an urge to catch a destiny by the tail
Like you’re somehow prepared right now,
Like there’s nothing left to learn.
How fortunate you are that perceived linear realities
Can curve the hubris of your linear fantasies.

And yet there’s that gnawing need,
A craving that demands surrender,
That all too graceful lament,
Of being forced to take the smallest of steps
on the greatest of adventures.

Before

My feet are big
And growing ever bigger.
Large, wide,
And filling every shoe.
They stick out from me
Making flats look ridiculous.
They are like life rafts,
Falling to the side like pillows
When encountering resistance.

After

My feet are long
And growing ever stronger.
Supportive, storied,
And deserving special care.
When pointed, they are elegant,
Skeletal and muscular, even when in heels.
They are like canoes,
Chiseled and carved with love,
Gliding forward with intention.

There are people I know
Who will say that we are created in “God”s image
And who actually believe
That “God” has four limbs
And a head that grows hair
And finger-skins that peel
When performing demanding tasks
Such as creating worlds.

And though I think that’s kind of silly
And don’t use the term “God” like billions do
And don’t think of a body or gender
Geographically heaven-bound
Playing with pawns of people
And actually giving a ****,
I think that maybe
There’s an element of truth in this.

That by mere existence
WE are this Force;
This omni-omni-thing.
WE have created “God”
In the image of ourselves.

There’s no point in *******, today,
Because I’m not looking for skin...
Today it’s cosmic electricity.
Because I can’t smell the screen's pheromones,
And there’s something to be said for chemistry.
Because I can touch my own *******,
But familiarity is hard-pressed to impress.
Because the only scraping and biting here
Is far from raunchy; my teeth are restless.
Because people have **** opinions and nuances,
And today I see caricatures but no people.
Because it’s all poor, uninspired acting,
And the only singular thing I want is truth.
The only singular thing I want.
Is truth.

Nothing against *******.
Today or ever.
But there are some lonely stretches
When I’m perched on the edge of the world,
Aroused to adventure,
And Life is buzzing past me
And I desperately want to rip into it
And savor and lick and **** out its seed
And reach into its hair and pull hard
As we bruise and break each other
And SCREAM OUT
-- LIFE!
Where redtube just won’t cut it.

The road ahead
is full of possibility,
but not for the faint of heart.

Luckily,
I am not faint of heart.

A couple of innocent words. A wink. I can’t pretend I don’t know how she feels. I suppose it’s the way that they all feel. And then I look at her.
She’s the kind of girl that you’d ironically fall for. Model skin, model hair. She actually speaks French, nom de diu! She takes pretty pictures of herself amongst the scenery, posing as one who is very much alive. You, who would protest about how photographs can’t capture the majesty of the world, and find a certain amount of deadness in that which is judged by the surface, you’d fall for her anyway.
With her pretty lips and pretty mouth. They could say the words that my mouth says and you wouldn’t find the same meaning, but you’d want her ideas that much more. The saccharine taste of pretty.
You just would.

All those moons ago
I plucked a stone from shore
and whispered my intention
with each waxing and waning.
I took it back to the sound today,
intending to sing a final goodbye
before casting it far into the waves.
It sparkled in the spring sun
then slipped from my fingers
into the sludgy low-tide pool
of barnacles and gooeyducks.
I simply walked away
and watched the gulls drop oysters,
fighting over what belongs to whom.

The waves will carry the stone to sea
the same way the green has returned
like the green in me.
A gentle and abrupt easing -
A slip out to sea with the tide.

I beam when leaves stick
To the bottom of my heavy leather boots,
As I tromp from one place to the next,
Irritated yet pleased when they're STILL THERE,
After every sticky, wet step.

I think leaves are meant to bustle and blow
In Autumn as they do in Spring,
And that leaves have a yearning,
(After rooted so long)
To see the world.

The wind whispers to the leaves,
“I have been here to caress you all along,
And I am here to carry you now,
And bear you to beautiful new places.”
And the leaves sigh and surrender,
And flutter to the ground,
Then back to air,
Then to ground,
Laughing merrily,
Tumbling,
Enjoying the last few moments alive.

When leaves stick
To the bottom of my heavy leather boots
As I tromp from one place to the next,
I have the satisfaction of knowing
That these leaves would not have seen
The places I have taken them.
They would not have left
Pieces of themselves in the concrete.
That somehow I have helped fulfill a dream
By moving their dying fragments,
Like scattering ashes,
And showing them a new world
If only a hundred feet away.

You’re like a trick candle
When you light up
Atop a cake full of frosting and promise.
And I become so very excited!
Too excited.
And I think…
I can’t have my cake and my candle too.
Candles are pretty, temporary things.
Thank you for candles, but I can't keep them,
give me my cake!
And so I ***** out this silly idea
And set you aside.
And then all of the sudden you’re there again
Setting my napkin on fire.
Which is inconvenient.

Note to self: **** napkins.
Life is for sticking your face in cake
And then getting your hair caught on fire
By trick candles.

I have learned to love the quiet moments
When it's just me,
Dragging my toes across the fitted sheet,
Petting one long, silky leg with the other,
Fingernails tracing familiar paths
Down naked roads
Longing to quench their thirst for life
And the things they can't touch.
With skin taut and tingly,
And core soft and warm like butter,
I am squirming with secrets unspilt,
Deeds undone,
And havoc unwrought,
Waiting for a magic word or touch
To come undone.

It must be maddening,
if not terrifying,
to be loved by me.
Attempts to temper me are useless,
For I can only love with flames
burning hot, bright, and white
like dazzling stars,
until smouldering embers
ignite everything I hold dear,
leaving brittle, black scars in my wake.
Even now, as the dreams I clutched too closely crackle and crumble,
my cheeks burn,
flushed with embarrassment and anguish,
and the grieving pouring down them is so hot, they could boil and steam.
My stomach churns with heat,
and I am a dragon heaving forth hell.
I am too impetuous, impatient, imprudent,
a relentless, tempestuous firestorm.
I am too many words too quickly,
A meteor shower of poetry and regret.

If I'm being honest,
I press my lips to the glass
To follow you down.
I am a message in an opened bottle
But I keep pace
With your sips
Hoping our loose lips
Might, together, launch ships.

If I'm being honest,
I sip the nectar of intoxication
To make excuses.
I am sure of my sober thoughts
But I know
Under night's tender spell
Is where we might tell
All truth before morning's knell.

If I'm being honest,
I'm already one ahead
To calm my racing heart.
I have rehearsed this conversation alone
Hoping to finally break
Past the short ending
Through the faltering and shaking
To say the things we are longing.

If we're being honest,
We're getting toasted
Just to loiter.
We keep turning the hourglass over
Buying more time
With water in bars,
Playlists in parked cars,
And chilly walks under the stars.

Just put it behind you,
Just keep yourself busy,
Just list all the things
You can touch, hear, and see.
Pretend it was nothing
Pretend it’s not real
But don’t say you’re sorry
For things that you feel.

Or do say sorry!
I don’t know - is that wrong?
No - don’t say a thing
Just move right along.
Just skip to tomorrow
Just keep today fast
Just let time change hands
From Future to Past.

Just breathe, and get lost,
In the radio’s wails
It echoes your secrets
And tells all your tales.
Just breathe, and fill hours
Don’t look at your phone,
The past may lay bare,
But tonight is your own.

And finally, be ever
so kind to your soul
Have patience with all
Of your amorous arts.
Give yourself graciousness
Lovely and whole -
The same that you hold
For all other hearts.

Everything happens for a reason.
And though I can’t yet fathom
Why my stars have left me now,
I know that there is a lesson in this.
There is something bigger out there,
Something beyond the now,
Something calling from the deep,
Shining, darkness of temporality itself.
And so the distance has come to me
Over sweeping valleys of moments passing,
And tracks of trees and fields of fixed events,
And the wave has moved through them all
To tell me:
“You are this. You are now.
Yet also what we know you shall be.
Take this bloodied bludgeon that was hope
And find in it the gift that shall forge you.
It is a steel monument, washed in crimson,
Standing to honor what is,
And what is yet to come.”

Don’t question the words
That are murmured in whispers
For they are the truest
Words to be heard.
The truth is in silence
And silence alone
But a whisper is closest
To what we can know.
And all of the atoms
That shake on their own
All carry a pitch
And carry a tone.
These too are whispers,
Though harder to hear
For no single atom
Will startle your ear.
So all that I’ve whispered
Just next to your head?
Don’t question those
Wild remarks that I’ve said.
You may have your doubts
In the noise of the day
But watch for my silence
Then whisper away.

There was a time when I sang on you forlornly,
So wistfully heraldic,
That I might have thought you worthy
Of a gilded biblical throne of purple-prosed petals.
Let us be grateful then, for the song of perihelion,
And the whispered wisdoms of the dear tropics,
For the fresh breath from these friends whisks me
Back to my wakening, aurelian self.
I weave the holly in my hair,
I hang the mistletoe anew,
For solitary trees stand strong,
Though weighted by the winter’s dew.
I am Helios’s rantipole
I’ve no more time for tears of old,
With so much in me left to grow,
And so far in me left to go.

I am no gardener, but I do know this:
Perennials and orchards need the kiss
Of an early frost, a freezing deep,
To hold them whole through winter’s keep

A bloom in false spring, (winter’s hollow),
Before the heavy snows that follow,
Will have the cell walls bursting, cracking,
Freezing, thawing, expanding, contracting.

So too, must dreams lay dormant still,
Or else becoming Winterkill.
Much as I wish them to bloom, bloom now,
They must lay under the mulch and bough.

I tell myself, “Learn what you can from the season”
Patience, Myopia, Acceptance sans reason -
You are stuck in the wheel, right here and right now,
Hearing naught in the dark, muffled underground.

Yet I am no seedling! I am no tree!
Though my flesh warms and cools just as easily.
So why should I wait? Why be pinned by the cold?
Do I have a choice in the story that’s told?

Could I be a cold crocodile, nose above ice,
Or hibernate warm with the marmots and mice?
Why not come in from the outside to thaw,
And savor small tidbits of hope in my maw?

Could I choose to fly south, or to stay evergreen?
Must I really wait for the melt to be seen?
I wonder, though I’m sure from what seed I have come,
Is it winter that dictates what I will become?

I’m aware that you decided to forget me.
I can see it’s your intent to shut me out.
It’s an ugly wall to right,
Bricks all leapt up overnight,
And the mortar’s wet with words you won’t recount.

I won’t need to see your charming lines of orchards,
For there’s rot that festers in forbidden fruit.
I won’t care if they’re all gone,
For the seasons move me on,
And no longer is the aim worth the pursuit.

Ah, I see the raging worms that have consumed you.
I’ll acknowledge that you took a mighty fall.
Yet, you’re the only one to blame,
And now you can’t control your shame,
Which explains the buried evidence and all.

On my part, I shall recount the days of summer,
For I no longer must work to sweep your name.
No more lusting; that’s all over,
Though your act’s no longer covert!
No, I’ll keep my juicy stories just the same!

So here lies the final chapter of our friendship.
For my life, I can’t tell why it comes to this.
Take the lies that you hold dear,
And your careless, cheating fear;
I shall skin what’s left, and fashion cloaks of bliss.