Shadow coveted by dancing demons dark
Yearning to reunite with hell
As quietness leaves its damning mark
Satan calls
He knows me well

Under the smooth canopy of night
While black air shelters evil
Red blinking eyes the solitary light
At depth of awakened upheaval

Do not fear the monsters plaguing sleep
Alive as you walk through the day
So you can ignore the wickedness deep
But there's no running away

Into the dense canopy of a bamboo forest.
It smelt of spring on the summer leaves.
A silence accompanied our little stroll,
Each word we spoke came back as an echo.
A full moon looked down on us, the breeze blew bringing hints of muted snow.
I leaned Onto your shoulder and thought "this was too good to last"

1.
There was the tremor of leaves,
a rustle of bayonet grass
parried the multihued calm
of dawn's smeared light.
"This is what we trained for," the captain said.
We hunkered behind stacked bags of sand.

2.
Filigreed shafts of light pierce
the bullet perforated leaf canopy,
bellowed yells punctuate the swirl
and buffet of turbulent air:
“Contact”,  “2 O’Clock”, “Incoming”, “
"Moving”, “Reloading”, “Ammo”.

3.
Fingers twitch, the grit of soil
twisted through their grip;
moon slashed carcasses glint, spent shells,
Earth exhales a vermillion mist,
rising, echoless, in this
a cathedral of leaves.

It gets lonely at the top
But not upon me
You should be the only gorgeous elve in the magical canopy
I almost don't want a mortal man out of me
Just to spend immortality with you

as intense sunlight
cut through the forest's canopy
it left dappled shade

We don't have to walk far
Under the cover of canopy
To find exposure.
Once outside the city,
Outside the usual framework,
Outside the boundaries of polite necessity,
We can truly breathe.
On the trail
I bathe in dust
And my hands converse with trees
When asking for support.
Nursing logs remind us
Where we stand
In an ancient cycle,
And we can confess anything.
Stripped down to our bare humanity.
It's the intimacy
I used to chase in pillow-talk,
But without the dance.
The trail is always a soul's journey,
Whether solo or shared.