The morning world in mist dissolves and under,
Towed to heaven, we, a plod below the death
Of clouds, sing mute, where they trumpet-glide
Flashing into peace.  Three-toed slabs, parched
Of orange, web the stars over the wine
Dark seas and chalk the churn and twining earth
Into gloaming.  In rapt stillness they,
Are import and income, parables,
Echoes of the innocent song sung to a spire,
Gilded hutches, to those who heap on brightness
Swans are brighter even more with blackest
Eyes, they pierce the silent shroud all starry.
I wish that we were like two swans my love,
Neck of nape, embracing without touch.

Maple over water,
Hunched by wind and rain,
Lithe branches reaching,
Into the complacent garden pool,
You are like a catcher of wisdom,
A sculpture of spirit, so many hands
To reach with you, as you leave,
So many thoughts that sway
As a troubled mind is reaching
With the wind and the rain,
Maple over water.

There is no threshold  .  .  .
Lines between earth and heaven,
When is shrub a tree?

All the valleys, green, rumpled
And cresting in their April dress
And all the creatures who live under,
They wade and stroke and dive,
I live high above in my light house,
Watching the ocean waves.

Garden dragonfly  .  .  .
Eye of morning sun rises,
  .  .  .  Ear and mind startled.

Do you ever come across that feeling of melancholy?
When you’re going too fast on that midnight trolley
Your head starts spinning in unfamiliar directions
While you’re left there, looking for defections

Do you ever feel like you aren't enough?
Everyone thinks it’s all a big bluff
But deep down inside you know it’s true
The whole world around you starts to turn blue

Do you ever feel that obligation?
When in school you want certification
Gaining the card that classifies you as
That one guy who is cooler than jazz

Do you ever feel pressured to fall?
Into a love in which you can’t call
A pointless relation clouds your mind
Pushing you farther from what you might find

Do you ever feel like you try too hard?
To fit into a jigsaw, but instead bombard
Looking for a clique that suits you best
Coming to feel like you’re better than the rest

Do you ever feel like you can’t be found?
Lost inside your own impound
Deceived by self-inflicting thought
You continue to feel even more distraught

Do you ever just want to run away?
Leave behind your past and go astray
Forget the life you lived at home
And elsewhere discover a new throne

Do you ever feel like life is a game?
A game in which you can’t come to claim
The honorable title as the winner
Settling down for the same old dinner

Do you ever wonder if you’re treated unfair?
You live thinking that you cannot bear
The dreadful thought of being singled out
Making you want to scream and shout

Do you ever feel like nobody understands?
Like you’re the only one stuck within the strands
Trapped inside an ignorant state of mind
Only to come all this way and find…
That you were wrong all along
It was all just a mixed up song
These steps you take throughout high school
Turn you into some kind of rotten fool

One day you will come to see
That it was all part of the journey
You’ll take it in and walk down your path
Knowing that the worst of the wrath—
Is over…

-David Rombouts-

I sit on my porch, the sky is dropping
As I pour my tea.  The day was lit
With paint and brush, now my face
Is lighted by the round full joy
Of the shining moon, I see
Him in my filling cup.

When love was young and bore an immigrant
Soul, how fresh and adventurous the years
And brinkmanship, my rite, was took for grant,
Aye, in my flotsam and jetsam, I spent no tears
Which by and by a greedy sea of beginnings
Has left no bounty, but cargo delivered or turned
To wood adrift, which built but useless things,
Children love tossing in fires bonny burned.
Here I lie, on the waters edge, searching—
For something to contain my emptiness,
My wanderlust, but like shy waves lurching,
I wrestle now, toward land, not loneliness.
Though I spent my life as a flag unfurled,
A disembodied soul is without this world.

Blue veins that pace from on high
Or saunter, streaming in a drowsy
Way, day napping light into ocean
Sleep, carousing with slides of time
And dearest travelers to keep—
Where do you come from?
What is your source, a holy well
Or mountain tarn, the fallen cloud,
The rising waters that bursting sun
So ordains, what the wistful, traveling
Birds are want to herald by all thy names
As they speak from above on spry wings?
In my final day shall I know such peace
That your drifting lay delivers?  Or shall
The moon unface me as I dive into
Lost cloaks of the eternal oceans?
River, my final driver, take me on
Those pathways to the seas,
With open eyes welcoming
Under the lacing lakes,
Of greatest garment,
The bedding nights
Of gentle stars.