I am most alive on a warm summer night at dusk
Walking through a field of tall grass
With a warm gentle breeze blowing
Stars just starting to fill the sky
The sound of the frogs and crickets in the air
No one know I’m there

winter solstice comes
bare trees, long hibernation
~ don’t risk bleeding lips

gardens lie fallow
field mice attempting entry
~ long dark frigid nights




Mark Toney © 2021

I want to build a rocket ship, but this full moon blanket,
keeps me tangled up in bed.
Maybe a sun shower ,will birth a rainbow,
and I could build a bridge with that instead.
A walk with the weather, may be what I need,
to clear the clouds above my head.

The soggy sounds of rain, strum the chords,
that sing a song inside my brain.
A violin or guitar riff, to untwist the tornadoes,
my heart’s stuck with.
Who needs the stars, when I’ve got the sun,
to shine for me when bad times come.

My sandy feet always have the waves, to wash away,
the darker shades of cloudy gray.
These lonely lips even have a kiss, and the warm caress,
from her outstretched fingertips.
I want to build a rocket ship, but today,
I’ll just exist.

Youthful exuberance never grows old; I suppose, until the creeping ivy cradles your gravestone.

This life; to me, is a passing train that always makes its way back around. Just not for you.

Every stop lets off the lost and picks up a child; weary, on their first day of school.

The hero in my mind rides, toward the destiny where he dies.

The wink inside his smile; resigned, for one more longing look up at the deep blue ocean canvas, where he penned the story of his life.

In his fading grin, he whispers one last nothing to wind. A cool breeze carrying his freedom. The silence, his last season.

A laugh is not a pretense
I wanted to tell you that, Urooj
And maybe to myself too
Because I know you saw peeps
Of the vacancy
Nestled in my skin
And I too was acquainted
With your queer sorrow
That rises and falls
With a schedule of its own
We saw the jolly winds flirt with greyed trees
And heard many a strange talks
In golden fields of youthful wheat
And mustard flowers alive

But we ran too, didn’t we?
I pointed to the slender tree far, far away
Count as I go, I said
And count you did as I rushed
Rushed clumsily on
My feet twisting in troughs
Eye-lashes fighting dust
Twenty, you shouted, as the tree grew
But I barely heard
my body singing a battlefield

You stumbled through the ploughed soil
Hardened through suns
Crushing the remnants of harvested wheat
beneath the flat soles of your sandals
(who wears those to a field?)
Then more
Through soft, chestnut soils
Trying not to damage the baby onions
And I laughed through my burning lungs
A smoke piled up in me
Yearning to gnaw all away

And we licked the gusts singing gossips
Of sour, raw mangoes
Then relished the cool water that
You forced the earth to puke
(I still don’t get how that hand-pump worked)

And I know you sneaked along a wilted rose
From your sister’s grave
And wept, quietly sniffing
Seeing her in all the birds I pointed out
All the leaves dried to immortality
In my notebook
I too treaded through rows of childish guava trees
And struggled to will my ghosts away
I too got stranded in the insolent rays
of the dusty sun

But we joked still, didn’t we?
And when, on the way home,
I reminded you stories
Of the silly children we once lived
Your laugh glimmered all around
And mine mimicked

And the radio was ****
So we swam in our own private silences
Got lost in the rowing birds
And I know, at some point,
All the dead days
And all the rotten mangoes
Seated themselves in the car
Along with us and our shackled beasts
And the villages and the stalls and empty fields
Ran past in silence

But we had laughed
When the restless winds nearly sent me
Tumbling down the tree
And we had laughed when
The freshly-watered soil tried
To **** us under
And a laugh is not a pretense
Urooj, a laugh is not a pretense.
I wonder if we know.

Alone he sits,
in the field,
waiting for the birds to migrate,
from an eternal winter,
he hears their song no longer,
except when she smiles,
only when she's around,
does the sun fulfill its duties,
warms him,
for he is cold from the rain.

1.  Headlights glowed like cigarette ends in the twilight

2. As soon as they winked out in the warm, weedy field, and the harsh engine noise snapped into silence, I began to cry.

3. Father stepped quietly towards me and I sniffed as I smelled the earth I was digging, the sweat I was dripping, the carcasses I was covering.

4.  Beneath the distant moon Father paused, watching me sift dirt over the remains of two limp goldfish.

5. The morbid scene glittered as moonlight sparkled off my tears and the half-buried scaled.

6.  A small tribute to their salty home.

7.  As if on cue, the wind ruffled the tops of the grain in the neighboring unshorn field; the undulating stalks mimicked the ocean.

8.  Their grave remains unmarked.