Can you call?

When voices are lost,
And nothing but silence echoes

Truly, it is too much-
To love with your all, it takes a cost
At the expense of yourself, you let go

Rear cheek,
And rob the moment of any frost,
Recompense, in word and not wound

What a world it could be,
If we weren't so self consumed.

Summer's queen no longer fair
wears yellowed leaves in tangled hair
silver spider webs adorn, her faded harvest crown
the living green, now sadly tinged with spots of bramble brown
she wears a faded perfume the fragrance of last year
it smells of sweet foreboding
that Autumn may be here

his hands
are firmly wedged
inside pockets
unwilling to risk
exposure to this
frost-coated morning
if he tripped
or slipped
stumbled
fell
even then
he would not rely
on their numbed support
he could not trust
that they would do
what was necessary
if called upon
deep in the sherpa-lined
abyss of his coat
his fingers remain
protected in gloves
clenched and wriggling
with all hopes resting
on a return
   of warmth
   of bloodflow
   of feeling
before he gets home
before central heating
   and chill-blains
turn his frozen tips
into scalding rods
when there is
no use but
to desperately
and ironically wish
that he could not
feel anything
at all

Iced leaf
Like a candy peal
Sitting upright
On a frozen morn

Iced pond
Grass caught upright standing still
Blackbirds frantically seek food
Squirrels bury nuts for later

Iced gate
Someone has been here
Opening it
To start the day

There was a certain comfort in the time I spent
Sitting against a wall outside in the cold
They don’t tell you what its like to freeze to death
But here’s what wishing you would is like

The trees sway with another chilling breeze
There’s a little stinging pain in my toes
Its been about 20 minutes out here
My feet are the only things cold
I'm thinking
Way too much about how the frost feels
My hands become red
a little icy itch not quite numbing my fingers

Another 20 minutes go by and I can feel the cold travel
I have no intention of leaving
I don’t want to
Maybe i’ll stay all night

An hour in my feet are cold on the outsides
My ankle is freezing
I adjust my earbud and look up to the sky
My breath can be seen in the air
I think about my mother finding my body
Bitten blue with winter

2 hours in and my feet are starting to ache
Its an interesting feeling
Almost like I’ve broken a bone but can’t quite feel it
I don’t want to be here anymore
Not outside, id love to stay in the icy air all night
But here, in front of my so called home
Filled with my so-called family
I’d like to be staying somewhere else
Somewhere where they aren’t
Somewhere where the people who care about me
Are all far far away
And if I die, they know in a few days
Not right away
If I’m sick they’ll send a gift card
And call so many times I’ll have to turn off the phone

So maybe I’ll just sit here
And let nature have its way with me
Because I'm not ready to go back in
And live in a “family”

ice is sharp and cold and you don’t wanna get frostbite during the winter months
i never wanted to step on the cracks
i never wanted to fall in so deep
painfully sobbing and at the very edge of drowning
i never wanted to get hypothermia from my fatal accident
i only wanted to step over the cracks
and return safely to the promised land of warm beds and train tracks

Frosty air, crystal laugh.
It’s unfair, when a puff—
a white cloud—is allowed
to break free. I don’t see
why it would ever wish
to escape. So, I kiss
your chapped lips to hide,
to keep
the puff
inside.

Winter bows his grisly head
when the trees bend low
Branches bear the heartless weight
of the ice and snow

Ponds turn into frosted glass
and diamond streams to jewels
Rivers turn to mirrored roads
and lakes to sapphire pools

Echoed cries of banished fowl
plead for hopeful spring
Not until the March wind blows
will the warbler sing

Winter's night of cold and dark
slowly turns to day
when the glaze and snowy drifts
gently melt away

New spring lifts her waking head
when the sun grows neigh
Buds and blooms unfurl with joy
reaching for the sky

Bullace
hedge haematoma
blue-black against the fading,
once young green,
bruising for sharp winter thoughts,
clean frost lines,
untouched snow-blank focus

but before, to swell and drop
in the last pale suns,
feed the field mouse, rabbit
and endure the muds