Lost  amongst familure strangers
Holding your foreign  curves
Like homeland  hills
Oceans have grown between us
But luckily i can swim
And i think i know the direction
Your in

Thunder aground  
when its
sound would
dock and
fill a
truck with
sea ****
but coast
was free
here that
fought her
way through
fog felt
tonight it
rained only
gerrymandered her
legs bare.

Imagine,
Imagine, heaven and earth,
Earth and hell.
Heaven?
It's up there.
Ionosphere, maybe.
Or maybe, Exosphere.
Think of Pangaea and Panthalassa.
Imagine, the lost world of Atlantis.
Geography students would know better.
Imagine,
Imagine good, and bad,
Bad, and worse.
Imagine, if your name were not,
What it is,
Imagine, if you were not,
What you are.
Imagine, delivering fantastic speeches,
Craft out, mesmerising poetries,
Look for topics,
Like you look for alloys,
In your wallet.
Everyone's a poet,
Poet, in their hearts,
They do write poems,
But the designer styli,
Defy to converge their thoughts.
Summarize life,
Felicity, will obviously be wrapped up,
And so will be your bad.
And try, and minimize your bad,
To the least,
Like you do with your savings,
On a rave.
And try, and amplify your bliss,
Like your cells multiply,
In every thirty minutes.
Imagine,
Imagine, and fall.
Fall, for every beautiful face,
Fall, for every beautiful day,
And moment.
Imagine,
And spread love.
Imagine,
Imagine, and fall,
Into an abyss,
Of thoughts,
Every single day,
Every single time.
Imagine,
The bald guy,
On our currency notes,
Smiling, at whatever number there is by him.
Smile, at whatever is given to you,
Smile, for whatever is given to you.
Smile,
And just that.

you are an adventurer,
constantly exploring the
geography of my
heart.                        l.r.

should have taken one

picture as i walked in

bed spread tight

all folded and straight



me dog tired

before a long hot shower

cramped in one tomorrow



with everything i own

spreaded wastly around

a colorful explosion



I will walk around

picking up the pieces

stepping on geography



not singing over maps

using a finger

to caress a route and  



the thought of you

limping from hotel to hotel

and a sleeping bag



go away

artists’ lives are messy

it’s a known fact



the walls are disheveled

would I have some glue

to nail you there and there



I will hop around happily

tattooing words about us

and hiding some

under letters

Terror-rium


We had an aquarium

A river, a lake, a sea.

On our desk—the ocean.

Our exotic fish, fished

from the very river, lake, or

sea which we have now.

On our desk—we provide forage,

food, plants, water, and fish.

The aquarium had us.

…

We had an insectarium

An arachnid, an insect, a butter

-fly. On our counter—the air.

Our countertop full of flourishing

flowers, fluttering wings of broken



butterflies, falling from feed, because

they drink—and we pluck their

wings, tape them to tapestries to

stare. Say, how pretty they are.

The insectarium had us

…

We had a terrarium.

A desert, a savannah, a floor of sand.

Our room is lit by a woodland, a

jungle, a place we’ve never been.

African violets decorate our reptiles,

all scales and shells and condensation.

It rains today—the lid which collected

our precipitation. Our pebbled floor,

formed over our marbled kitchen.

The terrarium had us

…

We had an arium,

and we destroyed it

to keep them on our desks,

nuzzled between family portraits and pens,

to remind ourselves of what

We used to have and

what we’ll never have

again, but at least they are

pretty, and no one needs

National Geographic to stare

anymore. We have our countertops.
...

This was read at the University of Kansas on May 10, 2013:

http://shannonathompson.com/2013/05/10/contest-winners-and-poetry-from-my-ku-reading/

The topography of the human soul can’t be learned in a day.
I ******* my bag and look out across the valleys and mountains that make you you
And feel both exhilarated and frightened.

I see beautiful, sunlit plains
Dappled with wild flowers
And vibrating with the joy of life.
I also see dark caves
Filled with shadowy, dangerous corners
And echoing with whispers of ghosts of the past.

I take a deep breath and take the first step.
I have my whole life to explore this land,
And I intend to learn and embrace every inch of it.

*North
South
East
And West.

we are all rocks. we are built up over many years, influenced by our surroundings as we weather and erode as part of the conditions we are subjected to - the trials that we are put through. we are compressed by the weight of heavy loads. we will be weighed down by our heavy hearts, and crushed by forces of the universe that are bigger than us. we are made up of many sediments, fragments of other rocks. the influence of others. we are the composition of everyone whom we've met, and their impact on our lives. some people leave larger pieces of sediment, while some are smaller than a tiny grain of sand. but they make us who we are today. and we never die. we live on for millions of years, you and me - these rocks are the physical imprints of our spiritual souls on the earth, because everyone affects something in one way or the other. we may not believe it, but believe this: we have the power to change the world - just by being here. we are a part of the bigger picture, a series of rocks that make up part of human history. wherever you go, you will have made your mark. be it just a tiny dent in the soil, or a boulder that fell from a mountain - realise that things would be different if you had not been what you are and gone where you've been.

so too the shifting powdered sands
from pulverized mountain ranges
that sift with a
whisper
through my fingers

and the planet turning
grasses creeping in
then going away again
baked out by the aging
swelling sun

but the sands still drift in lazy dunes
grains freed from their hour-glass
still shifting under foot
and warm through my fingers

and sift with a tsk
and a breathy sizzle
and melt away afterwards

as the dry touch of your
lips upon mine
on a sun-baked afternoon.