...for only good can come from eyes
             which behold the world with kindness;
                          and, so too, will grace follow where gratitude leads...

Beneath the bracing maple tree
Awaits a beau, pursued heart's key

Cold sweaty hands, timid was he
As if he's dosed with ecstasy

To woo this beautiful princess,
Hath played a fiddle effortless

Heart beats loud beneath pastel dress
Mind's been puzzled, soon she'll confess

She don't regret, she won't forget
For that so moment felt kismet

Will they be lovers? Make a guess,
It all depends if she said yes

We are kingdoms and oceans apart
Met you in a southeast land
Love united our frozen hearts
I held your caring soul
You accepted me as a whole
Another chapter unfolds.

krstjn (life exp.)

The river forks at big stone eddy
rending currents meandering course,  
its silence speaks not with forked tongue
as kismet's swirling eddies abide
     as if time immemorial;
     a river naturally cleaved
in two separate distinct directions
befallen destiny  without a choice


Spinning round and round in big stone eddy,
time just drifting by in the throes
of doubt — high water rising
beyond the bounds of earth
taking drowning souls up to the sky


Choking on a mouthful of unanswered questions,
suffocating on the parting words left unsaid;
distilling life into poetry hew from being —
trickling out like the spilled out sky —
taken down to the empty riverbed
leave lay' til it's all washed away,
in the music of the pourin' down rain


Freedom embodies metaphysical incarnations
riding the prevailing currents it can't control
Gravity-gathered  down to the shoreline,
manifest reclamation after the deluge,
from somewhere far above the high-water mark


Swallowed by all the darkness woe betides,
thinking you carry such a weight to hold...
It seems all got a handful of sand to toss
up into the wind to seed the clouds
The totality of eclipsing silence grows
that rent the stillness of a dream
of peace on an eroding shoreline


In an Eddy of Expectations & Disappointment
dark waters will ebb and flow,
imponderable as drowning hope,
leaving it all out there to dry after the rain

       believing in your heart —
        the best is yet to come


  Jesse Stillwater ... November 2018

Can we love without the tragic
Forget a sprinkling of magic
How about we pour it all out
And be drenched in the rain
Come on lose that pout
Kismet
Do you believe in fate?
How about we stop trying to think
And soak all that moonlight
Shall we have this drink
Stop trying to make this hard
Unclench that fist on your playing card
Lighten up, you light up
There’s no room for the dark
In this stillness you’re a lark
Come along take my hand
It’s a little mad but let’s fall in love.

I remember with fondness the last worry worth the strain.
It was between the advertisements bookending the
bus stop bench, and I watched a woman no older than I
cross the street without looking both ways.

I panicked despite there being no speed toward her, and
as rapid as no cars were traveling my heart was ecstatic.
At her carelessness. Peered behind turtle-shell bifocals,
and they weren't rimmed thickly; I hate those. They were
wired, and she tugged my heartstrings. With her joy in pacing.

She met my eyes with her glasses and peered strangely toward me,
a stranger watching her with a knitted brow as thick as the scarf
she wore. She paused on the curb a foot about to lift her up, I
think I scared her. Her lips tugged as her hands stuffed themselves
into her tiny pockets. What are pockets used for on women's pants?
Surely not to look nervous and pull away from the world as mine are.

I almost begged the question to ask for her name, or to be a gentleman
and help her cross the stone-few-inch-threshold that seemed to have
stranded her as wide river from her destination; then I realized if she
could cross the raging streets without the help of even reassurance
then I was nothing but another obstacle.

She smiled.
I stared.
And off she went, and I watched her still.
I thought, "If she turns around to look at me, I'll wave her down.
I'll ask her name. I'll pour myself out,
even foolishly."
Her grey knitted cap, of which I am sure hid a knot worth untying,
turned and I saw her profile as her peripheral scoped the last remnants of her
slowly-forgetting-me-memory.
I lifted my hand toward her, and flicked my wrist.
She stopped.
And so did my heart.