It feels like the effort of scree's fiction against gravity,
the rocks on the mountain slopes,
doing everything they can to not erode down
When you aren't a person of your word
gravity plunges everything on the road downhill,
The cars passing by
your confidence to ride through the trails

It's amazing, that we always have a choice
to choose to act on something or not
heeding to the acts of God, memory lanes,
rising above the pressure of your lowers
to make you keep sitting down all day,
devour chips, seemingly infinite time,
movies and entertaining videos,
and on fine days, getting stuck
to the text an author put their time into
years ago.

These days the heap of regrets
is enough to act as morning alarm
lest everything falls into being undone.

Mountains of gold and green
My past is a distant thing
Halfway across the country
Where the wind carves and peaks
The mountains of gold and green
Seem to be calling me

I can’t deny that I was eager to leave
To a land of no gold and all green
But the thing I didn’t realize
Was that looking to the horizon
There were no mountains to see

In the dusty fields
at the foot
of The Grand Tetons,
A small colt wanders
in the vast grey-green lather
of sage brush.
Blotted brown patches
across its belly
like
black mold on the ceiling
Of my memories.
One can never be sure where
the clouds end
and the mountains begin.
Those looming chalky blues,
Not unlike the sea.
It is only a matter of time
before the colt finds
what it is he was looking for.
It is only a matter of time
before blue meets blue meets
green
meets sea
meets sky.
One day these mountains will
No longer remember my name.

it is few that seek for color,
when the world leaves them grey.

it is few that climb mountains,
when only plains come their way.

Unmoved by your arrival from the west coast,
ten thousand little things are different.

It’s October and the trees are on fire:
a forge that you won't notice, 'til you're gold.

Your Kicks don’t leave footprints on these cobbled streets;
even the children have old, leathery hands.

Try to paddle-board the Eno and the bass go belly-up:
that river’s for scattering ashes and making moonshine.

All they sell at Aldi is ethnic shampoo,
so now your hair twists like the roots you’ve lacked

'til now, because all you’ll ever need is two hands:
for prayer, and work.

Life moves on like a cigarette’s drag,
while somewhere Hope’s fiddle strums;

Take off your headphones and
go put your ear to an oak.

The great, green Giant sleeps all through the day;
beer-bellied, toes outstretched, dipping into the sea.
He lazes beneath the springtime sun, while we sit idly
anticipating possibilities and to-bes.

This dead castle bursts with life,
seagulls, and sandwiches,
and cameras capturing the view
onto something they can hold;
something graspable.

                *

The Giant disappears at night;
merging with the mountains.
Fading into the dark, as the waning moon
creeps up behind and over and above;
dripping reflections to feel a connection
with the earth again.

Lovers wander now, wandering through the flirting streets
which tease with uncertainty, and curtain the
awe-striking depth of the darkness that dumbs their speech
as they 'turn at this corner and just along the promenade..'.

Pushed back by a blast of wind;
numbing hands cold.
Forcing them away from
prolonging a gaze on the Sea's cruel honesty;
knowing they would be driven mad
by endless questions of eternity.

Questions they attempted to drown out with music and dancing
and Tequila shots and the kissing and the music and the dancing...

But now in the air, by this high-tide, they are
Modern-age-small-town-philosophers.
'Have you ever seen the petrified forest?'
Will they tell stories of us too?
Life is so short and now is certain, well...
as certain as certain could be known for certain so..'

So, after meditating on the existence of existence,
they find refuge in the optimistic light of the stars.
Warmth for the spirit from the deep, dark, cold depth of the darkness;
'Because the night is so very young.
Look, there are still stars in the sky...'

Venus is inconsistent; an evening and a morning star.
And, oh, is that Orion's belt?


         Lying on the floor, in the morning, after a night of philosophy.

don't know what to
write
don't know what to
say
whispered words slowly
spirited away
weapons between teeth
saliva soaked blade
slicing tomorrow, tonight and today
wish me luck
the climb may take a while
the mountain you know
you've been there, child
come when there's snow
i'll offer you a cup
wander through the
shadows
my mind turned to dust
mourning sets in
down the mountain you'll go
a jar i'll hand you
fill it with what you need to sow