Secreted away in my den of peace,
Blissfully falling into an undisturbed sleep.

Cocooned in toasty linen blue sheets,
Descending into deep serenity.

The earths landscape stands statuesque and still,
Long-limbed branches motionlessly tranquil.

A heady winters breeze filled with festive pleasantries,
The moon adorned with a crisp angelic glow.

Charcoal clouds cruising across the hushed atmosphere,
A transient moment free of stress and fear.

A night filled with harmony and content,
Shielding against any form of threat.

I was so busy building a wall to keep everyone out
that I didn’t realize I was locking myself in.
Now I’m completely trapped within myself
and the civil war for my soul begins.

I’m left alone to tear down a wall that was built to keep hundreds out.
My monsters are winning this war and I will soon perish in my doubt.

A vulture is the only thing I can see
mocking me from the boundaries of my wall.
Soon it will be his time to dine
as I think I’ll leave my body by nightfall.

The noise of the chaotic world
Tranquilizes my ever cranking mind
Drowning in the screams of the city night
Like a lullaby playing over and over again
Please sweet chaos
Carry me to sleep tonight

Coyote’s  mournful  cries  echo  across  
the  bitter  frozen  wi­ntry  darkness

A deepening silence thrums as loudly
as the echoes the unanswered bays

Snowflakes mute the fading wails
coyote’s softly questioning appeals

An eerie answerless hush echoes
                                  through the boughs,

writhing  in the  piercing frigid 
                                  wildwood blackness

The howling east wind gathers in
the throes of the lonely bespoken pleas

Carrying the weight borne a bone chilling
silent ache, beyond with the frozen autumn leaves


                                                 *wild is the wind ... December 8th, 2016

Our shadows soon fade
Here beneath the dying sun
When the day is done

she is the bright of sun in the last light of day,
turns the sky blood-red in her struggle –
does not sink until the end of the fray.

and yet, this light goes untamed still, somehow, someway,
alive even in the night;

for after all,
hers too is that borrowed gleam of moonrise.

Pain is a braid in a little girl's hair, tied back with the elastic of memory.
As long as we keep remembering, we'll keep suffering in our own personal black hole.

When nightfall paints the bedroom windows' black, mom removes the red band.
Removing the memory, we begin to remove the pain.

The little girl lies on her bed, her hair a puddle of hazel on the pillow.
No longer a braid, now waves of her hair.
Pain starts fading away but no matter how long it's been,
there's still some suffering wanting to stay.