Everyday I am surrounded by
beauty
It enthralls me in all shape, form,
sizes and colors
The smell thrusts me into a field of
sunflowers
I look around and we are all the
same

The sun blankets our head in her
golden glow
And you bend your heads and
worship her in the West
I stand tall and withering in neither
directions

Her beam of light suffocates me and
dry up my roots
So I carry a silent prayer to the wind,
my seeds traveling along with it
It’s not long before her majesty
glowers behind a dark cloud
And I soak in the rain

The air smells different
Mother nature diffuses her earthly
fumes and it surrounds us
The dark consumes and your heads
are now facing towards me
I cower in the cold weather, allowing
the splatter of rain to bombard my
green skin

Maybe I’m not a Sunflower after all
Maybe I am a Calla
And my sharp shade of white
contrasting against your yellow
petals at night gave me away

Maybe if I drowned myself in your
golden ocean long enough
The god you worshipped every
morning in the east
Would straighten my stalk and
ground my roots and caress my
petals with her rays until I am an
imitation of you

Maybe I am a Sunflower after all

surrealism
a reality that is augmented, in some way bizarre
out of place but comprehensible
momentarily you're laughing in a chapter of a novel,
sipping wine in a short film,
dancing with your loved one through your imagination
somehow you see the world from such a distance, from the outside
and
in that split second of 'what the hell am I doing'

you just have to smile and move on.

not pet.

in window i sneak,
i see me alarmed
in glass, i ponder
the swish-locks they arm

not people!
inside,
not them, like me,
not scattered outside

no food for them waiting,
no fence for them pacing,
no kind of invading,
how come? how go?

see pet.

where found, i climb
in flurry, i bound
but they can't have
me,

not pet.

A flurry of coloured bags
Lying carelessly in the doorway
The happy ones congregate in the grass
They laugh and they dance
Because they can

A silence of turning pages
Throat constricted too tight to eat
The other ones congregate in the shade
Feeling out of place there
Because they can’t.

Let the hair fall over your face
Don’t speak, they won’t reply
It feels like you’ve been replaced
Try and let the days pass by

If you were to fall they wouldn’t see
You miss how they used to care
It’s not the way it used to be
A simple smile by now is rare

And in your head there’s only black
So tired of make believe
If you smile, they won’t smile back
Why don’t you just leave?

You’ll never be the way they are
Their level is just too hard
Just try and reach that social bar
And keep your feelings jarred

People gathered in the courtyard
In their usual bouts of revelry.
Unaware of the one they all discard,
Shooting glances trite with brevity…
And out of this planted seed it grew,
A tendency to do as shadows do….

Hidden from the obtuse eye
In the dark to all of his peers.
Latent, in muse, off to the side,
They don’t feel the stinging tears…
And like a balloon inflates it grew,
A tendency to do as shadows do…

His words tethering in the wind
Like cotton spores in seasons bloom.
Reclusive by all, his natures pinned,
Cast aside left only to loom…
And like dark clouds in a storm it grew,
A tendency to do as shadows do…

He shouldn't have to go it alone,
But there’s no one to whom he can turn.
Time and again, for innately he’s prone,
The bereft ashes of a forgotten urn…
And like a plume of smoke it grew,
A tendency to do as shadows do…

The growth of this malevolent blight
Left him bitter but not in spite.
Abandoned, like a shadow—lost to the night,
He hadn’t a choice but to sit and to write…
And as darkness after sunset it grew,
A tendency to do as shadows do…