They call the ship 'Burden,'
An indestructible vessel,
Rival to the monsters of the sea.
It's exactly what the people needed,
For you see,
In the depths lurked a beast.
Eighty tentacles, four trade ships tall and wide,
A hundred-thirty teeth when it's smile lied.
They called it, "Kraken."
It was nothing of the likes you've seen,
Emperor of the dark sea.

The Burden could hold fifteen hundred men,
Arming harpoons, cannons, muskets, wit.
The king ordered them to turn the seas red with gore,
Call forth the Kraken,
Strike it dead.
Then to the king,
They would drag back it's head.

So come high-noon,
The ship was in place,
Above the deepest of sea caves.
Letting forth crates of bait,
Staining the waters of the sea,
Until the sailors heard a rumble,
Shake the Burden's iron shell.

Up from the waters came long river's hell,
Tentacles like spires towering well beyond the sails.
But the crew held steady,
"Tighten the ropes, arm our cannons,"
Cried the captain,
"Then fire!"
The seas filled with blood,
The sky filled with gunpowder, fractured shells,
A shriek rang out from the deeps.
The cry of death,
From the Kraken itself.
Tentacles sinking away,
"The head!" Cried the captian,
So Lutenent Lucus dived after the creature.

Tied by a rope,
Pike in hand,
The creature's head,
He began to drag.
Though, glancing over his shoulder,
Through the murk he could see,
The form of a woman swimming away.
Some curse broken, he decided,
A soul freed from grim reality.

Peace.

'Twas but three years ago
I set my pen to sea, a vessel born
a fragile craft of ink and fervent flame
with compass cast in yearning, not in security

The waves lapped soft with secrets,
a few saddening,
fewer sweet.

Each line cast: a current pulling at my feet
no charts existed
no charts exist
for waters this deep nor wide
where poets dream,
struggle,
fight,
cry,
accept

and ancient myths
shared from one to the next
reside

The sky, a parchment vast with thousands of drifting stars
drew constellations shaped like hopeful scars

i
you
we,
search for love – the poet’s atlantis
a realm where whispered truths and passions flow


clouds
like veils
concealed what lay ahead
storms were born from longing
words went unsaid
crucial words
I chased reflections that danced on the waves
illusions
forged in the poet’s unforgiving mind

the siren’s song – a melody of doubt –
called me close
not once, but repeatedly
–
somewhere
I know
Janus smiles
–
called me close then took away my sound
took away my hearing, and my voice.
and what was it that was so alluring?
the shimmer? the glint? the gleam?
or just the ghost of a forgotten dream?

Ink dripped like rain upon my weathered scroll,
a log of my journeys,
a testament to my voyages,
each line, each stanza, each poem,
an ebb of the sea carrying me ever further on my path

There, at the ocean’s floor
lost in fragments,
scattered arrays —
a compass
broken,
fractured remnants

one night
tides of silence
waves of wait
the poet’s curse
the lover’s fate

until

a flash, a beacon–
love’s distant flame–
guided through tempest,
called my name.

–
still it glows
a lighthouse, for all ships
that pass
–

not all who wonder
sink or drown
not all condemned to be a poet,
a lover,
a feeler,
are left to fall
fall
fall
ever lower into the depths of the cold
dark
deep
waters.


Beneath the veil of night,
a whisper grew
a secret kept
only silence knew.
the heart, a vessel sailing starry seas
found shore where love’s soft voice
dissolved unease

no longer lost amid the waves and foam,
the poet’s quest
had brought him safely home
adorning not treasure, nor gold, nor gems
but a reason to put down the pen
a reason to discern
the clouds from the storm


I stepped onto sands
warm beneath my feet
where time and tides and two hearts
met

a poet’s journey
ended

for now, when he
causes the ink and parchment to embrace
once more
it is not for the same cause as once was
–
to express his discomfort,
drifting about on the waters:
his only support;
a 4 legged stool,
built solely to hold his skeleton-
but never built to bear the rest
–
but rather to express
the dilation of his pupils
as dawn approaches, and the
the morning spills like
honeyed gold;
a whispered warmth the
night can’t hold.



the ink now flows from calmer, steadier hands
the poet, now having resigned himself
to the discomfort of the ocean
finally lands.

–
She is my peace
her arms my warmth
her smile my joy
her love, my home.
--

There are roses.
A sniff of that—
turns the trees into sharp thorns.
Sit still.
Secured. Guarded.

Then there is a Tree,
meticulously crafted,
big-footing from the deepest deep—
not only skin deep
but the beauty is on—
deep-bone skeleton.
The pixels on the upper layer stay clear,
and perfect balance holds below, through every layer.

A day fades from the rose,
dimmed—even at soothing eve.
Not quite.
It walks in chiaroscuro,
through shades of tangerine,
slipping into the thick of night—
never growing thin—
until it catches the set sun hiding,
eyeing the new moon’s skin.

It stands,
ready for bold conversation,
as the stars emerge,
whispering
through the seven skies.

Wide-eyed death—
inevitable—
rushes in
on beauty’s stake.
But how long did it last?

Before the blink of an eye,
the tree was back in bloom.

In watching galaxies—top of mind—
it grows again,
quietly,
on the sublunary Earth.

Math of the matter
couldn’t be closer,
nor farther—yet it is,
as surely as cumulative math,
with countless truths under the skin,
unfound until the equation fits.
It can appear with precision,
or stay hidden from sight—
under the sun, or the moon, alike.

Sharpest sharp cuts: linear.
Deepest deep, yet curves—
smoothest golden spirals.

The solid full-stop dot
in Ma spaces
springs the sweetest—  
a panache showcase
that conquers height
and endures time.  

A sniff of it stirs the water—
boundless,
no sea, no ocean, no river,
just flow, forever.
It bumps into paradise above—  
roots stretching,
never ceasing.
Deep down, it rocks the pearls,
up high melts the clouds,
rains soft on the glass—
which breaks
into pieces of a star.

Breaks open wide—yet no angle.
Deep down, it never fractures.
Every line, on every lane,
curves inward
to its digital bedrock:
non-linear, vibrating numbers.

Day in, day out—
no ending at the end.  
A topological fold
opens and rewraps.

There is a tree:
overhead and on the ground.
Keep an open eye—  
it keeps up!

What I fear the most
Is being not enough for the world.
I tell myself every day:
You are trying. It’s not easy.
Be kind—it’s the mindset.

Alas, I fail.

I didn’t care for my mother.
I don’t understand my father.
I idolize my brother
And refuse to fall for a stranger.

Where will I go now?
Maybe to the mountains.
The fear creeps in again:
The mountains are too big, and I am too small.

I’ll try again.

I’ll go to the sea.
The salt will be enough.
I might catch this wave—no, that wave.
My fingers slip through it all.

I will hold your hand, maybe,
While you show me what’s yours.
I think I’m scared of being the dark,
The same dark you are afraid of.

Darling. Babe. I might call you these names.
I fear I won’t be enough for you.
I hope you’ll help.
I hope you’ll wait.

I hope you’ll have time.

I want to drown in you,
To dip my face in your waters,
Rapid or smooth.
To know the parts of you,
Nobody else ever could,
I need to feel you.
Your fingers like tear drops,
Running down my face,
Left deep in a loving haze.
So can we come together,
Ignore all the things that push between us,
Your name ends with my favorite place,
The sea.

Your name ends with home,
My home is you.

ships sailing;  
night sky navigating along  
divergent constellations  
that plotted our courses.  

meeting only where our stars crossed,  
or collided  
in sparks.  
sharing ports for a few years,  
a summer,  
a night.  
only to weigh anchor  
as the sky shifted,  
following after the next coordinate  
on our charts.  

it has been so long  
since I have seen your sails  
tilted and headstrong towards  
my waters,  
since the stars on our charts  
found an overlapping point.  
I wonder if we are still sailing  
under the same sky.  

or perhaps you are dry docked  
having forsaken the sea  
for shore,  
and left behind the lilt  
of the tides.  

whispers of you  
on the waves,  
as I hoist my sails  
once more.

Let it be the Mountain she finds Holy—
not because it sparkles,
seduces her
or speaks in riddles,

but because its dark loamy soil
receives her bare feet like a memory.

A prairie hill above the sea,
where grasses bow and whisper,
and the wind carries the salt and scent of things
too old for names—
that’s where the house stands.
Not built from stone,
but from time.
And longing.

And the laughter of those
who once remembered Eden.

Let her dig down,
as if the roots of a wildflower
were waiting to rise through her skin,
lifting her slowly from within—
the stem, the pistil,
the fragile yet indestructible bloom.
Let the soil speak to her in silence,
saying:

You are still loved.
You are still alive.
You are not what happened to you.

Let her turn toward the sun—
not in shame,
but in radiant defiance—
and know in that moment
where her help truly comes from.

Let her running to the mountain
be joy, not dread.
Let her ascent be not an exile,
but a return.

Let her wings unfold brazenly,
as the daughter of the living God.
Not tucked.
Not hidden.
Not compromised.

She does not belong to the mountain that mocks love
and feeds on the ruin of hearts,
or exploits that which is still unhealed

She belongs here—
where her own flesh and bone
become not only family
but friend,
through the common bond
of the soil that gives life to all who dare to sink into it.

She belongs
where peace lives in warm light on cold nights,
where cotton sheets smell of soap and skin,
and starlight sifts through trees
like the hush of forgiveness.

Let her remember her first love..
before the theft,
before the theater.
Before the wound.

Let her toes remember
what it was to wiggle in the dirt
of something unbroken,
unshamed,
true.

Let her find home again—
not in a place carved out for her,
but in the space she reclaims
with her own rootedness.

Let her petals unfold slowly in the sun—
but only with her feet deep in the mountain's soil,
where others also have planted their lives,
becoming one
in harmony of breath and memory and Grace.

She will not enter into a sepulcher
or a place that makes usury of her pain.
She will stand on the mount before the rising sun—
alone if she must,
but never abandoned.

And somewhere in the hush between
the breeze and the soil,
she may yet feel

the quiet echo
of someone still with her.