Love is more
    than a ballet—

beyond gestures,
steps and poses;
more than a passing
summer breeze
soon forgotten;
a twirling pirouette
in an ever changing
season's  fleeting dream
                            
To really SEE,

— turn a blind eye    
to the incantations
of what we're looking at
— lose sight of all    
    we preconceive —

FEEL the music
dance inside the note,
swimming deeply
inside the rivers
   of its soul —
listen searchingly
to the fomenting breeze
as it fans the
smoldering flame
in your heart

   Love is —
an erupted moment;
an enveloping
burst of flames
enkindling
an uncontainable wildfire

an unfolding chrysalis,
butterfly kisses wafting
in the halo around the moon

a thundering heartbeat
a fiery burning  
    ring enrobes —

an enchanted sunset
vanishing into an
evanescent afterglow

The downward spiral
of a burning ember
erupting in a rising moon;
climbing the rungs
of the twilight horizon

Words may sing a sad song
of love and misery;
some say: “love is forever”..,
a hesitant reminder —
your pretty words
and sweet lies
still linger where
sleeping memories lie:
you never really saw
my world straightaway
peering out through
the corner of your eyes

Looking heart to heart
through the glass reflection
within the window
of a poet’s pages,
when nobody else
in sight seems to care,
gazing right past you
like you're not even there;
only posing words
amongst the untamed
waves of emotional depth

Lying to myself
won't ever make
the truth go away
when you hear
whispered words
      grow silent —

Love is more than a ballet ...
but I don't know a thing about "forever"



Jesse Stillwater ... October 20, 2018

a poet's simple truth:


' the only thing that makes you live
is silently killing you trying to let it go '

—

feel the wind whistle
down the tenebrous sky
come to carry away
my silenced heart

hold dear the love
you see through
    my dried  tears —
before  the  glint
doth  fade

lay me down alone,
my dearest friend,
eyes  to  the  sky
   neath the lone oak tree —
atop the meadow hill

where a lonely child
climbed gnarled rungs
in hope to sail away
on fleeting cotton clouds;
dreaming of a place
in the distant sky
to  call  home


Jesse Stillwater ... September 21, 2018

A breathe of words ― 
a gust of thought scattered;
welling silence ruptures
bulging vault chambers
with the patience
of tongue-tied hearts

In a long deep breath
pith of soul manifests;
rich with the breathing spirit
of life that's passed

A timeworn lid spinning
on a blue glass jar
Indigenous roots
and memories tender,  
perpetuity gleaned
and garnered
on fruit cellar shelves

Segues of ancient culture ―
evolution derives
from many roots
trying to catch
time in a bottle;
a travelogue
of saved beginnings;
magic beans
in a mason jar

    Life’s native seeds gathered ―
organic building blocks
the immemorial soul
of the earth sown
and reaped;
sprouting unstilted
continuum
for which
ever fleeting time
cannot hold


Jesse e Stillwater
09  May  2018

☾

I wish I were the Moon
Bequeathing an enchanting night
A mystical celestial sphere
Bewitching lover’s hearts


A practical magic spell
C a s t
In a lonely hollow shell
      An ardent musical echo ―
Released in an irrepressible
Impassioned moan
A twilight sigh
escaping in untamed
Blissful breath


A Sky without Moonbeams
Is like a world without song
It takes a certain darkness
To heed a Sky full of Stars alone


I wish I were Moonstruck
A fate I crave to behold
Waxing and Waning
Rising ― Changing
A distant ocean’s ebbing tide


A captivating enchantment
In the twilight beauty
Of your eyes
Dreaming of drowning
Deep within
Their deepest water’s Wild


I don't want to wake up
    and become ―
More fading
Barefoot traces left behind
On some faded memory's
Deserted shore


Right now is all
There ever is ―
and
I wish I were
The Moon tonight


Jesse Stillwater ... May  2018

"where it stops nobody knows"

Just a few words connect
threads of thought
in a passing moment

A fray dangles
by a strand of fiber
— a conspicuous      
   temptation—
an interesting
thread to pull:

    If it begins to unravel,..
it just might not stop
until the tapestry
is a tangled ***
of unspooled thread


Jesse Stillwater ... September 2018