Driving up mountain miles
of washboard switchbacks;
jarring the dusty rearview mirror
in my mind:

"but don't look back in anger"  
... I heard you say
stuck in the cloud of dust
befogging my daydream
back somewhere thereabouts
the washed out bridge
that tore us apart
like a flash flood

It was so long ago
since you were running
and I was hiding in plain sight,
from what the storm
in my eyes did tell

Mindful — you were only watching
the growing distance gather;

finding what you didn't lose
looking back to see
   what you can't forget —

like a hesitant child
reluctantly wondering
if anyone was still looking back
at you ―  still running away
from each passing storm


Jesse Stillwater
June   2018

the Silence became
like an old lesson learned

a broken heart intones
a voiceless song
resonating a refrain of Silent echoes
in a voice that never heard a word
yet spoke so clearly ... lingering
in realms of subtle ambiance

soundless remnants
stacked neatly as
building blocks;  
another brick in a wall,
already too tall to see beyond—
growing like a bunker
without a sense of safe harbor

as the Silence became
time and space,
a stillness beset the melancholy air
as if a world without song
foreboding an unpredictable storm
beget vestiges of broken windfall,
reticent leftovers hushed after a gale

s i l e n t l y

an acorn fallen  — became a mighty Oak

a wind-broke twig — became a weeping willow

a neglected child — became mother nature's son

the Silence became
        a blind prophet —
in its voice held forth
smatterings of truth
and undertones of an unrequited
fool’s hope

the Silence became
a strong, abrupt rush of wind
uttering voiceless exhalations of breath;
a hovering dawn mist
    befallen after a summer storm—
surrounding all in all
bedewed in a feigned peace


... the unabated sounds of silence
become


Jesse Stillwater ... July 20th, 2018

I’ve finally stopped
writing
unrequited letters;
there were too many
wasted breaths
left unsent

Lapsing intentions
befallen on timeworn
tawny crumpled  pages;
aging like spent flowers
in fading earth tones
and rumpled paper regrets

Multi-hued words uttered—
mummers of voiceless exhalations
spoken without a sound;
indelible spilled ink
left behind,
lays fallow for so long

A love once new,  and
a growing silent ache—
a hungry heart
left for dead—Déjà vu

We leave a lot behind,
fallen leaves in unspoken ink
a restless soul laid bare
by a passing moment's
random gust;

atrophied
like unwritten poetry
stifled stillborn
in a wadded up paper lament


jesse stillwater ... July 2018

there are the ones
that feel it climb up
the shadow towards the light,
hesitation on every rung,
each wave of the arising
      overwhelms  unabated ―
and woe betides those
who are on the run
from a storm's deluge


A rousing ocean breeze
stirs inside the memory
of an unframed seashell
lying on the hearth mantel;
heightened sensitivity
lapping soundlessly,
spindrift plashing
the shoreline
of another world's
feigned peace


Perhaps the muted voice
of guilty pleasures,
hushed by their own
hidden truths
Feeling the unfelt textures
of every stifled vibration
left unbreathed


The naked truth befallen
so cold and lonely
Running in circles,
volatile as all those
     unspoken excitations raging ―
and the whispers of those
who hear not
the voices in the wind


An emotionally enslaved  heart
tarries,  marooned high and dry
in a memory on a distant sand bar
     lain fallow for so long ―
stagnant darkness
of an unsated soul
gathered on the back
of a parched tongue
sullied wordless


Rising up through
a dusty hieroglyph corridor
through an unlocked
labyrinth gate;  vestige echoes
from somewhere left behind
in an incomprehensible
abandoned wake


It's getting harder and harder
   for an insatiable soul to breathe ...
   climbing up a tree trunk―
up within the silence
of the listening tree


  Toes dug into
the rough bark furrows ―
fingers reaching upwards
beyond their deepest known grasp


A shadow stranded
out on a hangin' bough
hearkening without ears that hear:
“perhaps they’ll listen now“  
the wingless bird sings
in psalms that fly away
on tattered feathers
over untamed waters roil


Back to nature’s waning youth,
the bough bends unbroken
to taste the freedom
of the wild absolving seas



Jesse Stillwater
June     2018

Time is fleeting
as the spring river runoff
that gushes out to sea

A heart trickles out
a moment,
minute by minute,
in a timeless ink drop;
unmeasurable expanse
     immured in spilled ink ―
   manifest in the lexicon of poetry

For only purged words
cannot quench this thirst
that is loneliness;
it's a hunger that gnaws
like an unsatisfiable ache ―
a starving emptiness
all hearts
do one day taste

Left in the sight
of doubt
and eyes that fail
to believe what they see
lain fallow in the silent
indifference

Lost in a lingering void
unburied all around,
bespoken out loud
alone in plain sight
a feigned understanding;
reticent letters shape
reluctant words
to hold forth
enunciated breathe

The only words
that still echo unstilted ―
uttered  words
indelibly felt
from lips once sweet
as daybreak dew
    upon musing tongue ―
tasting the only
voiceless truth
that ever broke my heart

a vanishing wave
that moved an ocean
   deeply ...


Jesse Stillwater ... 06 6 2018

a breath of fresh air
tickles still-waters
a lone swan's quill
let fall, takes flight
  carpe  diem ―
nigh weightless,
buoyantly skitters
across the water,
laissez faire;
barely dimpling
the shallow peace
on a lake in the wood

a wild feather's
mindless pirouettes
emanate from
the steeping silence
lapping  its
superficial  refection  

the true nature
of wildness,
unspoken freedom,
an untamed
wilder – ness
skims the skinny waters
seeking their own level;
leaving no trace
of  ever being  containable
 
like a breath of fresh air
reinvigorates
unconquerable souls
touching in the
conscious moment ―
a gentle passing breeze
arousing a rogue gust


Jesse Stillwater

01    June   2018