A love
that blossoms
like a flower
before a storm.

Will you see it
before it is stripped
of its petals?
Before it is trampled
and ripped out by its roots?

stormless nightscape
neon lightning
car-thunder and auto-hum
the dark doldrums
sky scrapes
violence even in brightest daytime
the city is
its own weather system
tempestuous / slum
lashing / victims
of architecture: humans undone
slithering, slithering
we,    slugs of no sun

Behold the smooth transition of brushstrokes and bristles to the field of marigolds.
The sweet friction brought by divine hands, is the depth you were searching for.

And as the storm rolls in, high on the technicolor clouds, you take a moment to catch your breathe.
Next thing you know the rainbow wildfire blooms from the painted raindrops, setting the flowers ablaze.

It is a world created of mind made matter, and if you cannot see the parallels, then you lack the imagination!

Any fiction can carve its way into reality, that is the truth of all worlds.

That is the key, forge your ambitions and blow the doors wide open.

clouds roll across the sky
in an overture heralding the coming of
storms, of flashes of light in a spectacle of
natural birth and suicide. thunder rips apart the
fabric of the heavens, leaving seams unsewn to rain
upon the damp earth agape. were it that sunshine was rare,
that amber light shone only through the darkness of stratocumulus
and curtains of raindrops would we beg the tempest to stay.
trees tremble in the prelude of wind knowing that they
must too bow down to the deluge. the first ripples on the
water paint labyrinths over duckweed and tadpoles, the afterbirth
of the floods, so does petrichor. that fragrant herald of life
and destruction place itself in fractals throughout the golden
air, filigree all but invisible to verse, and the poet that creates it.

it could be just a drizzle, nature watering her creation
the only electricity the excitement of the mosses and ferns
to recieve communion again. the war-drums of thunder may not
sound, only drops falling on water in a steady
percussive rhythm hypnotizing and maddening, accompanying
the wind blowing the trees in a millenia-old melody.
this poem could only be Romantic musings of the grand
memories of an antediluvian hurricane that never
occured or was witnessed, images and sounds that can
never be seen or heard, known by storms.

I finished moving into my residential college as a storm began
- fat raindrops, as big as coconuts, falling from a black and fouling sky.

These northerners were acting like a "tropical storm" (Henri) was a big deal.

“Surely New England gets storms?” I ask, from behind my mask.
“What about NOR_Easters?” I say, like a meteorologist.
“Those are different.” I’m told, with no other explanation.

“Did you bring this storm from the “SOUTH?” I’m asked, accusingly.
(This was after I told them about coming from one ”bulldog-college-town” to another.)
“Yes.” I reply, “It was in my luggage.”

A silly question but they have a point - the storm feels like it’s involved and fulfilling some obligation to dramatize my college move-in story.

“Time to quarantine!” I’m informed - “Yep, can’t WAIT!” I lie.

One disaster at a time.

Heaven got so plenty moods
At dawn she's like a sleepy maid
Just awoke, and rescheduled, still,
As she rise from her midnight bed
Dusk is her blushing face
As she sees all the love
Midday she shines bright
As she dances over the sky above
Full moon she sits up there
Her fair skin shining silver light
As she tries to fall asleep
In her gown of deep blue night
Rain can be thrice
In sadness, she sometimes weeps
In joy, she squirts water, playful laughing
Or she brings the water's salvation she keeps
When angry, her wrath masses in clouds
And cataclysms, that storm the land
Fog is a try to cover the world's darkness
As she cups it with a caring hand
Blood moon shows her scars and wounds
That had cut her deeper than any blade
Blizzards rage in her despair
When she cries out with words unsaid
In eclipse, she tries to hide her face
Shame letting her cheeks glow
For even she is not all perfect
Not always she can cover in innocent, white snow
Every girl has, sometimes,her terrible twos
And few enough are of such purity
Heaven is not perfect
But she's made of simple beauty

The sigh of things gone,
echoes of hope and the
small prickles of a blackberry
as I turn it on my tongue
between knives of teeth.
I reach further into the bracken,
The tangle of thorns caressing, hooking themselves into my clothes,  
These are familiar pains,
Small scrapes of memory.
Petrichor, a reminder of our last walk
The clouds, tremendous waves breaking across the sky, coming storm
The plucked magnolia blossom wilting in my hand
How bitter it tasted on our tongues
I saw the berries, then, crimson unripe jewels
Vowed a Persephone return when they had turned onyx
And came back alone while you languished
In your underworld.

I can find sweetness amid the pain,
What have you found
To sustain  yourself ?