I looked off in the distance, a horizon of mountains strung together, the whole range atop an alpine lake.

I looked out only to be fixated on your tanned skin wadding off in the water, the same skin that I’d watched darken in the summers sun, the same skin I became so familiar with under the covers of blankets and snow. Layered but much paler than your tone now, it always was winter months that inspired warmer thoughts.

But there you are, you’re no longer the warm thoughts I pined to grasp.
You’re here in view and more than I could’ve ever imagined, watching you unlace your boots and rip your socks off in rolled clumps as you marched through the overly saturated banks still recovering from the past, the thawing warmth of spring at the end of a snow season, just like you.
Taking high steps, you feel the mud tugging at your heels, attempts to hang on, to cling instead of breaking clean free only to be washed away with another plummeting progressive step. Each part of you beginning to drown a little more in the experience.

...asking if I'd "--left the kitchen because it was too hot?" as I'd brownies in the oven and dinner warming on the stove.  



(sonnet #MMMMMMCMVIII)


Lo, nary voice flits through this warm pretense
Whose eye is April's in a trice, the pale
Blue heavns white clouds dim with four geese' detail,
And yes, a silent flock of birds which thence
Fly past, light flashing off their wings, a sense
Of deathly naught held like a notice frail
Warm hours are but a tease, as sparrows fail
To merrly answer, whiles I feign what hence?
Thin nonchalance, just as last night in tour
Where I "performed" sae poorly with a crew
Of local poets at the Lit Fest.  Were
Their kindness not Thy mercies, LORD, what through
Our vain hours should we answer?  Is't sae poor
I cherish 'gain these minutes I once knew?

27Jan18

The cold seeps everywhere,
through my fingers, onto my arms,
and directly to my heart.
The fire heats everywhere,
through my fingers, onto my arms,
and directly into my heart.

Will you light the fire,
to combat this cold winter I've dealt with,
and bring warmth to my heart,
and thaw it to let it feel again?

Love comes to you
when you want it.
It's a crying shame
I shall not want.
There's a rough skin
past my first offer,
in hopes of healing
for everyones sake.

First comes love,
then comes want.
The past lives fluid
between the two.
First I was silent
then I was lurid.
Everyone knows
the ending too well.

I'll throw my soul
into your fire
To freeze or to thaw,
It's your heart's desire.

Two corpses we were,
alive we've become -
to lie or to walk,
in a week we'll be home.

Oh Honey,
You can't slither like a snake
Then act like you have a backbone

You can't burn the world down
And expect it to rise from the ash

If your cold heart finally thaws,
I hope you're crippled by the mess you've made

Because you can't clip a birds wings
And expect it to fly higher

Oh Honey,
You can't start a fire
Then expect not to be burned