#emergence
dew beads on blade-tips,
morning folds its breath in mist—
the world wakes in light, moth-
wings brush the thin air,
soft as sleep remembering—
light leans, and bends, wind
threads the tall reeds, twists—
the calm begins to fracture,
a shiver of warning—then
wave breaks, foam flings shore,
driftwood spins, gulls scatter wide,
spray dissolves with spray.
Nov 3, 2025
Nov 3, 2025 at 6:22 PM UTC
I think too much, but thinking is a door I cannot help but open, again and again, even knowing it leads only to corridors that collapse behind me. Beneath the thin surface of my life — the painted, polished life that smiles, nods, reassures — there is only the drop, the plunge into depths where no light has ever wandered. Something stirs there, half-formed, half-remembered, and when I lean close enough, it whispers in a voice that might be mine.
I patch myself together for the world’s gaze, arranging my features, my gestures, my words — but inside, it is different. Inside, the paint runs, the colors bleed, and the brushstrokes flail like broken limbs. I am not the painting they think they admire. I am the pallet left out too long, cracked and sticky, crawling with insects no one bothers to swat away.
Sometimes, in the narrow, shivering hallways of memory, the faces of the forgotten appear. They do not accuse. They simply watch. In the trembling candlelight, their outlines blur, and for a terrible moment, I cannot tell them apart from myself.
I tell myself I am not deformed. I repeat it, mouth dry, heart rattling its cage. But somewhere between the thought and the mouth, it curdles into a confession. We are all deformed. We are all stitched from scraps, animated by borrowed regrets, jolted upright by the lightning of other people’s hopes. Mary Shelley could have written our names long before we were born.
And yet — somehow — from the slow, grinding guilt of our existence, compassion seeps. Not cleanly. Not brightly. But it seeps, like water through the cracks of a sinking ship. If we can bear to look at what we are — if we can hold our own trembling, monstrous hands — perhaps it is enough. Perhaps that is all there ever was.
Apr 26, 2025
Apr 26, 2025 at 8:10 PM UTC
A well lit path is not part of my journey
Mine's through a dark ally
The thoughts that emerge from the shadows come in a hurry
A savage flurry of the eire
Physically consumed with how badly this could turn out for me
©2024
Jun 29, 2024
Jun 29, 2024 at 3:30 PM UTC
Stop your regrets
sadness, worry, your presets.
Look up. Reform your mind.
Today is a new time
full of possibility
a festival of fertility
plug in to grace
quicken your pace
to the next frontier
put it in high gear
leave the desert of despair
breathe in the brisk fresh air
arise, emerge and begin
to believe again.
Amen.
Apr 1, 2024
Apr 1, 2024 at 2:41 PM UTC
In essence we are pure desire. That desire is an expression of a moment and that moment becomes a series of moments we call life.
Suspended on the hands of an evanescent ticking. Pending on the beat of a vein woven drum. Fragile and fleeting. Ever mysterious and expanding.
My outer life was full. My inner life was like rampant Boston ivy and aspects of my soul were more akin to cities than archetypes.
Deluged with words and pulses, in poetry I am but the result of all those who came before me. I represent more than I am able to comprehend.
My expression is the result of all those who slain me and all those who heal me. Thank you differently and the same, for the hues of my emotional palette only deepened and multiplied like the cells of some thousand galaxies.
Pent, it was time for my expression to vent.
Apr 30, 2020
Apr 30, 2020 at 11:36 AM UTC
Start, like another
End, like every other
Alone, UtI, spinning web
Like I believe I'm the spider
The weaver, weaving, tearing down
Start today
End tonight
Under the influence for years
I'll never pronounce it wrong
I start like another
I end like every other
While I wasted the time waiting for you to leave
I never once thought I would commit arson
Burn the memories we made
(Though, I did)
(I saw the start and new the end)
Dec 8, 2017
Dec 8, 2017 at 3:27 PM UTC
Was lost, my heart so erratic
Split, drowning in thought
Never found, he emerged pragmatic
Shut, he paves through my struggles
Hidden away, We are systematic
Nov 10, 2017
Nov 10, 2017 at 3:44 AM UTC
I'd share the sky
with the clouds
but I had to grow my wings
but I had to lose my skin
I dared to reach
paradise
but my brothers took my skin
but my brothers used my skin
and I couldn't let them win
so I had to let this in
now it's tearing us within
and it's the fruit our sins
cause I had to grow my wings
but my brothers used my skin
I made them crawl
took my time nice and slow
feels so good to lose control
like a witness, watched them fall
now I'm free to flee this skin
but I will not shed this sin
and I cannot be complete
Sep 3, 2017
Sep 3, 2017 at 2:16 PM UTC
I'm not going to lie to you -- this time
Your look is the gravity pulling me down
Body by self, smell hair in your armpits
Books on the shelf stare back, bare backs
Maybe stretched out, two queers in a **** affair
could be lovers over distance, for instance
Rap time's door wanting to find love in there
We're both too busy. Fat by pelvic bones,
Butter on the hips, love means nothing
to the moment's dissent. Get your grip, too
a palm to the face a squeeze on a ***
how does it feel up and down a woman with a ****
You're smarter and harder than all of
my experience. Tattoos in ChiTown, pierced
lips -- upstairs -- ******* cancer on the waterfront
Who's carcinogen? Whose carcinogen crush
on a T with a blunt is worse than the other one?
I got plain Jane I got ground game
while you got the stratosphere. I got mono
You got amory. I want bite marks, I want red neck,
I want dinner of insides with a held head
I want four legs opened up
I want bodies shared in trust
Mar 25, 2017
Mar 25, 2017 at 5:26 PM UTC
emergence is an act of rebellion.
our eyelids peaking open like rusty curtains
as we steadily count backwards
5 … 4 … 3 … 2 … 1
climbing from our morning covers in one swift movement
like the bold musketeer ready to pierce his opponent.
allowing the cold to wash over our body
towards the to do lists and outdoor morning mist.
legs miraculously sprung to life from our dreams
seconds ago resting in a field of sunlit streams.
allowing forced smiles to emerge in the mirror
if the natural ones forgot to attend our morning ritual.
those cowards.
allowing our own smiles to send butterflies down our spines
if our lovers forgot to play their part.
those ********
our routines steadying us on the road
outside the house
into the yard
outside the fence
into the deli
out of your mind
into the grind
all forming like some rapid fire kiss of motion
where emerging and departing
become inseparable lovers.
and we cherish this sort of alchemy
where our paints emerge as paintings,
where our words turn into poems
that string along
melodies
into song
for
the pulsing of life echoes within
calmly waiting
to emerge
from the gilded cage
we are meant to burst open
Mar 27, 2015
Mar 27, 2015 at 8:44 PM UTC
*** holes dressing street . . .
Bombshell puddles angels left,
. . . Bird baths in the road.
Mar 24, 2015
Mar 24, 2015 at 10:44 PM UTC
For Michael, a warrior and an inspiration
You look at me like I'm weak
I am
Weakness is bending
Not breaking
It's how I show my strength
You look at me like I'm dark
I am
Darkness is brightness
Not reflecting
It's how I show I'm light
You look at me like I'm ill
I am
Illness is health
Not refracting
I call it the illness advantage
Nov 26, 2014
Nov 26, 2014 at 9:06 AM UTC