Here I am,
In a long, low, valley,
On a horse, under sweltering sky.

A single trail runs East to West,
As far as the eye can see.

The sheep-skin bags,
Strung low off the saddle,
Are empty.

Bandits rode into town last week,
And made off with a couple of dreams,

Now I must know,
Which way to go,

I am the Sheriff,
The dream-catcher.

I am willing to sink into the sound
of night’s changing secrets
where the world sees my breath
wipe away the tears mirroring its pain.
Smiles are caught on fire,
wooed by this poet,
but do not reflect the same.

Instead of playing under trees,
I allow everything to be swept away
by the winds
on the soft petals of a voice.
A voice that empties all its brilliance
into our sleep
comes to see our smiles rejoice.

Life is exhibited in dirt
from the bottom of my shoe
yet never utters a word.
Still, I will never wave goodbye
to thoughts that turn.
Does anyone ever really understand
the smiles a poet burns?

I welcome hands that hush the existence
of whispered memories
lighting candles dwelling in our minds.
If you knew what was on the line,
would you be willing to sink
into night’s sound
in kind?

Ah, would I were a German!
I'd trouble my translator
With nouns the size of Hamburg
And leave the verb till later.

And if I were a Welshman
My work would thwart translation
With ninety novel plurals
In strict alliteration.

And would I were Chinese!
I'd throw them off their course
With twelve unusual symbols
All homophones of "horse".

But as it is, I'm English:
And I'm the one in hell
By writing in a language
Impossible to spell.

True love cannot be tampered upon
Or enclosed in glass and released at will,
It is not an insignificant slave
At the beck and call of its master,
For love has no master and its power so great
That once touched by love's endearing caress,
One must blindly obey.

True love does not follow reason
For reason could not understand a lover's heart,
It is not a pupil that can be taught
Nor a henchman that can be ordered around,
For love is free and unbinding
And all feeble attempts to restrain it shall be in vain.

True love cannot be grown from the seed of lust
Or plucked from jealousy's petals,
For once the desire has waned
The fruits shall wither and rot.
It needn't ask permission to reside in one's heart
For like a thief in the night
Love can come and go as it pleases.

Blessed are lovers' eyes
For they can see true beauty,
For beauty can only be seen
Through true love's eyes.

You are not a dancer,
But I like to watch your mind do pirouettes
As you take to the page.
You are far too gangly,
And your feet are much too large and cumbersome,
To accompany me to a ballroom,
But I could watch you waltz solo for hours,
As you labor gently over your words.
"Natural grace" has never applied to you
In the physical sense,
But your thoughts could rival
Fosse's signature moves in beauty and brilliance.
You are not a dancer,
But I like to imagine
That we tango in the moonlight
With words tumbling forth
In our precision steps:
One, two, three, one.
I'm not nearly as graceful as you are
In this realm, but someday
I hope to be the Ginger Rodgers
To the Fred Astaire of writers.

In your Garden

There’s a chance that I am immortal,
And so at night I climb and decorate trees,
My pale limbs hanging dangerously
Over wind and cold water seas.

I have found other worlds in your garden,
While crawling through the tangled leaves,
My crown fell down a hole that led to
A land of compultion thieves.

I hold my knees to my face and whistle,
My pink hands shiver, tippy toes freeze,
I pick roots of ice growing, biding my time
Till the moon lets me hang from trees.

Over time frost grew between my blue hair,
And sharp cold raindrops tickled my feet,
I’m still waiting for you to remember me
In a garden playground wrapped in sleet.