I may have not known you for long.
But long enough to feel your warm
Embrace, jaunty smile and bright face.

You cradled me when I was a baby-
If only I could have that in my memory.

You came to my new home: smiled because you couldn't smile at yourself: inside.

You spent your days by the beach with your dog, confused at Life, lost.

If only I knew you had no one to turn to. I was here to offer love, more than you could imagine.

I was here if you needed a shoulder
To cry upon, a body to sink into.

I'm glad I didn't see you like your end.
I want to see that happy, joyful girl forever inside my head.

I still feel in touch with you; parallel universes, tying your thoughts on to my dream catcher...

'The poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore tree... with her hand in her ***** and her head upon her knee...'

And as time passes on and you have passed on, you linger
still

Walking rounds among the streets, the country lanes and by still waters.

You were forsaken for your beauty
And now in your name, I will live my life truly.

You found me
    the way fire finds the parched
    forests of California.
You caressed me
    the way waves caress the crumbling
    coast of every once-great
    Mediterranean city.
You whispered
    like the wind whispers sandstorms
    across the Sahara Desert.
You wept
    water-like into the fissures of my
    foundation

and froze

until I crumbled;
until I became a memory of myself;
a phantom limb;
a shadow in the dark.

"I love you,"

I said.

He replied,

"Good night."

That night

I knew

what love was for me

was a dream to him

I approach most desires
like a competition; can I
**** better than him;
can I be famous at twenty-
-three since he was famous at
twenty-four -- I must be able
to sink better than him.

God, it is exhausting. I
feel like I'm dancing with
a machine; a phantom that
I can never catch, for it runs
on my blood; my insecurities;
my passion -- and, boy, oh boy,
can I attest to having plenty of
  that stuff, ladies and germs.

I think, truly, that I am
encompassing the American Dream
I think is utterly flawed; that I think
is futile in nature; that I am sure of
is the closest thing to Hell, in this
Godless, spiritually motherless
dark shoebox of sudden collisions;
this space of useful and useless
results, splayed onto and into
our hearts, asking for reverence.

There is nothing  I want more
than to be sure that my importance
is not illusory. I am not sure if
I am real.

Don't be scared, Love;
show me your scars.
Give me a piece of your soul,
and maybe a glimpse of your mind.

I could show you beauty,
without a field of flowers.
And an amazing high,
without the foul aftertaste.

Just let me in,
let me feel your pain.
I'll touch your soul,
and make you go insane.

I was strewn
scattered wide
brooding foreheads of jagged stone
thirsty fragments
unfit for purpose
rugged - broken - lying alone

She - pure water
seeping in sand
dark and deep - unrequited and stilled
Her eternal spring
but a fearful trickle
Her destiny hidden - unfulfilled          

Open earth!
a forested crevice
Shake - Tremble - Set her free
Release her flood
of secret desires
splashing joyfully over me        

I will be
her playful bed
smoothing my edges - providence smiled
I will make her ripple
rushing with laughter
kissing her droplets - wet and wild

Cascading to  
her lyrical rill
we'll sing forever - in our sacred stream
She is my lover
caressingly she runs
once worthless rubble -  She did redeem!

gv   For my lovely wife. Feb.19.2014