In a distance an emptiness echoes,
another lonesome dove's sigh
is carried away with the leaves

silence annulled by tempest gusts
as late autumn winds
belatedly lay bare the trees;

the sad song in the wind
repined for golden days
bowing sun ripened amber fields
dancing with the moment's sway

now windswept wild feathers  
chase after the waning sunlight
bucking prevailing headwinds
just beneath heaven's glow

sail away! — sail away!
way up on high!
O' birds of a feather
sail away!

begone — bygones — begone
homeward bound
from north and south
on  an algid heavenward flight


Jesse Stillwater ... winter solstice ... 2018

The morning fog
paints the forest hillside
an ashen shade of pale
dawn shadows
arising — stumbling
through the dark,
disappearing
like some kind
of disappointment
drifting in the memory
of a forgotten dream

a sigh settles
in a fragile breath
upon the windowpane
then drools down
upon the sill
like gathered dust
on an empty
picture frame

a sudden gust
of loneliness brings
a reawakening shiver
whispering silently
as an old violin
without a bow,
tuned to a forlorn
  hidden ache —
in the quiet darkness
of your memories


Jesse Stillwater

Mushrooms popping
up everywhere
moving pine-cones
like unturned stones
not even the weight
of lapsing maple leaves
can keep them down
as they reach up for sun

Four legged soul-mate
friskily passes them by
on her way to sparse
apples the deer didn't find
looking for a moment
to feel sun's slithering balm
where the mushrooms
bask in a warmhearted calm

Flaming bridges up in smoke—
ashes scattered in the wind
Requiem to passing yesterdays;
vestige of all that’s lost —
bestrewn in prevailing currents
amongst the drifting autumn leaves

No smoke on rising waters
— lingers between
growing distant shores
Untamed rivers rising
rinse away
the taste of sparks
spake from silent tongues

Portaging all that once was
with all that could never remain, 
back to the briny deep 
An uncontainable
rivers pilgrimage —
entombing reverently
ancient fractals of being

Sowing feral rivers' ashes —
sacrificial scatterings of destiny
washed afar unto the flotsam
on shoreless stormy  seas


Jesse Stillwater

The wind roars —
then stills to listen
to the spoken grandeur
from the soul of the
angry autumn sky
Its quickly moving grandeur
moving  way beyond
a trailing moment's wake

   Change often goes voiceless —
the autumn wind
needs not consent
to bare the trees;
disguising all symmetry
of yesterdays fleeting glance

Overarching that which
can no longer be
   as it once was —
A  bitter cold gust preys
on this aging bark
stirring to the roots
of my soul

Will true nature’s  
powerful essence
ever reshape the scars
these wind-whipped
human feather's
mask ? 

   The wind roars —
   then stills to listen ,...

and I wonder why
I can’t be the change
I see

Stillwater in the wind


Jesse Stillwater ... November 2nd, 2018

Love is more
    than a ballet—

beyond gestures,
steps and poses;
more than a passing
summer breeze
soon forgotten;
a twirling pirouette
in an ever changing
season's  fleeting dream
                            
To really SEE,

— turn a blind eye    
to the incantations
of what we're looking at
— lose sight of all    
    we preconceive —

FEEL the music
dance inside the note,
swimming deeply
inside the rivers
   of its soul —
listen searchingly
to the fomenting breeze
as it fans the
smoldering flame
in your heart

   Love is —
an erupted moment;
an enveloping
burst of flames
enkindling
an uncontainable wildfire

an unfolding chrysalis,
butterfly kisses wafting
in the halo around the moon

a thundering heartbeat
a fiery burning  
    ring enrobes —

an enchanted sunset
vanishing into an
evanescent afterglow

The downward spiral
of a burning ember
erupting in a rising moon;
climbing the rungs
of the twilight horizon

Words may sing a sad song
of love and misery;
some say: “love is forever”..,
a hesitant reminder —
your pretty words
and sweet lies
still linger where
sleeping memories lie:
you never really saw
my world straightaway
peering out through
the corner of your eyes

Looking heart to heart
through the glass reflection
within the window
of a poet’s pages,
when nobody else
in sight seems to care,
gazing right past you
like you're not even there;
only posing words
amongst the untamed
waves of emotional depth

Lying to myself
won't ever make
the truth go away
when you hear
whispered words
      grow silent —

Love is more than a ballet ...
but I don't know a thing about "forever"



Jesse Stillwater ... October 20, 2018

a poet's simple truth:


' the only thing that makes you live
is silently killing you trying to let it go '

—

feel the wind whistle
down the tenebrous sky
come to carry away
my silenced heart

hold dear the love
you see through
    my dried  tears —
before  the  glint
doth  fade

lay me down alone,
my dearest friend,
eyes  to  the  sky
   neath the lone oak tree —
atop the meadow hill

where a lonely child
climbed gnarled rungs
in hope to sail away
on fleeting cotton clouds;
dreaming of a place
in the distant sky
to  call  home


Jesse Stillwater ... September 21, 2018

"where it stops nobody knows"

Just a few words connect
threads of thought
in a passing moment

A fray dangles
by a strand of fiber
— a conspicuous      
   temptation—
an interesting
thread to pull:

    If it begins to unravel,..
it just might not stop
until the tapestry
is a tangled ***
of unspooled thread


Jesse Stillwater ... September 2018

Driving up mountain miles
of washboard switchbacks;
jarring the dusty rearview mirror
in my mind:

"but don't look back in anger"  
... I heard you say
stuck in the cloud of dust
befogging my daydream
back somewhere thereabouts
the washed out bridge
that tore us apart
like a flash flood

It was so long ago
since you were running
and I was hiding in plain sight,
from what the storm
in my eyes did tell

Mindful — you were only watching
the growing distance gather;

finding what you didn't lose
looking back to see
   what you can't forget —

like a hesitant child
reluctantly wondering
if anyone was still looking back
at you ―  still running away
from each passing storm


Jesse Stillwater
June   2018

the Silence became
like an old lesson learned

a broken heart intones
a voiceless song
resonating a refrain of Silent echoes
in a voice that never heard a word
yet spoke so clearly ... lingering
in realms of subtle ambiance

soundless remnants
stacked neatly as
building blocks;  
another brick in a wall,
already too tall to see beyond—
growing like a bunker
without a sense of safe harbor

as the Silence became
time and space,
a stillness beset the melancholy air
as if a world without song
foreboding an unpredictable storm
beget vestiges of broken windfall,
reticent leftovers hushed after a gale

s i l e n t l y

an acorn fallen  — became a mighty Oak

a wind-broke twig — became a weeping willow

a neglected child — became mother nature's son

the Silence became
        a blind prophet —
in its voice held forth
smatterings of truth
and undertones of an unrequited
fool’s hope

the Silence became
a strong, abrupt rush of wind
uttering voiceless exhalations of breath;
a hovering dawn mist
    befallen after a summer storm—
surrounding all in all
bedewed in a feigned peace


... the unabated sounds of silence
become


Jesse Stillwater ... July 20th, 2018

I’ve finally stopped
writing
unrequited letters;
there were too many
wasted breaths
left unsent

Lapsing intentions
befallen on timeworn
tawny crumpled  pages;
aging like spent flowers
in fading earth tones
and rumpled paper regrets

Multi-hued words uttered—
mummers of voiceless exhalations
spoken without a sound;
indelible spilled ink
left behind,
lays fallow for so long

A love once new,  and
a growing silent ache—
a hungry heart
left for dead—Déjà vu

We leave a lot behind,
fallen leaves in unspoken ink
a restless soul laid bare
by a passing moment's
random gust;

atrophied
like unwritten poetry
stifled stillborn
in a wadded up paper lament


jesse stillwater ... July 2018

there are the ones
that feel it climb up
the shadow towards the light,
hesitation on every rung,
each wave of the arising
      overwhelms  unabated ―
and woe betides those
who are on the run
from a storm's deluge


A rousing ocean breeze
stirs inside the memory
of an unframed seashell
lying on the hearth mantel;
heightened sensitivity
lapping soundlessly,
spindrift plashing
the shoreline
of another world's
feigned peace


Perhaps the muted voice
of guilty pleasures,
hushed by their own
hidden truths
Feeling the unfelt textures
of every stifled vibration
left unbreathed


The naked truth befallen
so cold and lonely
Running in circles,
volatile as all those
     unspoken excitations raging ―
and the whispers of those
who hear not
the voices in the wind


An emotionally enslaved  heart
tarries,  marooned high and dry
in a memory on a distant sand bar
     lain fallow for so long ―
stagnant darkness
of an unsated soul
gathered on the back
of a parched tongue
sullied wordless


Rising up through
a dusty hieroglyph corridor
through an unlocked
labyrinth gate;  vestige echoes
from somewhere left behind
in an incomprehensible
abandoned wake


It's getting harder and harder
   for an insatiable soul to breathe ...
   climbing up a tree trunk―
up within the silence
of the listening tree


  Toes dug into
the rough bark furrows ―
fingers reaching upwards
beyond their deepest known grasp


A shadow stranded
out on a hangin' bough
hearkening without ears that hear:
“perhaps they’ll listen now“  
the wingless bird sings
in psalms that fly away
on tattered feathers
over untamed waters roil


Back to nature’s waning youth,
the bough bends unbroken
to taste the freedom
of the wild absolving seas



Jesse Stillwater
June     2018

Time is fleeting
as the spring river runoff
that gushes out to sea

A heart trickles out
a moment,
minute by minute,
in a timeless ink drop;
unmeasurable expanse
     immured in spilled ink ―
   manifest in the lexicon of poetry

For only purged words
cannot quench this thirst
that is loneliness;
it's a hunger that gnaws
like an unsatisfiable ache ―
a starving emptiness
all hearts
do one day taste

Left in the sight
of doubt
and eyes that fail
to believe what they see
lain fallow in the silent
indifference

Lost in a lingering void
unburied all around,
bespoken out loud
alone in plain sight
a feigned understanding;
reticent letters shape
reluctant words
to hold forth
enunciated breathe

The only words
that still echo unstilted ―
uttered  words
indelibly felt
from lips once sweet
as daybreak dew
    upon musing tongue ―
tasting the only
voiceless truth
that ever broke my heart

a vanishing wave
that moved an ocean
   deeply ...


Jesse Stillwater ... 06 6 2018

a breath of fresh air
tickles still-waters
a lone swan's quill
let fall, takes flight
  carpe  diem ―
nigh weightless,
buoyantly skitters
across the water,
laissez faire;
barely dimpling
the shallow peace
on a lake in the wood

a wild feather's
mindless pirouettes
emanate from
the steeping silence
lapping  its
superficial  refection  

the true nature
of wildness,
unspoken freedom,
an untamed
wilder – ness
skims the skinny waters
seeking their own level;
leaving no trace
of  ever being  containable
 
like a breath of fresh air
reinvigorates
unconquerable souls
touching in the
conscious moment ―
a gentle passing breeze
arousing a rogue gust


Jesse Stillwater

01    June   2018

☾

I wish I were the Moon
Bequeathing an enchanting night
A mystical celestial sphere
Bewitching lover’s hearts


A practical magic spell
C a s t
In a lonely hollow shell
      An ardent musical echo ―
Released in an irrepressible
Impassioned moan
A twilight sigh
escaping in untamed
Blissful breath


A Sky without Moonbeams
Is like a world without song
It takes a certain darkness
To heed a Sky full of Stars alone


I wish I were Moonstruck
A fate I crave to behold
Waxing and Waning
Rising ― Changing
A distant ocean’s ebbing tide


A captivating enchantment
In the twilight beauty
Of your eyes
Dreaming of drowning
Deep within
Their deepest water’s Wild


I don't want to wake up
    and become ―
More fading
Barefoot traces left behind
On some faded memory's
Deserted shore


Right now is all
There ever is ―
and
I wish I were
The Moon tonight


Jesse Stillwater ... May  2018

A breathe of words ― 
a gust of thought scattered;
welling silence ruptures
bulging vault chambers
with the patience
of tongue-tied hearts

In a long deep breath
pith of soul manifests;
rich with the breathing spirit
of life that's passed

A timeworn lid spinning
on a blue glass jar
Indigenous roots
and memories tender,  
perpetuity gleaned
and garnered
on fruit cellar shelves

Segues of ancient culture ―
evolution derives
from many roots
trying to catch
time in a bottle;
a travelogue
of saved beginnings;
magic beans
in a mason jar

    Life’s native seeds gathered ―
organic building blocks
the immemorial soul
of the earth sown
and reaped;
sprouting unstilted
continuum
for which
ever fleeting time
cannot hold


Jesse e Stillwater
09  May  2018

The deeper the veins
of a silent rising
fountainhead reach,
awaking a muse
more chilling
than the truth
    in the blood ―
a  cold
stillness stirs
that lets me
feel  an
unheeded sigh
cast in the wind

A breathe
of words
from a sudden
burst of silence,
tossed like a
handful of dust
lost in a rush
  of wind ―
a  beclouded
murmur fleeted;
holding your breath
as the aching
passion
manifest,
no longer
containable

I really wonder
if you even know
or care
who's behind
the dark
     cracked glass ―
you learn to live
with what’s broken
   to survive...
learning to look
in the eyes
of a dark horse
in a tight-lipped mirror,
to hear what’s
pushed back down
unswallowed

Staring down
the muted throat
of the voiceless;
feeling the anxiety
of held breath,
turning blue
afraid to exhale

If you look
at these words
and remember
there was nothing
left to lose,
then you'll see
     the meaning ―

I don't need
to hear you
tell me to re-lock
all the doors
I wish I never opened;
knowing there are
still moments
when it leaks out
of my silence

Someday,
at first light,
a songbird
hearkens
the morning
dew's passage;
  I’ll take heed
a song
of deliverance
and rise up
  from
  bended knees ...

but right now
I’m still learning
how to live alone


Jesse e Stillwater

The  same  Love
that makes
you feel
so close
is
The  same  Love
that can leave
you feeling
so  far
away


Jesse

The midnight sun is heading north

These bags are packed with dreams
and the memories of who I’ve been;
To scatter forth like gathered seeds
on fallow hope,
strewn at the mercy of the winds

The genesis of spring unravels
the knotted darkness
Another winter’s aftermath
hidden back on the back shelf
The distance between back then
and now,  is widening
each  Dawn  to  Dusk

A  gust  of  sunlight
plashes ripples
across the still waters
of  depthless  peace

and,
my hands are no longer tied
behind  my  back
by winter's grasp

Seasons  oft  do  change
perennial  as  the  tides

But I don’t want to see
another ocean runaway;
I don’t want to know how
another fleeting moment
ends


Jesse Stillwater

A thrown flat stone skipped
across the snowcapped reflection
breaking the mirror glass surface;

rippling the glaring still waters
the way a trailing piano note
slowly decays to a sobering hush

A gentle puff of silence
segued into a fading
whisper's echo


Jesse