Beneath the skin of the world,
there are names no lips have touched in centuries.
They linger in the mouths of ghosts,
curl in the spaces between prayers.
What do we call the ones
who have outlived even memory?
Perhaps nothing.
Perhaps that is the final death.

hands reaching in to grasp some of the fire
spun from stars and suns
- a tribal dance
-drumbeat hearts
-woven songs of creation
-light in minds
-fire in souls
-eyes witness love
- the changing seasons
-hard fought understanding
-wisdom of the ancestors
-a living out traditions.

She,
voracious reader, nearly a book a day,
she loves Rushdie, Ishiguro, E. Stout,
and so many, many more, a daily add
to an ever growing list of auteurs, all
venerable and venerated, my little bits
pale, don’t even qualify to compare,
so what’s a poet to say, or feel, beside
tears in his eyes, so hereby withdraws his
awarded accolade, HGF,
His Greatest Fan

now that there is a vacancy, looking for
fufillment, now that there is a hollowed
hallow plus a clogged artery, side by side,
both within,

even
an officialized fossilized a
doctor declaration of “chronic heart failure”

who knew docs still diagnosed love sickness?

loss of love could manifest
itself so decisively physically,
and yet I blame her not, and
thank her for the inspiration,
for all the poems birthed in
her presence, and what swill
will /may follow will never be as good,
for memories inevitable yellowing,
discoloration infestation inevitable,
earn my pallor palest poverty
and like a used car, good enough
for daily trips to the office, but not
for cross country trips,

and perhaps
that means,
only smaller,  
somewhat
used up,
and  e v e n
not only,
only love poetry

open to direction
road trip to
Sweet Sorrow Land

I make them smile,
not for ease,
nor for the brief bloom of laughter—
but because the world is a weight,
and lightness must be carved
by hands willing to bear the chisel.

I have seen sorrow move like a tide,
dragging its wreckage ashore,
leaving eyes hollow, shoulders bent,
hearts shaped like doors
that open to emptiness.

I have watched the weary—
not dying, but unlit,
not grieving, but undone—
souls curled inward like autumn leaves
that never learned the grace of falling.

So I place joy like a candle
in the cavern of the ribcage,
let it flicker against damp walls of doubt,
let it whisper—however briefly—
that there is still warmth, still wonder,
still a reason to lift the chin
toward the sky and call it home.

A smile is not salvation,
but it is rebellion—
against the hush of despair,
against time’s indifference,
against the notion
that we are meant to suffer in silence.

Let them call me foolish—
say laughter is fleeting,
that joy is a trick of the light.
I will still shape it, scatter it,
send it forth like a dandelion seed
that does not care
where the wind takes it—
only that it was given,
only that it was free.

Come,
Walk with me.
Through nature and the wild.
To the precipice of shadows
Where no mortal has defiled.
Past the last bastion of light
Death throes of the civilised.
No remnants of sentiment
To the trees, we shall confide.

So we will journey, we shall go.
Travel to where the maps won't show.
Embark to where here dragons lie
Neck stiff,
Head tilts toward the sky.
Each pinprick becomes a question,
The void another lesson,
Constellations, a reason why.
Then as those final embers mellow,
Residual engraving on our eyes.
We turn away, heads high and bellow,
That which lives will never die.

I bow to no man, god, nor country,
But for you I would take a knee.
Walk upon a shore of glass
Proclaim vows unto the sea.
A voice once lost in tides,
The winds and ocean swell.
Found again once more upon
Echoed whispers of a shell.

music
fills my world with light,
dancing to Cavetown in my room,
letting the happiness fill me up
like nectar
falling asleep to Madilyn Mei,
listening
until the world goes quiet,
a rare moment of pure joy
despite the cloudy uncertainty of the world,
i exist only for myself in that moment