Within a world of azure blue,
the mantas glide with angel wings,
and fly on winds of ocean waves,
inside their realm of mystery.

Like ancient beings from the deep,
they flash and shimmer in our light,
with other-worldly mammoth forms;
cephalic fins and flattened frames.

These gentle giants of the night,
draw fishes from the briny deep,
their vivid forms flash to and fro,
feed on the banquet of the sea.

They dance balletic in our lights;
exquisite, rings and summersaults,
with bubbles lit to guide their path,
they glide just past our mortal reach.

These stunning marvels of the deep,
are but a finite sampling,
of what our planet offers up,
far past our wild imaginings.

Art, unborn,
aches to find form;
to manifest itself.
Within me it screams,
while those around
remain deaf to its cry.

It claws to free itself
from mortal chains,
restless to share its vision
with the world;
to tell its story
in verse and beauty.

This art within,
impatient, cannot wait.
It struggles to find
its voice
within my finite days
and world.

Until at last,
like a volcano,
unable to restrain that voice,
it erupts,
and my art flows out,
spilling onto paper.

The words and images
become solid,
taking form,
giving birth to the art within.
Thus, completing me,
quieting the cry inside.

The sea,
angry with a distant storm,
surrenders its treasures
at my feet.

Bubbles and red tide
skirt its edge,
glisten in the early light
as breakers roll in.

Coquinas balance on tip-toe,
dig back to safety
while gulf currents
wash them clean.

Sea breezes
sweep in,
cooling, as the
sun lifts its mighty head.

I cracked the window to my past
wondering, hoping, I was strong enough to bear
what was left of the pain
of the life I’d left behind.

But the pain, still real, erupted inside
ripped wide the scar.
Blood and tears combined, exploded
and filled my mind and soul with fear.

I feel myself slip down that lonely road again
being drawn down that black ribbon;
its blackness seeps in through the cracks in my soul
and muddy the joy I knew.

How can I brace myself against
the tide pulling me,
holding me,
enveloping me,
and dragging me down
until I no longer can breathe
beneath its endless waves?

I fear now I may never be so strong
as to face my memories.
So I entomb these behind a mighty shield
like the Chernobyl of my past.

What’s more important, a gun or a life,
a religion, belief, or a child?

Our focus is lost, on extremes that have cost,
us the lives of the many defiled.

Weapons, religion, and money, we’ve made,
give us power to help or defend.

But the weapons we’ve made, and the choices they gave,
became blood of the many that died.

Religions of earth still dividing our world,
were created for souls to be fed.

And money and gold, here to help, we’ve been told,
made us greedy and haughty instead.

We forget that mankind is much greater than these,
calling us to refocus our hearts.

For these can be solved with one law you recall,
that encompasses all of mankind.

Mankind: our brother, our sister, our mother,
remember, that we all are one.

Let me ask this again, what’s important to men:
a child, a belief or a gun?

We live in times of greatest fear,  
and hear the echo of the past,
in words of those we can’t ignore,
and lessons of historic years.

Wars and their rumors speak to us,
of violence and the end of days,
as voices whisper in the lines,
of those we join in nightly news.

We stop our ears to those who plead,
for us to listen to their truths,
and point our finger for mistakes,
at those who have the most to lose.

We hide our eyes from blatant facts,
because they don’t affect our lives,
and so become a puzzle piece,
of people's war against itself.

The voices held in mortal screams,
of those beyond our backyard fence,
with children paying for our greed,
the future of our lives foretold.

But now with nowhere we can hide,
from evils living in our world,
our future lies upon the truths,
that are so carefully concealed.

It’s past the time we take a stand
within the shores we call our own.
Our country split, beliefs held tight
though voices hushed by fellow man.

The crack of guns in troubled hands
have bloodied floors of learned halls
and made us cry in distraught pain,
to see our young ones die for naught.

But though the crimson stains remain,
its youth rise up against the tide
of those who seek to serve themselves,
and make us hide our heads in shame.

Join with the youth who take this stand
and choose to make their voices heard,
for they are what our future holds,
and make us face our blackened souls.