I know it's late, but I'm
At home alone with
A couple of six-
Packs and a guitar and the
Love of my life just gave
That Old *******
Cancer the finger, so I'm

Drinking and playing and
Singing until my liver,
Fingertips and throat are
Bleeding
Since the radiation and
Chemo don't have to
Make her bleed any

More, and
I've got something to celebrate
Unlike anything I thought I
Ever would in a life that
I mistakenly thought of
As rich until
This.

I look out of my window at
Stars and a moon that
Pretend not to
Give a **** in their
Neutral shining and stuff,
And I'm less poet than lover.
I've got all night

For this evening.
It's mine, and like
All else that is: Hers.
I know she's with friends.
I know she laughs.
I hope she misses me less
Than I do her,

And just celebrates her
Beautiful new
Lily-like blossoming into
Deathlessness.
It's as alien to her
As Life to a
Newborn.

Eroding brick wall
all that remains
refracted, fading
fishermen shadow
red dawn’s early light

brackish still water
shocked violent green
seeps from the desert
to be subsumed
by an unrelenting sea

restless dreamers rise
muscle sturdy pangas
into the churning tide
seeking quicksilver
at the continental edges

returning boats ride low
the shrinking horizon
race to safe harbor
cold beer on ice
under palm palapas

in the restaurant
a young man
shows off tuna
half as tall as he is
to admiring tourists

like me, seeking
the deep, slow burn
salt, jalapeno, lime
a fitting end to this
unraveling dream

Pueblo Mágico
of “no bad days”
walls of contention
in a fractured land
will never separate us

one margarita, two
another raised in defiance
of those who would try
to confine and define
free-range spirits

the Pacific touches
this contiguous shore
from equator to pole
we could catch
a clockwise current

follow Polaris up North
arrive transformed
magnetically charged
disparate souls fused
together bound

We let each other go
With the wisp in the silence that was in between
You had hurt me so deeply
But you'll never know
For it was time to let go

There are no hard feelings,
No second guesses,
You did what you said
For the first time ever

And trust me
It was a breath of relief knowing that we were free
From these bounds that we once called home

I'm sorry that it didn't work out how we wanted it to
Or how we imagined it would be
But that was for the best

I wasn't made to be in your life forever
And that's okay
People change

However the world still stays the same
It'll still rotate on its axis
And the world would move on

This isn't such a bad thing,
We left a mark together in our own worlds
In our own way
That's what matters most

Our time has come to a close
But that is not such a bad thing
It was for the best, my long lost friend

I wouldn't change a thing

This is goodbye, my friend

I wish you the best

A little girl in handmade dress.
           Black shoes with  
White knee-high stockings.
                       Shy eyes framed
By and hiding behind
            Long  curly
            Blonde locks,
Waiting with me at
                   The bus stop
Each school morning.

Vulnerable  
             Protected from the harsh
Outside world.
               But nothing can completely
Shut out its
                             Cruel essence.

The outside
                       Can creep in or the
Inside holds dormant
                      Outside influence
Like the eggs of the proverbial tree
                      Lizard laid among  eggs in a
Bird's nest  
             Remaining dormant to eventually
Hatch to feed on the newly born fowl.

Faith soothes the pain
                     By daily standing
On the sidelines
                     Of the pantomime
Of the mundane

As lush dense
Ivy reaches
                         For the sky but must
First slowly crawl
                              Over a cold
Gray wall of stone  
                               Reaching
For dreams and ideals
                          Once clearly seen
On the horizon of the
                      Unobscured  plains
Of childhood.
                    A bit harder at the myopic
Foothills of youth.  
                       Now harder than ever

At the jagged  
                  Snowcapped mountains of
Adulthood.

The curly locked
                             Little girl still lives
After all these years.  
                             Lives on to
                         Balance the weight
Of disappointments
                    Compressed by daily
Reminders of that

Once dormant inside
                       Influence unleashed
In the innermost
                      Sanctity of trust.

Lives
In the security
                        Of ideals gradually
Becoming reality.

                       That place in the heart
That no one can touch  
                             That no one can
Invade.

Thank God that home is where the heart is!

                     ¤¤¤

a single flower can change a mind
seeing flowers where others see weeds
you are not far from nirvana.

.
How I wish I could lay my head
down gently on your thighs,
to make you moan and sigh aloud
and slowly close your eyes.

How I wish I could use my tongue
and give you more than rhyme,
to bring a flush up to your cheek,
of feelings beyond space and time.

How I wish that I could speak
in words of feathered certainty
and so entice your curious mind
to lay down with me for eternity.
.
.
© Pagan Paul (2017)