Open bramble gate, morning lets itself in,
eyes open in welcome. Water stirs – a

glance outside. A jade tiger rises,
blue herons fly to South Mountain.

~~~

Forage through herb abundance on South
Mountain sunlight pooled in cassia leaves.

It’s why you reclused here, hermitage entwined
in viridian mists. I find your footprints

headed to the clouds, so I leave this
poem on your wall and on a whim

ascend South Mountain ridges. Sticks
snap underfoot – blue herons startle away.

~~~

Boundless and empty to townsfolk,
South Mountain peaks. But here

immortals dance among indomitable pines.
Above the sun blue herons fly into

paper crumpled clouds – clouds the body,
clouds the wings. Sonorous bird song -

radiant clarity – makes mountain forests
sing, each beat moves the clouds, red

dust cleared from rivers and peaks,
ochre streams flood forests and fields,

canyons and gorges, jades and emeralds rise.
Petals scatter on crystalline swells, night

lengthens slowly – coldness wanders by
but I will linger here, a little longer.

Version 2

South Mountain peaks, boundless and empty to townsfolk.
But here immortals dance among indomitable pines.

Above the sun blue herons fly into paper folded clouds
- azure heaven change – clouds the body, clouds the wings.

Sonorous bird song radiant clarity – makes mountain forest sing,
each beat moves the clouds, red dust cleared from rivers

and peaks, ochre streams flood forests and fields,
canyons and gorges, jade and emerald rises.

Petals scatter on crystalline swells – night lengthens slowly -
coldness wanders by but I believe I will linger here, a little longer.

Version 3

South Mountain peaks, boundless and empty to townsfolk.
But here immortals dance among indomitable pines.

Above the sun blue herons fly into paper folded clouds
- azure heaven change – clouds the body, clouds the wings.

Sonorous bird songs radiant clarity – makes mountain forests sing,
each beat moves the clouds, red dust clears from rivers

and peaks. Streams of ochre flood forests and fields,
canyons and gorges, jades and emeralds rise.

Scattered petals on crystalline swells – night slowly lengthens -
coldness wanders by but I believe I will linger here, a little longer.

Leaning into the afternoons,
I cast my sad nets towards your oceanic eyes.
There, in the highest blaze my solitude lengthens and flames;
Its arms turning like a drowning man's.
I send out red signals across your absent eyes
That wave like the sea, or the beach by a lighthouse.
You keep only darkness my distant female;
>From your regard sometimes, the coast of dread emerges.

Leaning into the afternoons,
I fling my sad nets to that sea that is thrashed
By your oceanic eyes.
The birds of night peck at the first stars
That flash like my soul when I love you.
The night, gallops on its shadowy mare
Shedding blue tassels over the land.

The days of our future stand in front of us
like a row of little lit candles --
golden, warm, and lively little candles.

The days past remain behind us,
a mournful line of extinguished candles;
the ones nearest are still smoking,
cold candles, melted, and bent.

I do not want to look at them; their form saddens me,
and it saddens me to recall their first light.
I look ahead at my lit candles.

I do not want to turn back, lest I see and shudder
at how fast the dark line lengthens,
at how fast the extinguished candles multiply.

She walked through the streets in her shimmering
dress that hugged her skin as if part of her being.
Speaking in tongue misunderstood by thought she
stared not at you but within you as if she was gauging
the purity of your inner grace.

"What's a pretty girl like you doing alone?

"Where did you fall from,

One goaded, smiling she replied,

"I fell a long way down,

"Dii me ridere, [loosely translated]
"The gods are laughing at me?

She smirks at those in plentiful urgency to expel
what time they have on tribal necessities.
Wondering into a alleyway she had a few to choose
from but this one barely lit.

The spider and the fly came to mind, but who
was in the web and who was but a husk waiting to decay?

"Lady you going to have a bad night,

"Bad night, try bad millennium you apes make me laugh,

"Who you calling ape woman?

"Lets see your hairy, you smell, and you scrape your
hand on the ground, no sorry ape is to good for you organisms,

Her dress seems to separate and he hair lengthens to hide modest
of a body of perfection. before there eyes is an angel but her
feathers are as onyx as coal. "See my true from, As screams
bathe the walls and wisps of smoke ascend not to heaven
but fade in the wind. Eyes are charred echoes of where sight
Was blessed now eroded into husks of nothingness.

"Silly little things, when will they learn that there are things
in the night you shouldn't play with,

Walking out of the alley a smile on her face, she hadn't
had that much fun in a while. Scorching a soul wasn't
fun but they weren't worthy of it any way. Now she
was off to see what this nice little black number
would help to get a free drink or two.

There is a silence in the house
An empty voice
There is a lack of something
And I cannot find it
I wake up early
And get out of bed late.
I do little chores but
I never get anything done
I drive to coffee shops
And cafes
I search for places that have people
But still I am alone
And so I come home
There is a vacancy here
That I cannot explain
There is a void that grows
And every day it feels larger
And the silence gets louder
As if the space in which there is no one
Gets bigger day by day
The echo of it lengthens
And the sound of footfalls
And the creak of old wood stretches outwards
And at the end of it all
It feels like a stadium filled with no one
An arena of empty chairs
And all the howling, cheering life
That isn't there

I.

I would not if I could undo my past,
  Tho' for its sake my future is a blank;
  My past for which I have myself to thank,
For all its faults and follies first and last.
I would not cast anew the lot once cast,
  Or launch a second ship for one that sank,
  Or drug with sweets the bitterness I drank,
Or break by feasting my perpetual fast.
I would not if I could: for much more dear
  Is one remembrance than a hundred joys,
    More than a thousand hopes in jubilee;
  Dearer the music of one tearful voice
    That unforgotten calls and calls to me,
"Follow me here, rise up, and follow here."

II.

What seekest thou, far in the unknown land?
  In hope I follow joy gone on before;
  In hope and fear persistent more and more,
As the dry desert lengthens out its sand.
Whilst day and night I carry in my hand
  The golden key to ope the golden door
  Of golden home; yet mine eye weepeth sore,
For long the journey is that makes no stand.
And who is this that veiled doth walk with thee?
  Lo, this is Love that walketh at my right;
    One exile holds us both, and we are bound
  To selfsame home-joys in the land of light.
Weeping thou walkest with him; weepeth he?--
    Some sobbing weep, some weep and make no sound.

III.

A dimness of a glory glimmers here
  Thro' veils and distance from the space remote,
  A faintest far vibration of a note
Reaches to us and seems to bring us near;
Causing our face to glow with braver cheer,
  Making the serried mist to stand afloat,
  Subduing languor with an antidote,
And strengthening love almost to cast out fear:
Till for one moment golden city walls
  Rise looming on us, golden walls of home,
Light of our eyes until the darkness falls;
  Then thro' the outer darkness burdensome
I hear again the tender voice that calls,
  "Follow me hither, follow, rise, and come."

lunar luminance lights his lucent lordly lair.
leaden legs languish lazily as he lay, laconic--
lexical loquaciousness long lost.
his latent lupine lust lignifies and lengthens,
longing lonesomely for his lovely limber lioness.
with lips of luxurious labial liquer,
and licks lapping like lashing lingual lightning,
liquifying his lavish lover, luscious lyrical lubrication.

you have always been half a world away
but now my heart is only breaking more
i don't know if you're really gone
but your silence only lengthens this war

even though you never knew it
you helped fight the demons in my mind
just the thought of you leaving me
erases all hope i could ever think to find

i honestly can't say that i'm surprised
i always knew that one day you'd leave me
but i still don't want to believe it's true
because my heart still says that it can't be

i didn't even know that i could break more
but i guess that's what you do
you poison and destroy
then leave when it's convenient for you

even though you've ruined me forever
to me, love was never a lie
and there is no way that i could ever say
goodbye

if the bottoms of our feet
were repeatedly coated in black ink,
then someone at least would start so see
how much I fall behind.

like the shadow that begins
side by side but slowly lengthens
stretches, pulls away from
your footsteps, I fall behind.

the distance between our strides
leaves clues of one stronger, one weaker,
and it's unclear if the person ahead is faster
or the other is just slower and falls behind.

if i could paint my feet to see
the difference in our gaits that lead
you to be so ahead of me, I would
but I could never stop to look back
without falling behind.

****** lines paint pictures on the road side of their hell.
From the first day they bleed as the key is turned for the final time.
Not dressed for the journey, each step harder than the one before.
Each sunset sees the reaper, his call, the devils smarting roar.
Every new day like no other they will have experienced,
Each new dawn the mist of many spirits aloft,
those remaining, feeling that no one cares.
Aspirations gone,
Dignity lost
Food,water and shelter scarce,
The queue lengthens
The questions get louder
The queue lengthens the questions
Get LOUDER and LOUDER and LOUDER.

Fences erected,
Borders closed,
Armies lined ready to stall the flow,
Humanity lost !
Hidden in a politicians pack.
The questions get louder.
There's no way back!

(c) Robert Kingston 19.9.15

When at the peak voltage
streetlights **** the stars
and behind closed doors
rumbling slumbers
down the cries of the nocturne
awakes a world of opened windows.

Home from the last show
eyes colored with screen idols
shadows huddling over supper
talk of the length and worth
the plot intrigues and intricacies
the creator's whims and fantasies
while unbeknownst the night lengthens
tiring the shadows
that excavate the trash bin's bottom
for living through the morrow.

The filaments feel lonelier
as those last windows shut down
starlight wasted
on an enveloped town.

for Richard, the boy who narrated life*

Today, leaves are falling.
“One day Aaron will watch the falling leaves.”
The first day of school arrives.  
“One day Champ’s mom will take him to school.”

Life is the story of life, says the narrator.

Life expands. The story lengthens.
The intertwined threads begin to pull apart.

Life is surface and sheen,
laughter, tears, opaque signs.
The story strains after fictive frames,
the hero’s epiphany, the villain’s inner pain,
and undreamt creatures beyond human sense.

And so myth and magic
give form to stories
that we no longer star in.  
New worlds take shape
where the story creates its own life,
an escape from "the shock of recognition."

In time the threads converge again.  
Life’s pattern breaks and needs a new plot.
The stories yield their human meaning—
maybe we were in them all along.

The story ends and life goes on.
Life ends and the story goes on.

Inspired by Shel Silverstien’s “Hungry Mungry”

They’re coming. They’ll get me.
They’ll get me, and hit me, and make me bleed my young blood that looks just like theirs,
With skin that looks just like theirs, but something in me’s different.
As different as my mothers before me.

It doesn’t matter.
They’re coming.
Their dark boots clomp down the hall, begging to bash my ribs, or my face, or my shins, or--

--They’re here. They take their fists and their feet and their words, taking turns finding the soft flesh
Covered by my backpack and my shoes and my clothes and my bones.

They found me, and they’ll beat me, and they’ll **** me--
That’s what I think until--
--I change.

I grow. My shins and my fingers and my skull and my toes.
My body elongates, it stretches and lengthens.
I’m still bleeding and bleeding and still bruising and bleeding.
But the blows stop.

They back away, at least I think so, but my body pushes them farther and farther,
I’m pressed against the ceiling, pressed against the lockers, until I feel them give, and I’m free.
I break through the ceiling, I break past the rain, I--

--Stand up. My head skims the clouds, misting my face. I feel myself drift away from this place,
As my head reaches farther, my neck, my chest, my stomach, my legs.

Trees break beneath my feet.
They crack and splinter, just like the houses, just like the schools.

The ground gets farther and farther away, my feet so big they spread across the land and the seas.
I’m blowing up like a balloon, like Violet-*******-Beauregard, from that book I read in in the second grade.
I push back against mass under my feet,
Let them feel the fire, let them feel the heat.
Earth is flying too close to the sun, as I grow, and I grow, and I grow.

The stars drift around me, popping blistering holes in my skin as I grow and push against them too.
I stick my hand in Jupiter, in Neptune, in Saturn.
I crush Mars like a dirt clod inside my fist, and slap nebulas together with a flick of the wrist.

I am the sun, and I am the storm, and the wind and the waves,
From the place I was birthed--

--The place I was birthed? Where was I? Where’s that?

I look to my feet and see naught but a speck,
I do a summersault to examine it closer--

--Not an inch from the Sun, my home withers and dies.

But still I grow, and I grow, and I grow.

Earth is now too small to hold

Still I grow, and I grow, and I grow.

I see so many things from here, but I shan’t get closer, for fear they’ll disappear.
But that’s not enough, still I grow, and I grow, and I grow.

Pushing them away like so many I know.

I hope and I dream for this ride to stop, still I grow, and I grow and I grow.

I grow, and I grow, and I grow.

i have survived
storms.
i have survived a father's voice like thunder;
handprint lightning flowers petal over my skin
like i am a garden to sinners-
adam and eve call my grassroots their home and hum lullabies-
i have survived
anger.
pros and cons of
clock-ticking therapy sessions where money is thrown at my gaze,
fixed on the wall,
dollar-a-second drumming fingers
screaming so loud that heaven shuts the blinds and hangs a "closed" sign on the door.
pros and cons of
stumbling home,
under a murky peerless crowd of smoke,
slurring words trail around and behind me like moths to a porchlight.
morning headaches,
angry adults
damaging drywall and breaking family portraits
exhausting search for answers
exhausting search in a silence that lengthens the disconnect from child to mother
where your mind goes red and the honest truth that stays stuck to the roof of your mouth falls out
where you become an overflowing mailbox and your hands shake
the absence of parents who never taught you to hold your tongue
i have survived
hurt.
i have survived the specific type of loss that you feel in the pit of your stomach
the one that lies next to you
when you stare at the ceiling and your face hurts from crying
tears scrub your eyelids raw and you promise,
"if i ever make it through this,
i will never be here again."
i have survived giving up,
taking it all back, throwing it all away,
parallel structures of contemplation and decision
i have survived
lonely.
angry storms of abandonment, melodies of the lonely and the hurt
i reprise to the ones that add injury to insult,
you are not the worst thing that has ever happened to me.
i echo choruses to the people that force me to grow up at sixteen
i have destruction embedded into my neurotransmitters
i have shooting post-traumatic pain in my memories
i have survived
a hell that your hands are not stained enough to touch.
i assure you,
my love,
i will survive
you as well

Within walls the humdrum echoes
footsteps magnify into monsters
so do journeys untaken, unplanned.
Step by step conquest is mastered
in real motion forward
mountains climbed
distances measured with hard muscle
counted in steps -one by one.

Nothing impossible
to the journeyman

No yardsticks to measure success
even God is a step closer.
Meditate dreams in sequence
until nirvana nears
at the journeys end
and reincarnations materialise
step by step.

Walking on the wild side
lengthens the shadows of darkness
until we fail to see the light
that will lead us back to the beginning
to the first step from where we started.

Step by step
in rhythm with the heartbeat
we all work through life
and onwards into eternity.

Author Notes

Step by Step. ' He who wants to walk the whole world must take his first step'
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

As the sound of her footsteps diminish in proportion to her figure
her shadow lengthens across the street
The horizon eats everything and I am always on the inside
from that same hunger I yell, please.

/

She told me a secret
Now I make maps from empty pages
and hide my poetry in her
I believe in nothing else

/

In the emptiest hours of evening
through an open window to your kitchen
stray animals are lured by the scent of flavours they've never tasted
and I knock on your door hoping you are not home

/

In spite of the chemicals
and circumstances that we are
I kiss the stars and lose my place
upon the pages you are writing

/

I long to be collecting
on your tongue
like snowflakes
like secrets

/

I see now
how
after the third try
a genie fails to complete
what comes naturally
in your arms

/

childhood is a secret we'll remember someday;
for the heroes we were, for the monsters we saved

/

hope everything falls out of your pockets
hope you arrive at the gates empty handed
hope they can forgive you for arriving empty

The cordoned off cricket pitch,
behind orange tape long,
is waiting for the grass to grow
for when the summer comes along.

The leaves are shedding their autumn gown,
upon the grass it lays,
and in her winter-time-zipped-up coat
a small girl runs and plays.

The benches around the park border
sit solemn, scuffed and lonely,
if only someone would put them back together again
before they become broken debris

The sky lengthens overhead,
a puzzling sight to see,
it stretches forth over the horizon line
buckling past the old oak trees,

and the people walk in straight lines narrow,
concentrating on the ground,
if only they’d look up not  down,
they’d see the city’s teeth and not it’s frown

There's times that seem
to fit and make it all more real.

Like the snapping of the
plastic seal on that
cheap bottle of
*****.
Just as she slams the door
for that final time.

Frusciante on the radio
and you with a needle in
your hand.

The seagull who passed and
dropped his waste
upon your sunset.

There's images that swirl
inside your head and
leave behind deep grooves
within your memories

Impressions like her
sculpted face in candle light.
That strung out you in the mirror
that even you didn't recognize.

There's that love you
thought was dead
and those addictions
you swore you
left behind.

There's times and ways
that seem to fit.

And it's what lengthens
this life that are like the
pages of a calender.
One on top of the next
to be written over.

All to be lived
one page at a
time

As your hand caresses my face
Your skin converts to velvet
Every sense has been awakened
Every second of time lengthens to hours

The warmth of your touch
Envelopes this cold heart
Wraps it in a tornado of fire
Washing over me like a soft summer breeze
Resurrecting emotion and lust

Vulnerable to every whim
Fumbling for words, unable to speak
Mesmerized by your gaze
Awaiting breathless, for your next move

I close my eyes and concentrate
On every single touch
On every sound of your breathe and mine
Anticipation will be my end

Now lunacy kicks its hoof,
throwing dust across my heart.
The taste of sour gin
lengthens out the smart.

All the the things I've ever
felt entitled to are gone.
I've felt deeply about too much,
I've felt it all too long.

I guess I understand now,
if to understand is to think.
Where and when and how
are still fabulous unformed things.

There isn’t much reason
to heave these dense veins
unobligated and alone.
I lay down and let the rain

cry for me instead.
On my face I can tell
it wished it was frozen,
cryogenic as it fell

so it could be solid, strong,
colder. It would never fall
again, just melt to a throng
of puddles and vanish.

I realize now nothing
I thought was mine was.
Not the spectacular waves
receding or the buzz

of beer. Not my guitar,
its rich sounds,
that shooting star
that I wished on in the desert

August of 2008.
Not my first lover
or my big brother’s hate.
Right now I discover

what was mine is here:
my veins, my skin, my eyes, my face,
my happiness and hurt:
small sanities in the rain's lace.

A balcony underneath a blanket of stars,
Any other night and it may have been beautiful.
Fearing the unknown; not really knowing what it is I fear.
Standing at the edge of a precipice-
Wondering, waiting for fate’s hands to guide me over the edge,
Or to drag me back into my blinded distrust
Where soothing words smother uncertainties.

Prepare yourself; a thousand questions to which there are no answers,
Only a deathly silence, a blank face, unquestionable-
There is a fine line between eternal slumber and death,
And through the eyes of another I face both.
In darkness, time unmercifully lengthens- in sleeplessness,
I ask myself over and over and over,
But the wind’s whispers are too quiet to hear.

So many others relish the relief of the unknown,
Alone I stand, able to see through their grimaces.
Through self-indulged abandonment have I dug my own grave.
I left you in his healing hands; judgment and doubts aside.
Each marked stone bears the signature of your remembrance,
To all of these days I have walked upon the earth.
Convince me, tell me and take me away from this precipice-
Back into your awaiting arms.

21.09.2010
Anna Elizabeth Rose ©

Friction into reality; I should say into fiction into life.  Small beads form on the upper lip,  Shoes strings become untied, a bottle is cracked as the ship leaves it’s slip.  Fret and cascade escape a troubled brow.  A boat builder an architect leans smirks and shifts toward the end of the pier.  The wake presses a ripple across the bay’s cloudy shiloutte.  Mooring lines tighten righting an unballasted keel.  Its crew makes up chalks and moors with figure eights and half hitches.  Take up slack and pull with the boatswains command.
Captain, Executive officer, and first mate critique fit for crew and evolution.  

Pea coats smocked, boots weather sealed with wax, glove, slacks, hat, and pants.  Stores are stacked and awaiting brow and chain gang.  Rations and stores for 4 weeks.  The harbor’s main berthing finds vacancy at the vessels underway taking.  Bow to stern aspect three hundred feet washed and clean.  She has a 9 foot draft with another 22 feet to the first rail.  

The lines in the boat shore for a nimble light sailing ship.  A clipper maybe,  I’ll wait to report further direction possibly assuming more command.  A cigarette falls from my first *******.  A jostle to my left crafts seagulls posturing a stolen meal.  Sulfur stings my nostril igniting the first of two puffs.  The captian rolls his eyes my direction gives the once over finding his intrest in the rest of the evolution.

A few pier hands set eyes on the clipper, smoking.

Mice run along the wooden edge of the pier away from some of the salted pork and grain.  Two other mice lose courage at my sight line.  XO and first mate shift and turn retrieving my concern.  The brow is being landed at the stern of the ship.  

No decals and no name yet.  At some point Ill find or ask to be apart of the ships crew.  Deck hand, cook, messenger, helmsman, assistant to first mate all compatible with ability.  The first mate chuckles and mentions a figurative by stander knowing that an employment opportunity starts with a  conversation.  

Crew’s first leiutenant for the most part looks squared away and a bit untouchable, salty.  Pants tucked into calf high boots, a beard, pea coat and a lost stare.  Hesitating a bit he grins and settles back to appropriate conversation.

My bag and jacket drop accompany to the stores.  Maybe a slow patient walk aft, there has to be a name for her.  At the stern a marching movement to my right and I can follow the rear of the boat and in peripheral the command group.

The Lion’s Winter in large old English print below a iron clad window pane bounces with the tide to the left and right in a roll.  I can see the ship, now calming into a quiet slop off of the pier and its mooring lines. The rudder is a massive distorted key shaped piece of poplar with copper piano hinges all the way to the back of the keel.  A small blue crab lengthens a breast stroke across the top of the water.  

The three follow the appropriate custom before crossing the brow and the first louie barks a few times.  Two of the ship’s crew begin inventory on stores while a bit of nervousness creeps over the contents of my only possessions.  Wetting my lips I can taste the salt on my face.

One of the crew yells,
“Louie, move him off.  He stump’n around the grub.”
He barks again,
“Turn two.  Got more an him eny’d, a Rat!”

I took that as on opportunity to introduction.  Mr. Louie straightened pursed heels and drained thought from my façade.  His eyes narrowed, he felt the calm of my urgency.  He knew I needed, obliged then walked to conversation.  “Cryme's, you look’n for someone.”

“Humm, a shipmate.”
I could see the it was not the conversation he was expecting.  He leveled, “Pretty tight around here. What do you have in the bag?”

“Mostly books.”  

“You cant cross the atlantic reading books.”

Sharply understood in sponse to kurt, “Is that an opportunity or an intrest accompany to nothing.”

“You can naught cross the Atlantic.”


Tim says leave the world.  I laugh and he says no righting, laughter.

it is what you most fear, your reoccurring nightmare, the thing you can not grasp, understand, that shorts your brain, that death is the end, there is no after life, no purpose to your existence, no just god sitting on a throne, dispensing justice, punishing the evil, rewarding the good. reality is too hard and harsh, you pray to god, is it true, you are more my creation than i am yours.

how do you reconcile the fact that you know so deep down inside is true. you lie to yourself, suppress the fear, repress the thoughts, ignore what you see with you own eyes. the fear rises, the anxiety worsens, the insomnia lengthens, you fall prey to cognitive dissonance. to understand is to forgive, the anger, the irrational behavior.

the idea that you are mortal is unbearable, that you will die, your flesh rot, and be forgotten. how any man can make sense of it and live, court, marry, have children, when the world has spun out of control, the three horses are here. the pale horse is coming, it will soon be time to die.

A mirror is a perception
A trick of the mind
Try looking in a mirror and saying "I'm ugly"
And surely enough that is what you will see
Tainted looks and lost expression
My nose is too big
I have imperfections, including each and every freckle
I am bossed around by worldly views
Through the eyes of fashion magazines and top model
My thoughts pulse and with each pulse my list of imperfections lengthens
I've gained too much weight
I didn't need that sandwich
I need a hair cut
And a possible nose job
I turn away from the mirror
I look at my hands
I feel my waist
I feel skinny
I feel beautiful
So what is with these false perceptions?
These standards of beauty, only meant for a super human
**** the standards
**** the fliers, the model pictures
**** societies standards of me
Because I don't need them.
I've got mine.

Waiting at a café table
You walk in and I’m disabled
Seeing for the first time
The blue-green-grey of those troubled eyes
Lost in the limelight
Where I found you, saw you,
Knew you in this new space,
Feeling this strange rhyme,
Waiting at an intersection of
Strung out weathered hope
The silence lengthens, the stare deepens
Casting what I knew into distant realms,
Reworking the good and
Finding those lines redrawn
I no longer anticipate, but wait
For those answers only you can give,
Those I was never able to predict.

What is it when your dying
That makes you feel so alive?
Synapses shorten
Moment lengthens
There is no time
Only right now as forever

Birth and death
It all begins and ends the same way
And you'll find that in your dreams

There is spirit
Inside of you
As a molecule
Find it
Breathe it in
Let the colors be more beautiful
This life be more meaningful
Die or be born
Dream

You burst into this place

Its always inside you
Just waiting for your realease

The central exhibit for the presence of the other in the human world

As the distance lengthens,
And time grows longer,
Relationships strain and sway,
Like a tree in the wind.

As it bends and creeks,
The roots start to strain.

One by one,
They start to break.

'Til it collapses,
Into a pile of twigs,
That will never again,
Resemble a tree.

Woman to Woman

The salt marsh hangs with a heavy mist in this most tangible expression tiny molecules gives the feeling
Of the tiniest bubbles popping at all points what a sensation of exhilaration to be touched with water
Crystals in the midst of pure wonder lush wet grass this body of water it very perception sooths
Embodies soulful bounds, her eyes soft as her surroundings they still your heart burn with a kind
Intensity landscapes truly wash and swirl through each emotional level that you possess when you are
Touched by this her sensitivity and her intensity your visit lengthens into two parts that are one and the
Same she and you share the outward truth of place and it is impossible to separate her from this natural
State it has flowed in and you witness its outward flow holding you spellbound this is evidenced in what
She has created it’s the outward expression of the deep stirrings that formed seamless unending levels
Of love and appreciation for her surroundings you are invited to bask in these remarkable astounding
Observations now distilled given beautiful expression in these her spirit will dwell and be and unbroken
Tie to her life her creativity her special quality will stand expand with every new breaking day. Held by
Life so rich and full speaking in quiet somber tones to thee a bond was forged so colorful a life dances on
The sun drenched southern waters never will it be diminished and long will it bare the remarkable life it
Lived so fully and masterfully This is dedicated to Donna’s friend Dina Hall.

In the beginning there was procrastination,
and I can't wait to start putting that off.

To begin or not to begin that divides us all.

Deferring action never increases entropy,
and lengthens the life of the universe.

Completion happens once, but delay has no limit.

I'm not dithering, just exploring all the options.

This "beginning" poem has just been hijacked by hesitation,
and dragged down the rat hole of reluctance.

Oh well, there is always tomorrow.
One can always say, my muse took a snooze.

A car pulls up along the shoreside and a man in a suit and tie slides out to find the sand.

The beach has quieted.

A few surfers paddle hurriedly out to sea for a last run in the twilight.

An older couple stands by the water’s edge.

Wisps of the woman’s gray hair flutters above her, caught in the ocean breeze.

The lifeguard station sits quiet, the small, whitewashed house perched on reed-like stilts shuttered for the night, though the sand is still warm from the afternoon sun.

The man rolls up his pant legs and removes his socks and shoes and places them beside him.

He shields his eyes from the splintered sun’s rays as he scans the water clear to the thick black line of the horizon.

A young woman, flaxen-haired, a surfboard cupped effortlessly at her side, the bridge of her nose tinctured white, emerges from the waves.

Wet-suited, bare-footed, head tilted skyward, she hikes along the sand, her day’s work done.

As her shadow lengthens over him, the specter causes him to glance downward.

A few grains of sand have clung to the tips of his polished shoes.

He decides to leave them.

Every time we say goodbye.
by
Jude Kyrie


The ash line lengthens
From my untouched cigarette.
Smoke rings billow
Like clouds passing eternity.

Its past the time of sleep
Only memories flow
Only of you
always you..
The bartender
freshens my drink.

The music weeps from
The sweetness of sound
That only the alto sax
Can bring..
A nelson riddle arrangement
Touches my soul as always.

When you're near,
there's such an air of spring about it,
I can hear a lark somewhere,
begin to sing about it,
There's no love song finer,
but how strange
the change from
major to minor,
Everytime we say goodbye.

It's Ellas trademark song
But we borrowed it.
It was ours honey.
Just for a while.

The whisky burns my throat
As the saxaphone wails.
The ashtray smokes
You are behind its mist.

The bar is quiet and peaceful
The drinks dull all pain.
Outside the rain is falling
The neon lights color
the pavement
in muted reflections.

I see us again
through the window.
Arm in arm
walking in the rain.
Then you float away
Like the smoke
in my ashtray.

The sax builds the last line
Ella almost whispers
*Everytime we say goodbye

The Power of Change can make you deranged
Whether be engaged
or Fazed
Simultaneously enraged
A predisposition that is conditioned to ears
That really Listen
Hymns and silent prayers
Vocals from the ditches
Hissing and Echoing
Pray, loud while we discover right now
Become well endowed
Or disemboweled
By a psychotic mind state
As the crime rate lengthens it is our time to strengthen
That which is inside
For cowardice and pride
It's a lie
Take what is mine
And slam forward through the doors
Winding down time

Whatever it may be--let's face it,
while these rain drops collect like moments
in the valleys of our lives, and rush
away from out-stretched hands
to water the fertile ground of youth.

We must face it.
This rain both lengthens
and diminishes life,
until everything has grown
up around us, old and green.

I miss when we called it ‘new.’
The watery seconds pool up at our feet,
sinking into mud as thick as memories,
so far from our lowered gaze.
We watch these droplets of time-puddles,

Together, afraid to draw ourselves tall,
to be as we were made to be,
and to face each other and the heavy clouds

of everything that is
and never will be

once this rain drifts on
without us.

The crows fly back
Into the ground
A chilling wind
Blows all around

A watching eye
Peaks through the trees
A crying voice
On bended knees

A colorless world
Devoid of reason
Without change
For there is no season

A burning pool
Of water and blood
Petrifies the ground
Sinks into the mud

My shadow lengthens
Stands up on its own
The silence deafens
I wish I weren't alone

Light lengthens as you spin upon my thoughts
Blinding my darkness as you whirl like a top
As if the sun had settled on you
Scandalously running from the sky
“Doom” The phrase, raving men of the world scream in rants
The same phrase oozed from the sap of plants
And echoed as well from all animal's pitiful pants
For not a single ray stayed to shimmer