Your eyes mirrored pools of black
ink and I never knew that the flask
in your pocket would keep me wide
awake into the morning.

The olivine porch outside your country
home was shaped with darker thoughts
and milkweed seed that left me
wondering how you wake in winter.

You lived as a sleeper in the valley
with a zirconium smile and when light
rained down the glass of your hanging lanterns
would break across the sky.

The smoothness of smoke that wrapped
around my lungs kept me lurking
in the corners of drowsy living
and drunken rainbow fires.

You could never offer me more
than what I already had.
So as with everything, the end came
and now the wind is blowing prismatic stars.

Mine queen
Mine easterly wind
That saveth me.

Mine beautiful
Darling of lives
Long lived.

Tis again O'
Tis again, we
Shalt touch ourn
Tissue to intertwine
The mind's of two archaic
Soul's; mine lady, mine home.

Obsidian shalt I wrap around
Thine toes, Olivine crystal to
Grace thy structured shoulder's;
Yellow Spinel as like Ray's of ten-
Thousand star's glittering thy ear's.

Lass, lady of the Orient; wipe away
Thine tear's, for eternal year's art ourn
Own to capture from nonending cloud-walking.
Yea, verily, the Azure's art singing as we shalt chant
"Bala roush, anakar crean monostipi", ourn amare to be uplifting.
Godliness and Impartial giving, life is love, and heaven-sending.

Beginning in 1963,
My Favorite Martian on vintage TVs
Instamatic 50s, capturing instant faces.
Elizabeth Taylor, and James D Hardy
JFK, and Magic Bullet Theory.
Go Away Little Girl,
Our Day Will Come,
Easier Said Than Done.
Surf City.

Remember that day in
St. Joseph, Missouri?
Sitting on the front porch
A boy with his guitar?
Music igniting his fire.
Lincoln Nebraska, to Minneapolis,
Where his story truly begins.

University and Limited Warranty,
Fatherhood, a family man.
Sun Shot Halo
Signal to Noise
Olivine.
Rising with caffeine.
Crispix and Bobby’s World
Little red television set
New Hope kitchenette.
Bedtime routines
Beverley Hillbillies Theme
And of course, The Hobbit!

This is the life he chose,
Chasing those music notes
Daydreaming for daylight.
This is the life he chose
Brew Pubs and Rock N Roll
Well you know, it’s just how it goes.

His hands are calloused,
Weathered, and grown.
Saving vibrations and inspirations
An hour glass inside his bones.
Steady on the Timeline
Moving Things in the right direction
From Coast to Coast.
Columbia coat and winters freeze
One last drag on a Malboro.
Surly-Furious triggering the spark
Sing it loud and let the world hear,
Like a match lighting up the dark.

Coming down to earth now,
There is a little girl
Who he inspired to be all that she could be.
Remember King Olaf?
Thumb controlled airplane rides?
Bedtime PB&J;’s, Don’t forget the crust!
Boy Bands and car rides across the map
Backyard jams and the punk scene
Kids of the black hole, those patched pants!
Mosaic window panes illuminating her soul
Like the Phoenix of Legends
She Said She Could Save the World.

Silhouettes of who she ought to be  
All Along Screaming Save Me.
So many names and faces,
For a moment the chains fell away
Fighting for control,
But he would never let go.
She’s coming back from the hits
Escaping the jail cell that once held,
Her confidence.
Passion ignites from within her bones
Waldorf mind set
Willingness to be selfless.
Social Worker,
Photographer,
Warrior;
His Daughter.

Saturday morning bike rides
Father and Daughter.
The best moments in life
Kept inside picture frames.
Northeast artist scene,
The Matchbox, 331, Dusty’s, and the Slacker
Only in Old Minneapolis.

Throwing stones into the fire,
She knew she had won because
She inherited his heart;
So step out of the blue,
I want you to know
I Love You.

This is the life we chose
Chasing those music notes
Daydreaming for daylight.
This is the life we chose
Brew Pubs and Rock N Roll
Well, you know, it’s just how it goes.

© Jo Tomso

Serpentine of hard green sheen
Born in hydrothermal’s spleen
Where pressured, metamorphosed plate,
Converged at boundaries’ Vulcan gate
To lay in tumbled disarray
Where octopi and dolphin play.

From olivine and pyroxene
Derived the crystal serpentine
Through Hellfires’ metamorphic fate
Now crystalized to Greenstone state.

There lying in the golden light
Of mountain stream in tumbled sight
Refracting in the morning sun
That glint of green since time begun.

M.
That glint of green, a jade boulder
in the tumbling mirth of a plummeting
mountain stream in New Zealands'
wild Southwest.
Jacksons Bay
Fiordland National Park
June 2017

Amongst the leaves I am a conductor
I have guided their hue and told them their future
they have agreed

I am a wanderer, I am Bede and lost amidst the cockles
I have bled and tasted the Salton Seas

I will give my entire wealth of the universe which is replenished
I will show the world the gift of my unknown

It is soft chocolate that has melted in the heat
It is a love that is unrequited and dies inevitably

I am a philosopher and upon my hill I view some lady in the garden
She is beautiful but of the state and in that way I cannot be
I am a trader of knowledge and wealth is the secret I guard enviously
She will never have this treatise

I will grow old and wither on the steps of the acropolis
I will become food for the olivine complexion of her skin
I will be the very foundations of her visions
I will touch the corneal fragments of her children

I am a faker and a figment of imagination

I will talk of human
conflicts. No one was targeted.
Like you pick up a slug―
and make a thermonuclear device.

That green-tinted sand,
olivine. I will spread―
on your path, so that you
can breath easily.

This was a tranquil treatment―
before I become dazed in
polluted air of the earth and get
a thrombus. One man lives,
other man dies.

This ***** city was growing. I
will bear the blame. I
have not stopped writing
poems daily.

I want to be something great,
But according to everyone else,
That's well beyond my years.

Why is it only my youth they comment on?
Are they admitting I'd be better off than them,
If I was aging on 41?

A poet is somebody who writes poem,
Not someone, old, who writes a poem.
So call me a poet, or that is what you are not.

Back in school I submitted my poem for an English assignment.
I got back marks, so I vowed never to use my poems again.
But know all I want to do, is shove my poems in front of you.

Have your opinions about whom a poet should be,
Just don't use them to disrespect me,
And my stupid poem about olivine.