Spirit that breathest through my lattice, thou
  That cool'st the twilight of the sultry day,
Gratefully flows thy freshness round my brow:
  Thou hast been out upon the deep at play,
Riding all day the wild blue waves till now,
  Roughening their crests, and scattering high their spray
And swelling the white sail. I welcome thee
To the scorched land, thou wanderer of the sea!

Nor I alone--a thousand bosoms round
  Inhale thee in the fulness of delight;
And languid forms rise up, and pulses bound
  Livelier, at coming of the wind of night;
And, languishing to hear thy grateful sound,
  Lies the vast inland stretched beyond the sight.
Go forth into the gathering shade; go forth,
God's blessing breathed upon the fainting earth!

Go, rock the little wood-bird in his nest,
  Curl the still waters, bright with stars, and rouse
The wide old wood from his majestic rest,
  Summoning from the innumerable boughs
The strange, deep harmonies that haunt his breast:
  Pleasant shall be thy way where meekly bows
The shutting flower, and darkling waters pass,
And where the o'ershadowing branches sweep the grass.

The faint old man shall lean his silver head
  To feel thee; thou shalt kiss the child asleep,
And dry the moistened curls that overspread
  His temples, while his breathing grows more deep:
And they who stand about the sick man's bed,
  Shall joy to listen to thy distant sweep,
And softly part his curtains to allow
Thy visit, grateful to his burning brow.

Go--but the circle of eternal change,
  Which is the life of nature, shall restore,
With sounds and scents from all thy mighty range
  Thee to thy birthplace of the deep once more;
Sweet odours in the sea-air, sweet and strange,
  Shall tell the home-sick mariner of the shore;
And, listening to thy murmur, he shall deem
He hears the rustling leaf and running stream.

the grit courage of trust**

still too young and now, too old, to comprehend,
love~trust and all its secondary derivatives,
not extant on a plane of new bed sheets of
silk~linen tablecloth rectangularity

go into the park's garden;
black soil fingernail coating
awaiting, impatiently for you,
dig in direct hands ungloved

is it not,
sensual and yet gritty,
two coextensive sensations?

slip inside (you/me, me/you),
there is a razor's edge duality duty,
trust, serve and protect,
take and
handle with rough-care, for this our state of beauty
au naturel, the rush and the fall,
the climb and the conquering,
only to start again, each step, each rung,
coated with the
the grit courage of trust -
                                          do you begin to comprehend?

trust is a bumpy landing on a glide path that is strewn
with potholes that can grow into sinkholes without
the grit of trust

the soles of my feet are a message,
gritty from walking
all-life, not just the edges,
is a two act play of roughening,
upon the limbs the things,  
that carries us *****
but bares the wearing of
unkind touches of reality
working us over

why the soothing,
but not the smoothing
daily twice is the cream that
emerges from the grit courage of trust

even the vinery's progeny of great love,
grapes that must
embrace the wind and rain,
the wearing down tools of
the exterior that brings an acknowledgement -
                                                            do you begin to comprehend?

this is not an algebraic formulaic solution solvable problem,
this derived from dirt, access to accidental, the tongue and the nail,
the cracks upon the skin, that grow wonderful deeper, unfillable,
where the love gets in,
were the words are written and stored,
rough to the touch,
under the grit courage of trust -
                                                       do you begin to comprehend?

this grit is unbelievable beautiful  
only a love po-em.      


5:22am

I remember when I was young
I would blow eyelashes off the tips of my small fingers
And wish for a pony or a unicorn
Literally
I was a cliche kid
Into all the Barbies and sparkles and soccer
And now I'm still a cliche kid
With hipster glasses and an ego to match (none)
Now, when I wish upon those dying stars
I hope for something more
Like money
Or happiness
Or freedom
Something to spare me time to have fun
Because I'm too wound up nowadays
From the stress of school (ugh)
And the problems of my family
And those eyelashes blown from my roughening skin
Is spent on much more meaningful things
Than fantasy story creatures
Sorry to disappoint.

i.

the sun burns the grass and the ferns,
they melt under a bright sky,
roughening, like the tongue of a cat,
the grass with its brown sandpapers.

ii.

the flowers pray for me and my
watering can, on a dirt track
the water splashes and the earth
drinks deep, the trees shiver
at the thought of water, their
branches sway, this is to dance -
leaves with patterns scattering -
leafy shade and pools of bright
sun.

iii.

drawn out of the air a drawbridge
of breeze raising its portcullis and
suddenly the heat is bearable,
shadows and sun like a patchwork
quilt.

iv.

we wait for summer, tender-eyed,
smouldering in the heat, the trees
like colossal statues of bronze
stretching branches beneath the canopy
of a green sea in a dream spun
from ebony.

v.

i kiss you, grazed by this
orient sun, my heart
seeking yours, my
legs longing for your legs,
my limbs threading
with yours
while summer
sings of her forgotten
ghosts.

lingering,
dab, we’re spitting,
moisten our fingers
and spread an understanding fear
quickly on our foreheads,
a mark of thoughts unread,
drenched neatly
reading themselves and tying
knots in chewed, spat-out
hair, textured thick and tuggable.

my my,
how you’ve changed,
apologies accepted and regurgitated,
bruises healed,
a roughening granite pattern
pressed on your skin
for attention purposes,
a knowledge bank.

a scream flips itself,
fetal in the wires of your words,
read underneath, through the sickness
there’s a density
gentle and curved,
it waves funnily at strangers
and cowers in front of that black dog,
she sleeps on the porch
because of her lack of emotion.

On the surface of her eyes,
An algal pool in full bloom.
He wades in with his lashes, caught,
Stumbles around in the fishing nets
Soaked to the knee.

The place in which the oxygen should be
Is choked up now, perplexed, verdant,
A floating city of jealous skirts
Buffeted by a harsh March wind...

And further down, he has her pinned
Tracing paths in shallow waters
Close yet distant to seashell ears
Roughening the lilypad surface
With a single feather.

Through algal bloom, she wonders whether
He'll bother wading down to meet
The covert Atlantis beneath his feet.

We are the wild ones, so curious and superb. Hyper-expectations, mainly magic and its' feral treasures, we all welcome aboard. We are the technicians of the sky, messengers of the infinite moons. Inside the scythes and harpsichords, explosive reiterations of gravity and inner body magnetic yearnings.

We are stacked and galavanting in stockyards, whips at our sides, leather roughening its unstitched oiled calf hides up the hands onto these ethereal imaginings of utopian unicorn, walrus, and seahorse.

We represent the catalog of diversity. You are not as hidden as you think and you must not be. We of the wise wrestling candles off of our staffs, we count the mountain rich mountainside. Red, clay-capped, snow and hidden saplings adjusted against the rows of the peaks and plateaus.

We are named for our perversions of nature, our tolerances towards myriad injustices spanning our existence's time-sensitive minutia. We may be the kings and queens of Lollibellum, our flights have landed, our hands filled with duct-taped newspaper wrapped packaging and knock-off designer bags, a cardboard box with a few books that survived the burn.

The serene wisdom thus engraves;
with feathers and taste buds all across my mind..
The winds,some old chum of mine,grips,
though slips..gets ran over by the laughter's cry..
O Hail! Mind of ready sarcasm..
Looks back and forth,as the numbness blind
me..and slowly captivates the ambiance..
The fingers that point,resemble my sweet summer cravings..
The finger thus slips by..with the rough end roughening
my skin..bleeding ecstasy of black...
The wisdom follows you,once again..
Once again am I breathing,still in vain..
Watching you slip away like the wind around your fingers..and
the roughened pieces of blunt heart,disturbed eyes..
slowly closing to hold you back..thus..
Once again,with that literate grin..i welcome death..
Oh! Once again.