it’s 12 degrees outside
excluding the breeze, I hide
behind the rising smoke
of the cigarette just lit,
my fingers are falling off,
nails ripping to the marrow
a ****** stutter impairing speech,
a seizured grab to the fleeced pocket
leaves only the other hand to freeze,
such a sacrifice to something
old-me said I didn’t need,
I kick around snow
as my leather boots wear a
coat of white as I shiver
and inspire, throwing a black
coat over my lungs
“hey do you have a lighter?”
“yeah”
the ash sails down
and kisses the filter and a flick
collides the ember to exhale it’s final breath
to the frozen floor,                                                    
I step inside and
suddenly, I’m cold again.
                                                                               MJB

Satired attempt of release. I give in.  I fall. . .
Still uncertain of radical advances in spirit: society’s breached birth of the familiar
Bound and gagged, clung electrical beauty transpired in beads of the dis-pristine

I unravel.  I create. Torn from all known peace in chaotic slumber; I am preserved.
*****.  My sonata spent like the lost cries enveloped in simplicity.
And it cries.
It cries for what it doesn’t know or understand
A seizured wall of insecurity left blind to the rest,
and sometimes infurity.
*****. Held. It smiles for now,
Wondering what comes next.

Freedom, my fickle friend,
How nice of you to come.
Shall I take your coat?
Or will you creep furtively in the corner like last time?

Why so shy, freedom?
Your reputation precedes you.
Your triumphs trumpeted universally,
You’ve an entourage of millions.

Ah,
Freedom has a secret.

Statuesque, god-like, beautiful.
I cut you open one night,
While you holidayed in Nod.
A cat in the night, I crept inside,
Looking to unlock my door.

Instead I seizured in nocturnal vision.

Your breath notstirred.
Your blood notran.
Your heart notbeated.

Shriveled demon,
There is no hiding under the scalpel.
Your mask is torn off.
You wolf in sheep’s clothing.
You rotten peach.

Come not when you are called,
For I know already too much self-contradiction.

A glance. Then another.
Where a thousand smiles,
and laughter, hiding, finally found light;
Though lips moved no more than eyes.

Caught. Captured. Drawn in.
Like inescapable black hole gravity,
Taking us to an unknown realm;
The start of a glorious adventure;
A destiny we've always known.

In late nights, where questions became our partner;
Where longing had become our friend;
Where songs of Mississippi blues origins,
Teased; mocked, our souls;
Laughter, passion, shared thought,
Replaced them with answers.

We found memories that have yet to happen;
Comfort, yet to exist.
Tenderness, following seizured passions,
Burned audacious passions within our chests.
Fallacious reasoning?  Imprudent coordinates plotted?
Not from the pilot's seat;
Mind; heart; spirit; guided the inevitable course of your soul's smiling gaze.

Now we are lost again;
Unsure of which path to take;
Questions as our company; longings as our friends.
Is it unfair to wonder? To wish? To dream?
Is that only torture? The life unseen?  
The passions,  only distractions from past and present obligations?
Were we stealing away what wasn't ours?
Or are the choices of the past, stealing away from us?

I know I can't answer those questions,
Sitting with my old friend, the blues, strumming;
haunting twangs in darkness; without laughter; without passion;
with your thoughts frozen and alone.
I think; I feel, I know. Yet your late night friends are a part.
They murmur quietly, indiscernibly; as if unstudied answers on a test.
Ones you feel you know; but frightened too much for rest.
It all could have been just one more life quiz;
To redirect our life's journey; asking what we shall miss.
If that be the purpose; no regrets will have claws.

I'll cherish the connection;
I'll remember the glance;
The smile of your soul has sparked in me, again;
A passion for a chance I'd hidden as if not wanted for fear of loss.
And though it might seem crazy, as weirdness abounds my being;
I DO feel loss. I DO miss memories unseen; swaying dances unrealized.
Yet, the silliness of pain is tolerable. I'll sleep again someday;
And dreams awakened, once lost, will guide our way (s?).

--Shane Bowles

I will not be punished for what I feel
I will not let the anti-vagabonds knit together the
unsanctioned holes in my chest
Color will dagger
prisms will blind between ribs
And every day that I trudge through blank stares
and twin smiles
my hair will tangle and the moons of grit will sleep soundly
in nail beds
I'll keep chewing on words that free themselves around soul connections
Never swallowing them down
in fear that I'll be stuffed on my own metaphors
instead of the gorgeous others that await my digestion
of their seizured energy
I find myself, a rookie artist
thumbed down by grey roles
that fit me like a bustier made of hornets