she is coming to our gardens very soon
she'll have a paintbox of colors so bright
her vividness will be a spectacular boon

she'll splash some purple and orange light
on trellises and pathways to add her glee  
she'll have a paintbox of colors so bright

pink blossoms she'll place on the plum tree
twill make the bees hum a happy refrain
on trellises and pathways to add her glee

spring's lively lass is returning once again
every part of our gardens beautifully decorated
twill make the bees hum a happy refrain

birds shall twitter at what she has painted
her glorious canvas shall be a delight to see
every part of our gardens beautifully decorated

she'll have a vivacious palette to spree
her glorious canvas shall be a delight to see
she is coming to our gardens very soon
her vividness will be a spectacular boon

we are sacred and scared just the same as ever
the passion and the rage never seems to dissipate
what shades and shadows shape our souls
the hourglass flowers towards never-ending spirals
humans are blessed with their own fragile memories
like spades and sparrows they dig holes and make nests in the sand
though we have escaped the trails and trellises of our transmutations
on trade-winds we still must sail to reach our destinations

the fabric of her dress
clinging to a garden
of flowers
holding the contours
of her landscape
with blends
around the corner bush
for his pleasing material eye
she spreads
tempestuous the vine
colors of the rainbow
arching
along
contemporaneous
as the wallflower awakens
to the erecting wall
and winding trellises
tasseled are the tongues
as the songbirds
come to coo

Logan Robertson

3/19/2019

What a perfect setting to tell this love story just like the land her heart was barren and Georgia O Keefe
Speaks of it perfectly “Such a beautiful untouched lonely feeling place such a far part of what I call the
Faraway” how many times had she dreamed of being able to lay her head beside another on the pillow
But still the years increased and no prince rode into view against the backdrop of what others saw
Just as weary empty barbarous land the artist O Keefe with fine acute sense ability blended contrasted
Harshness to bring forth exquisite beauty from bovine grazing herds to one individual that left only its
Whitened scull stared with empty eye sockets on the cruel reality of an unforgiving land but even this
Spoke an unequivocal announcement of beauty rugged startling severe the sun sky and earth told the
Story of quiet irreversible glory magnificence magnified multiplied would capture and enthrall even
Greater than when this creature lived and breathed as well her life would whisper the sweetest accord it
Was like a life time had forgot then with richest hues the flames leapt to daring and fulfilling life truly
She was driest tender what moisture there was derived from tears of regret and longing just a tender
Touch With feeling and passion it came to full expression when she stood at the end of this great field
The sun Dried weeds started to stir from the rising breeze she stood there beside a lone tree and as this
Picture Took full hold of her soul in the distant horizon her answer of a lifetime of longing arrived on the
Wind he dropped his biplane gently upon the face of the field a golden rush overtook her feelings like
A Flower without water she was in a state of drawn feebleness and want now her skies were filled with
The wonder clouds of rain they came in a fury after the long draught she didn’t know this clearly but she
Sensed it with womanly intuition two kindred spirits now would come to know fulfillment because at
The Center of everything love is predominate and it’s not just a feeling it’s a person he goes to the very
Core and center of existence he sees and truly knows when the sparrow falls he all so knows when we
Fall in love first because he arraigned it took it from the fragile frail wisp of thought gave it a birth place
In the heart and as it grows it ends up ruling a life of love and devotion but for misses Beal it was just a
Another day for Jon tungsten it was just a time to do a little barnstorming in Santa Fe the fall had been
Full and promising now it became even more gratifying and promising this land at first considered a
Tortuous place gleamed and was unalterably a dreamscape how tenderly wonder touched and wound it
Self around your emotional well being but for the moment our heroine returned to her job a quick
Telling of the hotel La Fonda where she worked “La Fonda is a Santa Fe landmark, just steps
Away from history and art museums, a variety of galleries and shops, historic churches and, of
Course, the Plaza. The historic inn’s Pueblo-style architecture features thick wood beams, latilla
Ceilings and carved corbels. Special touches such as hand-crafted chandeliers, tin and copper
Lighting fixtures and colorful tiles add character and charm. Beautiful hand-carved and hand-
Painted furniture and displays by local artists create a rich ambience. La Fonda has always been
A Local gathering spot and a hub of activity. World War II journalist Ernie Pyle wrote, “You
Could Go there any time of day and see a few artists in the bar…a goateed gentleman from
Austria or a Maharajah from India or a New York broker… You never met anyone anywhere
Except at La Fonda.” So as chance would have it the pilot adventurer and hotel manageress
Would also cross paths under favorable circumstances due to him having a slight mishap with his
Plane and without it this story wouldn’t have unfolded he was only slightly bruised the only
Evidence was a sling that held his right arm but it meant a delay and a stay so busy was her life
In doing for others little did she know the tables were about to be turned who could count the
times that she had watched the couples holding hands holding deep long glances going out on the
Floor to dance and longed for the same to be her life there is some who believe there is a
universal
Attunement and alignment at work in our lives it seems so here she the great tree that bare no
Fruit his life lived fully but at the center there was emptiness all it took was a cordial meeting out
On the patio dining section among trellises hanging flowers a full golden harvest moon and a
Sweet autumn breeze only a greeting was made but in the depths that only the soul knows a
Connection had occurred somewhere there was the smallest muffled sound a foundation had
Moved unseen but powerfully moving a new building stared to be built the next time a little
Longer conversation then a dinner was arraigned one was wowed with tales of the barnstormer
Life while at the same time a root had fastened itself to a wild ones heart the steady stability that
Showed out of her life was for some reason the most attractive thing he could imagine her life
Made his life take form and made a base where truth was undeniably lived grandly a love so
Great could only be told in the ski with barrel roles loops and dives clouds white and puffy and
Blue that is almost incomprehensible the days washed in to their lives like the land that told its
Secrets through beauty conjured against stark backdrops elegance pristine acute almost painful
Was the soft divergent quality revealed but before they could fly off into the western sunset fate
Would raise its heavy hand and an accident would claim her love as it did so many others of that
period so she donned the black widows apparel but rich beyond words was the man who had the
brightest blue eyes he was her guardian her keeper no longer did she long for love it had stepped
beyond the azure blue and every time a plane passed over head she was thrilled and amazed with
The life she had known when a heroic flyer took her far from her down to earth life spelled out
Heaven in such glorious terms like the gentle sound of a Spanish guitar drifting out on the plaza
Her life is filled with a haunting music that is the knowledge of all who love and have been loved

she is coming to our gardens very soon
she'll have a paintbox of colors so bright
her vividness will be a spectacular boon

she'll splash some purple and orange light
on trellises and pathways to add her glee
she'll have a paintbox of colors so bright

blossoms of pink and cerise shall be on trees
it'll make the bees hum in a happy refrain
on trellises and pathways to add her glee

spring's lively lass is returning once again
every part of our gardens beautifully decorated
it'll make the bees hum in a happy refrain

birds shall twitter at what she has painted
her glorious canvas shall be a delight to see
every part of our gardens beautifully decorated

she'll have a vivacious palette to spree
her glorious canvas shall be a delight to see
she is coming to our gardens very soon
her vividness shall be a spectacular boon

I stopped the car
to let the children down
where the streets end
in the sun
at the marsh edge
and the reeds begin
and there are small houses
facing the reeds
and the blue mist in the distance
with grapevine trellises
with grape clusters
small as strawberries
on the vines
and ditches
running springwater
that continue the gutters
with willows over them.
The reeds begin
like water at a shore
their pointed petals waving
dark green and light.
But blueflags are blossoming
in the reeds
which the children pluck
chattering in the reeds
high over their heads
which they part
with bare arms to appear
with fists of flowers
till in the air
there comes the smell
of calmus
from wet, gummy stalks.

I again visited my garden of despair
Watered with tears of woes and neglect
And now that the pond of bliss is arid
I once again asked myself
What flowers can thrive on these barrens?
Then I glanced at the blossoms of withered memories
Scattered as wreckage from a landslide
The bushes of harrowing pain I found
Arranged in a line of endless thorny shrubs
Decayed trees bearing the fruit of deceit
Still cast a shadow of contorted lies
I then trod as lightly and slowly as I could
Then plucked a fruit from a rotten tree and got its seeds
And with a chalky smile I hummed a quiet tune
Even in the death of my garden
I saw the promises of healing
As I walked past the rusty trellises and tarnished fences
I welcomed my sanguine memories of perfect and scented blooms
Visions of sun-drenched leaves greeted my anguish with a sliver of silver lining
It doesn’t matter if my garden left me with nothing
What now matters most is here in my hands are seeds of hope

there is a girl made of stardust
and ocean salt, breathing static
into the night sky.
her love, if tended to
with patient hands, would
grow like wild roses across
the trellises of your heart.

she is not born of men;
but a child of luna,
sweet mother.
she is a breeze in July
softly rustling your hair
and the plague of
heatstroke and withered
tongues that swiftly follows.
her touch lingers into
the winter solstice.

she is the wave of sorrow
sweeping over your bones
and the light in your eyes
shining with leftover love;
a shadow dressed in white,
a consummation of grief.

she is a wallflower, a habitual
offender to the gods.
she will nurture you like an infant
and then leave you on your knees,
gasping for redemption.

her patience was starting to wear thin, impatience growing as one of the pervs from the table across his eyes preying on her. she gave him the finger and her hardest glare.

where the hell are you  she typed out, texting him

be there in ten i kinda just got out of bed...sorry

she just sighed looking out the glass panes that gave a view of the busy street, letting her thoughts wander. sam was waiting for her bestfriend, noah to show up. she was going to help him find a flower shop that caters black roses. he was going to give it to jean, the girl of his dreams as he liked to call her (sam just knew how much of a cliche he was underneath; they barely had a conversation in which he didn't insert her-sam stuck up with it and listened to him, always assuring him that he's going to get her who wouldnt)

"sorry im late" he says, panting as he arrives, varsity jacket slung in his arms

"you owe me" sam says cooly, ignoring the drum pounding in her chest. he looked like he always did; and gave off the same effect to all the girls in town (he had quite a following though he didn't mind)

playfully he rolls his eyes at sam and the two walk their way into his beat up camaro (which was very good at overheating and taking too long to start)

"bet this thing would come up with its tricks again" sam started with their usual banter

"oh hell no it's got my back"

"your flat back"

"my bootiful ***"

sam scoffed "wanna bet?"

"game on" noah smugly retorts with the smug smirk on his face that showed off his angelic structures

"on three two....." sam had her fingers crossed please don't work please don't

noah tried gunning the engine a few more times, turning the key into the hole over and over again but the engine kept dying. he tried for one more time;it was a miracle that it did. he faced sam who's face turned down into a frown. "ha you owe me now"

"i owe you none" she says slumped in her seat though deep inside she was enjoying this. their friendship had alot of these immature playfulness which she usually started.

"just buy me an extra waffle cone and we're even"

"*******"

noah laughed and sam heard the lilt in his laugh that she grew fondly of. they drove off the road with only the radio to filter the silence for a while. sam started tracing patterns on the car window.

she felt something for noah and it wasn't something she expected, neither was it something she was looking for. the first time they ever interacted was in a class they both had. his eyes had that mischievous spark that day and  he wore a devilish grin-sam thought he was the perfect guy to turn into one of her casualties or better yet get his heart broken. but all they did after class that day was hangout and drive around town. sam was quite shocked with the numerous things they have in common. since then, they've meant alot to each other. although it was different for sam. sometime in their friendship she started feeling something for him, someting more than friends do .she hated it; the thought of it made her want to rev her guts out;

she was never the type to like guys or girls and fantasize about them being together or even feeling the same way. she was the type of girl who played with guys for a night (a week was her longest) whenever she felt like it. she toyed with their hearts and felt satisfied when she saw them with tears in their eyes. she felt no remorse for leaving them in the gutter. she was never vulnerable  she was a heartbreaker. she was that type of girl. but with noah it was all different, it was all new. it was like being on the other side of the spectrum

it frustrated her, all of it. most of all the fact that she couldn't do anything about it. she couldn't just steal him away from jean especially now that he stood a chance. plus, he was serious about her, sam could tell-even if she tried making moves on him, he'd leave because that wasn't how he knew her-they went so well together: her being on the cheerleading squad with her perfect friends and her perfect grades, perfect life ahead and him being the quarterback of the football team and the perfect college waiting for him, heir to his father's company someday-they were the power couple. they deserve each other sam thought bitterly. she could be one of the "perfect" girls in her school if she tried. but she didn't, didn't find the need to because why bother? she'd rather be on the outside and deal with her own company and just resurface whenever she felt like it. he had dreams;she didn't. she was just a heartbreaker, a mess.

yet she didn't want to lose noah; couldn't lose noah-it wasn't a risk she was willing to take. around him she let down the high walls she usually was encaged in and instead had vine trellises wrapping around her almost as if caressing her. it wasn't like in the movies but it was a **** cliche which she felt in gradual waves.she could hear wind chimes in the edges of her nicotine corrupted lungs whenever she was with him and none of the nails splintering against board in the emptiness of her house she felt in the dark while her sister slept soundly in the next room, none of the stale unfamiliarity of her mother working herself thin in her round the clock shifts, staggering home the next morning smelling like alcohol. she felt something other than the hollow in her stomach when she's out partying with strangers, the bass sounding too much like her heart breaking and her existence decomposing. she felt none of the filth she did when she slept with guys and let them make love with their exes through her body. she felt none of all the ugliness, heard none of the monsters' calls. noah made her feel pure. made her feel bliss. there was no irony, no catches, no waiting for the other shoe to drop in what they shared.

some days she's accepted that they'd always remain platonic, that it was better for them to stay this way. but today wasn't one of those days, for it was one where she wanted nothing but to plant her lips against his and make him tell her that he feels the same, for him to wrap her arms around her and bury her face in the crook of his neck, drown in all their memories, become the memories become an us. it wasn't love but he made her feel loved.

her daydreams were cut short when noah parked the car infront of the flower shop near the outskirts of town. she smoothed her hair as noah opened the car door for her. she felt her palms sweat, immediately telling her brain that he was really just sweet and it's jean that he likes stop spewing up hurricanes and thunders for every sweet thing he does.

"so first stop"

"i still don't get why you can't just buy her a bouquet of plain roses and spray paint it black. i'll help out yknow" she replies in her usual mocking way as they enter the shop, the floral fragrance enveloping them.

"because you gotta put all your effort and your heart to get her"

"yeah right, hey you gotta put effort in spray painting too yknow like shaking the can and making sure the roses are all covered. we can cover your heart in black paint as well if we still got any left" she replies sarcastically as they start perusing for black roses.

he rolls his eyes at his best friend, throwing one of the discarded dandelions at her direction. she picks one up and throws it at him quickly. it was only a matter of minutes til they were both on the floor laughing, sneezing in intervals, dandelions scattered around them. the florist scolded them when he saw the mess they caused and made them pay for a daisy and a petunia boquet that was haphazardly upturned in their rowdiness-no black rose in sight.

sam laughed as noah took out his wallet and paid the florist who's face was now red. she heard him mutter a sheepish apology and for a moment, she allowed or tried to let herself get lost in the fact that she and her bestfriend were spending the day together she tried to forget that she was spending the day with him to help him be with the girl that he likes.

Colours To Enjoy Till I’m Old
It is enough to make one’s heart sink
Wandering around amongst the blue
Greens, lavender and pink
Rose trellises to wander through.
Lilacs, forget-me-nots,
However could I?
Poppies with spots
As red as a cherry pie.
Daisies as yellows as brass
Sweet petals intoxicating my nose
Sweet perfume of freshly cut grass
And the delicate smell of a summer rose.
Heavenly, I am in heaven
Different aromas every second
Even the perfect petals run even
Nature’s wonder has beckoned.
Along my path where butterflies meet
Warming their wings against the wall
Absorbing the midday heat
Nothing worrying them at all.
Bees gather pollen eager to work
Their tiny legs carrying a heavy load
Packing in the pollen like a busy clerk
Storing each bit by colour code.
The ***** and the Violet
Well doesn’t everyone love them?
The tiny red Robin, the sky’s mad pilot
Christmas’s little scarlet gem.
The ivy and the holly
But where are they?
Berries as golden as the tea on the trolley
And as shiny fit for the Christmas bouquet.
They are waiting, in the wings
Ready for their time of the year
When everything dies, up it springs
Nothing to dread, nothing to fear.
Snow, bring it on, let the ice cover the ground.
Rich berries for the bird’s release
Their goodness, plenty to be found.
Nuts for the squirrels, food for the season.
Colours of Autumn, yellows and gold
Giving me every good reason
To enjoy life till I am old.

The tenderness of creeper vines
and garden trellises
plucking fruit from branches and
leaping with abandon into the
Dirt and the
Rocks & water—
Idyll & idolatry
fed through a tube.

I am on
Four blocks north of eagles court and
Where is a funny kind of word
won’t you stop to dust your feet off and
hang your jacket on the trees on orchard road—
This is our home now,
I told you with the early morning
dewdrops in my eyes and you
plucked them from the apples
of my cheeks and pocketed them like
diamonds.

Burn yourself onto my skin
brand me like the devil—
I quake not at the
Eruptions of hearts & other
wise blood that pulses through the stones and
trees among which we’ve gotten lost.

Tangled together, you
Weave, serpentine, in & out of
focus as the poison works its way into
my skull.

A vintner of aged leaves in the wine-press of the sun,
Thin-skinned like the lucent grapes from the vine-runs
Of the island trellises and teal-cordoned waves, lowest slung
Fruit-laden bough of sky, Sicily, whose ateliers of rolled cigarettes
And uprolled sleeves like tides tease smoke into studio paints,
The black apple wine of storm made into mouthfuls of pulp rain,
Before the sunrise is gathered again in fishing nets and crab pots,
The coastal towns with their salted roofs of pied clay and pigeons
Along the lava stone streets, and night from the chanteuse of Egypt,
Singing her coral to heron, as when her bird-like barefooted slaves
Left tracks across Old Kingdom wastes, so this dreaming old man
Leaves his wrinkles to these grapes and across the sand-island pillow,
Asleep with his fathers, hay-hauling peasants of wandering darkness.

My Sister Annabel
wore a button hole Anemone,
reflecting a broken heart
Sometimes trellises harness
country abounds
where the Land owner promises
wealth and company
and instead finds himself a scullery maid
where the Mastiffs in another life
may have been the commonable.

Don't fall down, the stairs are uneven
Haunted regrets, embodiment of liquor
Lacquered wood panels, smell of old alcohol
Guilty hands shiver on a switchblade shining

There by the door stands an old man leaning
Taunt him some more and he might start screaming
The haggard old mystic witch by the bedpost yawns
and the New Orleans bayou still shivers in a shimmering light

Tonight though, taste the tasteless tears on terrarium trellises
or tug away the tightness of the tortured terra firma tetsuo
and maybe tonight there will b-

A newborn babe given to the ones who saved her from the fate of poverty and misery.
To portray the loving family of white middle class or at least the struggling to be that.
A girl of light and newness with almond eyes and darkened locks with fragile skin.
A kin to Italian plite
A kin to Irish blood
None of that to bathe in just a different type to be cast in
******* was among the living creed this family held fast the dying deed of :
no talking, no whisper, no whimper or scream.
Be quiet little one....be inside the room of your friendly playthings and create the fantasies you will keep faith in.
Fantasies are nimble and sweet for a delicate mind to entertain inside
Door closed
Fights outside it...loud and booming!!
Mother and Father no longer a family
Plates are thrown and different things left strewn about.
Her shouts sure drown the frightened whispers
The lil girl told her playthings in the room fanciful with butterfly walls and trellises that lined the closet walls
It will all be over soon
Mother will succumb to her way of being numb
She will be nice again
The lil girl can come out and try to play with her brothers of 1/2 kin
They call her brat
The mother calls her muffin or muffet
The father calls her squirt
The land of fantasies run deep in this family
Pretending is a way of life

A sound is lying between my sight and my hearing,
mornings strung astray,
noisy, lonely streets, indescribable,
only posters ― whole or torn
of some extraordinary concerts, long forgotten ―
in which lustre of the world? ―
autumn has come over the botanical garden,
her trellises have forgotten to support any leaves,
she is singing herself to me in my eyes
in one poem.
Diligent, my heart surrenders to an elegy
like that thought descending from Rainer Maria Rilke.

Gellu Dorian, from *It might take me years

Wood.
Metal.
A flower petal.
Power settles,
for nothing less
than to always press
to the point of stress
fractures, where it relishes
in the pain, and embellishes
its grandiosity, builds trellises
over rivers of fire
over hills of barbed wire,
where flowers do quote
metal's eternal gloat
over wood's rickety boat
which burns in the river
and births but a sliver
to the man upon its bow
while metal does plow
along much further
and flowers do wither
but grow soon again
where wood is burnin'
and grows all too slow
to counter river's flow.
Metal a tool,
eternal fool,
denying the flower,
a taste so sour,
Tree is fuel,
fire so cruel.

Wind always knows
it limitation
as it writes its swirling
scripts upon threadbare roof.
Lamentations for the
fields of empty prairies
as the dry leaves rustle
in strings of grass…

i do not know
my boundaries
the geographical shapes
of my darkness
for life
has been left empty
with only a puppy
of narrowness
to feed
scraps of plain verse too.
How the tail wagged for years
as empty …

i light candles
like images on the window
of my smile
for the sputter of light
is much more reassuring
than the breathless darkness.

i recite my own alphabets
that i have
hidden in the mysteries of my throat
and marvel as the moonlight passes
through the simple words
the trellises of upper
and lower case

Shades i have formed
with my craftless hands
and letters
speak upon the glass
of outside
like frost
for i have found my true words
and they fit my squalor
with a strength of calmness
for darkness cannot
abide in smallness
so it leaves me
as the darkest raven
ever imagined…

I have had bits of my heart taken,
pinched tight between greedy fingers
and shining white incisors
just to be squandered between cold sheets
and walls without windows.

I have given small pieces of myself
in a subtle show of willing naïveté
only to watch them wilt and die
without patient hands to tend to them.

I have lost so many essential parts
that there's not much left to give-
everything is mathematical
and there is no pain in letting go.
I am an expert in the field of
cool, calculated detachment.

But then there was you.
you came padding in softly,
asking for nothing,
taking nothing.
I gave you only
what I had the strength to,
and for the first time,
I could see the pieces
blooming and thriving
as they crawled over the trellises
of your wandering heart.

The empty spaces fill
with shadows of your voice
and a glimmer of your eyes
when you're smiling

and for the first time,
I am whole.

i klump in mod galoshes
among the enigma of raindrops
and catch metaphors
on the tip of my tongue.

Swallow into my soul
the beautiful unaccented verbiage.
as fragments of poems
wash down from the sky
in streams of kaleidoscopic complications.

As i tromp in puddles of letters
as i run down the wet serendipitous streets
of visionary realms...

Griffens hide under the umbrales
of trees glowering for they do
not like to be pelted
with the symbologies of deluges.

This make griffons mystifying
glowing leaves flutter chanting,
and skinny dip in the trellises of rain drops.
And at the end of all spelling.

i romp among the rays of the rainbows
that spring down the corridors of clouds
as unnamed poems stir & grow
up into the  clouds
and wait for the storm of creativity
to begin again in a paper sky.
and wait for the storms
of creativity to begin
and dispense  gems
to hide in heads
of uncanny eerie children
that greetings
fold space into verses

Humble hearts leave trails
Of burning arcs
Whenever they pass you by
When time is borrowed
From the present
It's a gift from heaven
If we are born unperturbed
Then how do we learn
To become so boring
After we have grown

If you have it then you’ll know it
For once it comes it's ever showing
Humble hearts are made for rowing
These boats back home again

Come close and sit by the phone
Waiting for the dial tone to call you collect
There are many benefits to a relationship
Like love with tenderness,
Arguments and sweet caresses

Bless the ligaments and the tenements
With tender fingers and ten toes
We've climbed up and over
Reaching further and deeper below
And above all we've rubbed
The words from the pages
That we drew our first breaths upon
And later lined our nests with
The fragilest of exhalations

We are each a painting
Taken from the hall of some old relative
We are fancy felons finding heaven in our theft
We are sheets of cotton rubbing against our bottoms
As feelings flicker like candle flames
Our souls remain nameless and stainless
Against the testaments of yesterday

You are my late September,  
When spring has long been forgotten  
With its newness, lush green and raindrops.  
The rambunctious giddy splendor of sweaty palms  
And arterial palpitations.  

You are not summer, hot and dripping,  
Air thick, smothering with inescapable heat,  
Panting breaths and desperate lips.  
Perhaps once or twice as we revolved around each other,  
If night airs could tell tales.  

You are not winter,  
Though we have shared Decembers.  
There is no place for you in my snow tipped trellises.  
No coordinate in my circumference that would hold you in ice,  
Frozen and forgotten under rippled white blankets,  
Though perhaps, under wrinkled white sheets.  

You are not fall,  
When autumn turns the ground dirt and dull.  
Trees shedding their raiments  
And reaching naked for the sky.  
Surrendering to the inevitability of winter’s approach,  
Drawing sap down to their rootwork,  
Waiting for another spring  

You are my late September,  
The earth still warm between my toes  
With the remembrance of summer suns.  
More vibrant than spring, and wiser than summer.  
Leaves full of tree-song  
Brilliant gold and fire,  
Blood orange and melancholy yellows,  
Blazing in defiant glory.

All this war and yet, there is nothing I would rather be.

I have grown to appreciate,
            as a nonpartisan–
            a silent sommelier–
the subtle earthy notes of irony with which
my deflated ego scolds my hollow spine.

I know my own hypocrisy, my instability, my naivete.

I have been raised in the midst of myself–
I carved and nailed these philosophies together to make trellises
around which my elastic grapevine limbs have learned
to wrap and coil and hoist themselves toward the sun.

I have built myself,
and I, alone, tend to my vineyard.

There are distortions in these wooden lattices,
and there are seasons when the grapes grow sour
or the vines do not flower
at all,
but the crop is resilient and the wood does not break,
and there is enough sunshine here
in the summertime to sustain
and to yield something complexly beautiful because it has been weak,
and it has known the cold.

I have built myself,
and I, alone, tend to my vineyard.

There are plots of land far more fertile than this one,
foundational structures far sturdier and more symmetrical,
grapes far sweeter and more robust of flavor,
but there is no wine I would rather have flood my veins;
there is nothing I would rather be.

i want to be a writer
i want to build you cathedrals out of
paragraphs and
catch your footfalls with my pages
you would laugh, not soft or delicate
and you would run
and i would keep turning pages
rewriting love
if you needed a change of pace

i want to be an artist
i want to crush berries against our skin
to make a color you've never seen before
you would grin and
it would stain your fingers
and you would stay
for a bit

i want to be a poet
silk falling from my tongue
in trellises and
you'd catch it and weave it around us
like a battered quilt
worn but well loved
and the words would keep us warm

Alone
In black park of bed
-Elise Nada Cowen


Bedding them, saving them -
(or maybe the reverse?)
it was all the same to me.

All of them, like that;
One liked to wrestle first,
another wanted to be tied down.

Their eyes loosed in the darkness,
swimming at me, sparking
& begging, always begging.

But all of our skins need touching,
all of our faces want remembering.
So I gave them what they needed:

I loved them all with unclouded heart.
Ivy trellises inside me,
but memory is still sterling.

Black park of bed -
yellow crush dawn -
I am the giving snare.

i need not your voice
to sway or dance,
  just the mere sight of you
   muted still in distance

a bamboo in the
    wind

i need not the air of you
  to float or wind-hover
  past the trellises that separate us,
   just the heady fragrance of your
    entrancing thrall

a call of wild in
   the elaborate dark

i need not the wine of your stare
   to inebriate myself
dizzy with the fine mirages
  of your clamored presence,
  just the thought of you
    infinite in me, pattering the roof
    under many a bed that i slumber in,
  that lewd yet saccharine rhythm
    announcing your coming

     and going,
  like a nascent furl of smoke
    from a match-flame gone,

   eloping with you.

Planting, potting, and puttering
Weeding, hoeing, and muttering
Excavating for fruiting treasure
Dancing for favorable weather

My garden bears riches in tastes and views
A thriving bed of multicolored hues
My efforts support much life in the tending
My plants, sprouting and my soul, mending

My garden retreat, my nook, my hideaway
Under canopy of trellises and pairs of blue jays
Comforts my heart with its lush serenity
A space for growth among blooming greenery

Wafting aromas of rich, earthy soil
Fill my nostrils as I toil
Grimy fingers and sweat creased brow
Invigorates my body as I work the trowel

My labors are love transferred fingertip to root
My reward is new life, new sprouts, new shoots
My efforts take patience, tenderness, and care
Proof that in Eden a human dwells there

a stream of hungry eyes ran down the mountainside
a flock of birds can put you to sleep
so count sheep like you count rainbows
set your alarm to wake you
for as you sleep in the stables
your eyes water like fables
your hips gyrate in greasy undulations
and your dreams are capable
of transforming life into a parable
will you embark on a quest with me
you said, i want to see the end of the world
will you fight dragons and ***** through the valleys
looking for wrong deeds to right
and endangered kingdoms to protect
love is a prism, it reflects your longing
for god is the rainbow that is never boring
a haiku is structured out of a rhythm
so ancient it contemplates itself
and you are able to penetrate
through silence into existential glory
excelling at life is complicated
if success is defined by what you know best
at last we return to the place where we can rest
the edge of a cliff is just the start of it
and your musical body breaks me in two
as i see the split inside me
each day i choose to start anew
thank you my brothers for allowing these feelings
you are stallions and we are constantly healing
under-pressure warriors and thread-bare soldiers
instead look out for and stop locking up your daughters
as i collect flowers and place them beside their bed
there is a test our fathers did prepare for us
they said when we are ready
our souls we must bare
and in that barren land
we will be tried for our crimes against man
and if we survive the rest will make sense
we will again be kind to each other
for we know there is more hunger than we can ever fill
i watch your spine as it moves against your will
you are truly beautiful but you don’t even know
that the ways you think you are flawed
are actually your greatest assets; which are
worth more than all the imaginary weddings
or Victorian-style homes with white picket fences
and golden-green gardens with hanging trellises
or any other thing you've ever dreamed of in your head
to distract you from knowing your own reflection

it is like a juxtaposition to
idle trains of fading or
a transcendental manuscript.
death of a man foretold
in every syllable.
i could be gutted out of
and displaced into the dearth,
in doing the dailiness of this life.

in the eventide, when these
walls lurch in, sizing me down
in sleep's hyperbole - a mere chasm
or say, nothing but a gap in
continuity, there is something
that is within striking distance
when you first wrote:

"Truth naked as a shaved dog."

it is your mind's paradigm
that has passed a torch to light
my way through the labyrinth.
it is like your deaths take my deaths.
it is when you pursue the trellises
of all-telling lies that i take
to learning, the belligerence
of wars and the tearing of the heaven in midnight's augury.

it is like you are haplessly
trying to teach me something
without voice.
without life's syllabus.
the only common prognosis
is that i have a sediment of
your soul through litanies
and you do not know me nor
am i a captive in your peripheries.

the wind takes your words
with it -- limping like
wounded creatures or perturbed
unions of cicada, flying away
are also these words
searching for asylums.

Garden trellises wrap themselves through the openings
Of my fenestrated illogical thoughts.
The shadowed and shadowy pasts of my past misery
Creeping slowly back up my throat to be lost

Promises were made, she says
Oh foolish student of mine!
Will you never begin to
Comprehend
The scarlet drops of your principles
So brutally hack-sawed
Just the beginning
Of your downward spiral.

Take up arms against your consciousness
Fight to be seen
Fight to be heard
Fight to show yourself that you actually do
Deserve
Contentment
Maybe…?

Fragrant blossoms of moonflowers,              
Release sweetness during the night;
Their sweeet fragrance like sweet perfume,
To noses, does bring much delight.

Moonflowers  cling to trellises,
Like your love does around my heart;
Your sweetness excels moonflowers,  
With its sweetness it does impart.

Your heart is surely more sweeter,  
Than moonflowers will ever be;
By me it is highly treasured,
And it means very much to me.

Glass illusions forestry of butterflies in flight
swiveling and turning wing, aiming for sun
hovering over lulling waters of purple hues  
Breathing like flowers, frilling up the air
inside a cornucopia world of rich and bright
Birds are calling from afar symmetrical chirps
of grandeur, across the wide expanse
nocturnal illumination of the heart and soul
Varathane music sonatas, flute escapades  
within a dormant brook, nature's usurp
Fairies, trellises, and magic twigs interlinked
inside the Foloi forest, the mighty oak respires
aside centaurs and dryads, of their time
an emerald green, bottled by nature herself
all is transformed here even the sky is pinked  
Altered, Remodeled, Reworked, Transformed,
by my sweet, poetic imagination...
                           "Follow Me  "