I

Half of the fellow father as he doubles
His sea-****** Adam in the hollow hulk,
Half of the fellow mother as she dabbles
To-morrow's diver in her ***** milk,
Bisected shadows on the thunder's bone
Bolt for the salt unborn.

The fellow half was frozen as it bubbled
Corrosive spring out of the iceberg's crop,
The fellow seed and shadow as it babbled
The swing of milk was tufted in the pap,
For half of love was planted in the lost,
And the unplanted ghost.

The broken halves are fellowed in a *******,
The crutch that marrow taps upon their sleep,
Limp in the street of sea, among the rabble
Of tide-tongued heads and bladders in the deep,
And stake the sleepers in the savage grave
That the vampire laugh.

The patchwork halves were cloven as they scudded
The wild pigs' wood, and slime upon the trees,
******* the dark, kissed on the cyanide,
And loosed the braiding adders from their hairs,
Rotating halves are horning as they drill
The arterial angel.

What colour is glory? death's feather? tremble
The halves that pierce the pin's point in the air,
And ***** the thumb-stained heaven through the thimble.
The ghost is dumb that stammered in the straw,
The ghost that hatched his havoc as he flew
Blinds their cloud-tracking eye.

II

My world is pyramid. The padded mummer
Weeps on the desert ochre and the salt
Incising summer.
My Egypt's armour buckling in its sheet,
I scrape through resin to a starry bone
And a blood parhelion.

My world is cypress, and an English valley.
I piece my flesh that rattled on the yards
Red in an Austrian volley.
I hear, through dead men's drums, the riddled lads,
******* their bowels from a hill of bones,
Cry Eloi to the guns.

My grave is watered by the crossing Jordan.
The Arctic scut, and basin of the South,
Drip on my dead house garden.
Who seek me landward, marking in my mouth
The straws of Asia, lose me as I turn
Through the Atlantic corn.

The fellow halves that, cloven as they swivel
On casting tides, are tangled in the shells,
Bearding the unborn devil,
Bleed from my burning fork and smell my heels.
The tongue's of heaven gossip as I glide
Binding my angel's hood.

Who blows death's feather? What glory is colour?
I blow the stammel feather in the vein.
The **** is glory in a working pallor.
My clay unsuckled and my salt unborn,
The secret child, I sift about the sea
Dry in the half-tracked thigh.

A captured breath among the ancient trees
Glowing in a perfect dream
From time and tide drifting upon your sea
In the dustless shadow
Of faint moonbeams

A fresh-bloomed rose, smiles at morning dew
Its thorns have yet to *****
The hands of time, which fairly flew
Sweetness unripe
To pick

Time and tide drifts upon the ancient seas
Rolling in a perfect dream
Capturing breaths from unplanted seeds
Before becoming
As they seem

The fresh-bloomed rose a thorn reveals
Within the perfect dream
Yet time and tide drifts into quickly heal
A captured breath
Is now redeemed

the war zone is open
a simple stumble
onto a carelessly unplanted landmine
the photographic proof
of the ones in the winning troops
a wire was tripped
my carefully grounded feet
now stumble sightlessly through
confused by combat
as the clouds of battle
brew and storm
mushroom around me
my soul is shattered
by the shrapnel of the relationships
that were never quite had
grenades packed with unbidden love
a thousand times stronger
than any known explosive
scar and pock my psyche
with their silent detonations
the rockets of unreason
guided by an unbalanced radar
pierce the pretend walls of armor
which were never successfully reinforced
this isn't the first or worst battle
know it won't be the last,
because
there is no safe zone
there is no ceasefire
there is only surrender
to the ceaseless uncertainty
a prisoner of my own
hostile forces

genius is snapping at my dragons. feel free to ask them. they’ll barter hard tongues
and won't apologize for mad hatters. but this. This matters.
it ungathers. It unravels and the sunscape chafes on the void's tatters.
but it rathers you know me now,
than meet me at crossroads.
it's your call.

come
from your unexamined life
and be sitting with your eyes
like two mouths.
they will speak when spoken two;
when i give you all...
and you want me
too.

hello. my name is unsung. and That's the song.
don't get me wrong; but right your vessel -
and
this ocean will float your devils
with your nephelim. with your unbridled elan.
be sweet. keep your feet unplanted, but be enchanted by the road you're on.
find me in the thicket of unbearable seeing.
you will be me -
for the moment you release
' things '
and imprison Nothing.
of course
you'll need a cauldron
to rehearse your heresies
as often.

may i suggest
a new
guess ?

a question that suits you
better than " what the **** ? "

and has feathers ?

can we do that
and love each
other ?

One half of a crying moon sat in the June sky
An uncertain state of silence that I hate
A swarm of red lights from some farm device
Blink fiercely with a hive like intensity
Miles of metal fences leaning lazily
Held together by sandbag security
Could have been knocked over by a summer breeze
Unplanted fields yearning to be tilled and seeded
Punctuated by bare bones buildings and
Stark steel structures pulsing with electricity
Armies of insect swarm the tall lamp lights
Highways become rocky roads
Rocky roads ride out into dirt paths
Then circle back to the gravel covered tracks
Becoming the grey running highways
Nature and industry the strongest cycle
The strangest and straightest signifiers
Of nature’s outliers we call humanity

The gambit snaps leaving the boat all slack
With the whispering grey winds above
No doves, no doves
And the sailors all clasping their hands tight
As the maids make the night
More peaceful for all in their sight
Children play with their apple pies which were made
With care and magical obsession
For mother was never there
No she was never there
In the Fall or in the late of May
With this the household suffered many long years
Years that would never be thought of as
Successful
But what is success?
What does it smell or taste like?
But the burnt taste of ash flicked from one's former self,
But the after taste of charred burnt and buttered toast,
But the first wind when one opens the morning door to step outside.
We, oh what a word is we, used by a young man
That has seen some things but not everything
Oh and to see everything
One would be a fool to think and talk that way
That is why there are the roads unmade by man and God
That is why there are trees unplanted and yet to be grown
That is why there are flowers yet to picked
And young women yet to be licked
Fortune marries itself to itself under a wedlock flower garden
As all the children of all the towns
Are slowly rising from their beds

What is love?
Love is when I look into your eyes and see my tomorrow.
No, what is love?
Love is the ability to see hope through my own eyes,
to see rainbows and to touch on skies,
love is the ability to recognize that there are,
yes, there are;
so many books unread,
so many souls untouched,
so many seeds unplanted,
so much success unattended,
so much, oh so much, left to be done,
love isn't always intimate,
love is being able to stand up for yourself so much,
that when they try to tear you down,
when they try to take you to the bin,
you can still manage to utter, "I am still a brand".

Suffering,
Like light rain,
Loud as thunder,
Alone like wind about the face.
I know it
As an empty bed,
Made, but not slept in;
An unplanted garden
Left empty on the plate.
Don't tell anyone
How you feel,
How we suffer
The agony alone.
There's an occasional text
To remind one of lonliness,
Especially around twelve o'clock.

How endearingly the flowers are held
In the arms of the nurturing soil;
Yet I'm condemned to walk without Love,
Wearied and spent by this hopeless toil

Confined behind bars of loneliness
I observe Love running wild and free;
What crime could warrant such punishment?
Even Hell knows no such agony

As the newborn babe that cannot speak
Cries out helplessly for what it needs,
So I cry for a harvest not granted,
. . . I cry for the unplanted seeds

And will Love's words remain unspoken?
Now the waves of Terror rise and fall!
Shall my heart stay an idle harbor . . .
Unworthy to be Love's port of call?

Like trying to find a leaf
In a forest of thoughts
Living in a world of emotions
Where the wind will talk
Searching til the cold of winter grows
When the leaves all fall
We lose all hope
Instead of the one that calls home
Only to realize we are the seed
Unplanted to live free
Yet caged in our minds from a fire that seeks
Reversing my mind
Rebuilding a heart
Forever I dream

empty promises are full
filled with unplanted flowers
by the voices of our loved

the seeds whisper ***** words
that are used against us
they are manipulation
in its most exquisite form

we are completely blinded
we are fooled to think it’s love
let me tell you a secret
empty promises are not

After years of wandering alone
hearing mountains moan into
the sunset, uninhabited beaches
spread into the ocean like the
arch of the moon

I stand at your door,
sopping wet and weary
back bent from carrying eighty
litre backpacks across ancient
roads that only the locals
knew

I said to myself, I have found me

as the roots of the trees arched
around my feet, their rough arms
folding around me, the earth
moving to the beat of my heart
the wild bird song stinging
my eyes with tears

I said to myself, I have found me

but you stand their
arms outstretched
the laces of your shoes still untied,
(and it still infuriates me!)
the smell of vegetables, rudely unplanted
roasting in a metal ***

as my head moulds into your shoulder
like tar

No, you say,
you found your way back to me

feeling trapped but i am not confined
all of my fears inside my mind
can't scream, can't run, nowhere to hide
alarms are blaring, i'm dressed in white
i'm choking, i'm falling
i don't know why
the sky is blue, birds are singing
i'm treated well but my ears are still ringing
i'm running as far, as far as i can
from all that is good, from a stand-up man
still, nothing is wrong
but the alarms keep going
it could be a false alert but i won't risk not knowing

as i am looking back on all the bridges i've burned
and nothing has changed, not a lesson was learned
my heels are callused, my tears run dry
i tread onward
leaving behind
the birds and the sunshine and flowers that may bloom
for the fear i may **** them, i presume
so the seeds go unplanted and i'll sit in the rain
because it hurts way less
when you're prepared for the pain

As I exit
the world of green dinosaurs
fused from abandoned rusty automobiles      
and steaming in  the sun,
a child offered me a giant peach
harvested from a Palisade tree
grown in the valley’s katabatic winds.
  
It tasted of harsh-sweet stolen pleasures,
lust and greed and love and dried fruit,
full of Ute tears and diverted waters,
memories between prayers and laments  
buried deep, sprouting new
on rolling plains laced with spice
breezes and Buffalo.

It had evolved flesh pregnant with two hemispheres  
to be split midway
by thumbs meant to be coated with pulp
juice pooling to palm lifelines.

I knew it fed me its sweetness
in cupped hands, not a gift
but a sacrifice to be sniffed
and tasted like an old vintage
barreled decades for a loving tongue.

Its red blush collapsed into
a  tawny mass that matched the day’s light,
remaining fuzzy flesh a gold skull—
the ancient colors full of guilt and redemption
and red shame and love and twilight,
a thing existing slightly
out of season, fully sweet
yet almost taboo, almost cursed,
the lustful last bite of life.

I bought a half dozen more peaches from the parent
standing slightly just behind the child
busy cradling them into a paper craft bag
rolling them into darkness far from light
and the frozen extinction crushed
by the din of overpass traffic from above.

I noticed the sun fade from the earth,
a scorned lover removing her gaze,
until there exists a tattoo
memory of love and ripening peaches.

I took the small change
aware that the peaches would rot to
mold, uneaten, unwanted, the pit unplanted.

Notes:

A katabatic wind  is a drainage wind, a wind that carries high-density air from a higher elevation down a ***** under the force of gravity.

you are a flower, unpicked
you are a seed, unplanted
you are a idea, unthought
you are beautiful in ways unheard of
you are lovely in ways unseen
and I yearn for day I've touch your heart
for the day I've make you smile
for the day I've heard you laugh
you are a dream but some how I'm lucky enough to see you even after I open my eyes

I had a seed
Of love
In it I could see
A towering tree
But also
A humble ****
But a seed unplanted
Is never truly known
So I planted my seed
And now wait for it to grow

Where lies a field of unblossomed flowers and unplanted trees in what man stands alone?…

Where lies the final season, where the unblossomed flowers grow? In what field do these trees stand?

Where a wind is the hand of God…gentle will it let us fly like pollen gold in the bright day's sky.

She would never dream of arriving at a session
Looking like a first take--not like the bass player
With his shirt collar rising and rolling
Like some unplanted meadow on an Upstate hillside,
Or the trumpeter whose ancient corduroys
Have not seen a pressing in months if ever,
Or the sad young man at the mixing board
With the hair sticking out like wire brushes
Splayed for the softest swish possible.
She would never dream of appearing in any manner
Not fully together, the muted gold blouses
(Accentuated with a bright red scarf)
The tailored skirts of crimson or brown,
Hair freshly salon-coiffed, lipstick and makeup just so.
As she is not a performer as much as the stuff of legend,
And those hunched over traps and cymbals
Or bunched cheek-to-jowl with the acoustic tile
Are utterly bewitched by the sounds,
So familiar yet with all the life of twenty years earlier,
Yet the tape playback seems to file a dissenting opinion:
There is a certain frailty to the timbre,
The odd hitch and hesitation in the phrasing
(She does not betray much while listening,
One headphone pressed to a single ear,
Save for the odd fleeting furrow to the forehead)
But it is something that is paid little mind,
The quartet and singer plowing ahead
Until such time she gathers coat and purse
In a gesture which clearly states That is all for today
And she leaves the studio to walk the few blocks home,
Passing by some down-on-their-luck brownstones,
Their facades recently whitewashed in the vain hope
Of masking the irrevocable cracking in the walls,
The buckling of the edifice's foundation

The flame of madness
cracked and expanded,
holds hearts unplanted,
soil sick with slick
mind worms that take
turns gnawing through
the muck and the goop,
and the rotting wood to,
seeing moods shift from
angry, sad, then numb
to become all spent up
without any passions left.

fireflies in jar
halley's comet in orbit
hamster on wheel
ant on a mound in winter
homeless family under flyover
goldfish in bowl
sand in hourglass
pendulum in clock
blood in veins
holiday weekend plans
fire in steel furnace
oil under desert rocks
water in a glacier
protagonist in a dusty book
character in a logged off videogame
larva in chrysalis
tree in unplanted seed
pigeon hiding in rain
stardust on earth
life in materialism
divinity in debauchery


quarantined.

She doesn’t like to hear “I need you”
It’s difficult for her to say “I miss you”
She’s afraid that “I miss you” means that one of us
Can’t be without the other and she’s nothing if not independent

She says, “you should be okay alone.”
She says,  “you shouldn’t be afraid to lose me.”

I want to say “You shouldn’t be afraid to have me”
Love, when I’m holding you close, running my fingers across the soft curve of your arm
I feel the warmth blossom in me and my lips pour a waterfall of details and compliments
I want to make you feel as if you’re like nothing else in this entire universe

I don’t say
We are all the same

I spent my childhood being alone
I know how to count the cracks in my bedroom floor
The way you count up ways to improve and strengthen
Your steadfast mind
Build a wall that you can always go back to jump behind
I admire you

I learned when I was about nine years old that I don’t need to be alive

When I’m sad, I don’t try to fix myself
I was born onto a snow graced mountaintop on the verge of avalanche
I’m not afraid to shed a tear or two

You say, “Challenge yourself. How can you escape the dark parts of your mind?”
I want to say, “these days, it doesn’t feel so dark. Lately, they feel like thoughts. Lately, the only thing that differentiates sticks and stones from words is how other people perceive them.”

The dark that you see is a blanket
I wove it from the tatters of my ripped up sleeves, rubbed thin from nervous habit
I spun the hair that unplanted itself from my head like wilted flowers into rows of golden thread
I presented my heart, still beating, in two of my hands
And I laid it onto the heap, it doesn’t care if it’s scarred and neither do I
My darkness
Is the warmest thing I know

When I tell you I love you and point out every detail of you that makes me swoon
That makes my heart beat faster
That makes me smile
When I tell you I love you, I cry
And you always say that you love that
You say you love that I’m so attached to my emotions
That I’m not afraid to show it

When I tell you I love you,
I tap into the dark recesses of my mind
That you are afraid to look too closely at

And sometimes
The tears flood out like a leaky faucet
And I know that if you knew
You’d likely call it broken
Broken walls that I was supposed to be building like you do
Broken windows I should’ve been boarding up
I don’t tell you
When I tell you I love you,
I think of the fading scars stretched across my arms
Like cross outs and deletions in poems I’ve written
That don’t make sense anymore
I think of angry shouts and toppled chairs
Broken glass and locked slammed doors
I think of the whole world turning
For no one in particular
I think about how nothing matters
Nothing matters
Nothing matters
And it doesn’t matter
Because we matter

Because when your smile hits the sparkle in your crystal blue eyes
I know that over a million places I could’ve been at this point
This was the lucky one
And I’m here
To smile
To laugh
To cry
And sometimes I feel like I was built to be nothing
And then all the sudden, I don’t care
Because even the smallest nothing
Could have always been the world to me

I’m not afraid to want you
I’m not afraid to miss you
I’m not afraid to love you
I’m not afraid to love you

I’m proud
After everything
I have a blanket
And not a wall