I walk into the mirror box again and it’s as if my life
really is just an extension of my own metaphors.
I’m caught in the mirror maze, searching for something
in the mirrors at angles, but all I can see is myself,
my sad, stupid self, stretching on and on forever
with the same boring face, the same boring feelings,
again and again until I stop being able to make out the details.
Am I looking back at myself or am I looking forwards to the future?
Will it always be the same or has it merely been
the same since forever? I stare into the mirror tunnel
at all these selves repeating themselves,
forcing the years, the weeks, the days into the same strict patterns,
merely following the self that came before them, merely mirroring
the feelings, only doing it worse and worse with each new rendition.
It’s just me, I think, in the mirror box, caught up in myself
because I am selfish and horrible. I’m selfish and horrible
and I want to turn my back on myself but
how can I possibly do that in the mirror box?
I meet myself over and over, and it’s just me,
in all this vast, repetitive vagueness, just me in
this long stretch of lonely unsettledness that surely doesn’t end.
I want to smash my own face in, so I close my eyes
and try to think, maybe, maybe, maybe, because I don’t
want to be this grey-cloud self forever. I can’t be, and so maybe,
just maybe, somewhere beyond all these selves
there’ll be a day when I’m down on the shore
and the sea will be calm and the sky will be
faded purple. Love will not sink down into nothingness
because in the cool evening air,  my heart will be full
instead of gaping and my mind will be at ease
instead dwelling on it’s own boringness
or entangling itself in own self-created sadness.
And maybe, I’ll have abandoned my book
and its pages will be dry because I won’t have been crying into it.
They’ll be no mirrors, just the ocean,
glinting like an amethyst cluster in the half light
and I’ll rest my head on the shoulder of the girlfriend
I'll meet someday and I’ll smile in this beautiful liminal moment
and nothing will be tainted by the dread of returning home.
We’ll kiss – on the shore – and rewrite it forever and
maybe the stars will fall out of the sky when I shake it and
all my trains will run on time and all the wounds
in the world will heal simultaneously.
It’s a moment surely stolen from someone else’s poetry,
but I’ve got to cling to something to avoid becoming
lost entirely in all this dark, intangible vagueness.
There’s got to be at least one imaginary moment
that isn’t just me, reflected over and over.
There’s got to be one moment that doesn’t stare
back at me from inside the mirror box.

Your poignant silence spoke
             with the voice
    a thousand unspoken lies,
       the kind of  little sins
    that wear away the soul

    An obscure grain of salt,
       awakening dissolved,
      in a vast saline ocean
   of life’s ever fugitive tides

       Chasing rogue waves
       across deepest oceans;
          carried away to be
willingly drown in a sea of love,
          a mystic blackness
far beyond the cresting breakers'
  fomenting meringue riptides

   From the headland cliffs above,
           a lone  shore pine
           leaned windward
       out over land and sea,
    tough skinned roots cling
        bared by prevailing
          winds' migration

        Smoothly calloused
       by the blowing sands
       eroding the sapwood
         atop the petrified
          heartwood rings
            of untold time

        Abiding on the cusp
      of falling farther down
          than any ordinary
               directionless
        semblance measured
              nor bona fide

   The nebulous distance back
     an unbridgeable breadth
           long since buried,
n'er to be forgotten milestones,
   abandoned without a trace,
 like footprints blowin' in sand
     erased by the prevailing
             westerly winds

     Illusions of fallen mileposts
          counted backwards,
        undone clicks beyond
       the abacus beads reach

    Was it the untrodden space
      between distant horizon's
   unreachable scope of reason ?

                No way back
               was etched on
         the last thrown stone

       The broken inland hills
   are neither mirage nor oasis
   bit by bit washing out to sea
  
             A turning point,
        compass drawn away
   with the arrows convention.
     Without magnetic north
       an arrowhead courses
    with the silence of a trees'
           uncounted rings
         of benign measure

        Felled by gale winds
         of tempest change,
       weather-beaten feeder roots
     no longer strong enough
   to grasp all that failed to be

       Old wood is not soluble
            like salted silence
        ebbs away unnoticed
      as life’s evanescent tides

           ...“love always”
       was just chosen words
           I longed to realize …

                 timeworn
       smoldering intentions,
         a blown out candle's
    blackened wick remnants

   Another sobering salutation  
         to look the other way
      without saying goodbye ―

             A lump in throat
            swallowed silently
           abides deeply within  
              without choice;
       lost hope buried beneath
       enduring sneaker waves
                unsettledness

               The memories
          of her muted words
             drowning out all
         I could never become
    
            Sadly recognizing
           it was only a dream;
  convinced we were really doing
             something special
               Now knowing
     it's like crashing high surf
       that never left the shore ...

          Tonight in the throes
            this restless silence,
                 you can see
       it's still raining down hard

            There's no reason
           to even go outside;

            there's no shelter
             from the storm
           that washes over me

                       forever
         Chasing Rogue Waves
                           ...
             These shards of rain
   were never heaven's teardrops

       Tears are the heart's traces
     and,... I've got no time to cry


wild is the wind ... January 25th, 2017

Then I looked to my right, again.
The meandering wind, and the tall branches were still there.
So was the gloomy sky.
And her.
Tranquil as it was, I felt a bit of panic setting in,
There was always a bit of unsettledness about something so peaceful.
As if it will be taken away any instance now, showing me once again
That stability is temporary. Solitude is temporary. And solace,
Is temporary.

And I looked on, scared to turn to my left
Because the moment I turn away, everything will vanish.
This moment will pass.
And I will forget.
For that is its beauty.
Soon, all this will just be freckles in my memory.
A shadow of the moment that is in front of me.
When I remember her smile, will I be able to remember how it made me feel?
If I do, will I be able to remember her grace?
And if that too, her aura?

See. I told you.
There is a bit of danger in all things beautiful.

I looked to my left.
Should I die now, I'll have regrets.