Time is fleeting
as the spring river runoff
that gushes out to sea

A heart trickles out
a moment,
minute by minute,
in a timeless ink drop;
unmeasurable expanse
     immured in spilled ink ―
   manifest in the lexicon of poetry

For only purged words
cannot quench this thirst
that is loneliness;
it's a hunger that gnaws
like an unsatisfiable ache ―
a starving emptiness
all hearts
do one day taste

Left in the sight
of doubt
and eyes that fail
to believe what they see
lain fallow in the silent
indifference

Lost in a lingering void
unburied all around,
bespoken out loud
alone in plain sight
a feigned understanding;
reticent letters shape
reluctant words
to hold forth
enunciated breathe

The only words
that still echo unstilted ―
uttered  words
indelibly felt
from lips once sweet
as daybreak dew
    upon musing tongue ―
tasting the only
voiceless truth
that ever broke my heart

a vanishing wave
that moved an ocean
   deeply ...


Jesse Stillwater ... 06 6 2018

A breathe of words ― 
a gust of thought scattered;
welling silence ruptures
bulging vault chambers
with the patience
of tongue-tied hearts

In a long deep breath
pith of soul manifests;
rich with the breathing spirit
of life that's passed

A timeworn lid spinning
on a blue glass jar
Indigenous roots
and memories tender,  
perpetuity gleaned
and garnered
on fruit cellar shelves

Segues of ancient culture ―
evolution derives
from many roots
trying to catch
time in a bottle;
a travelogue
of saved beginnings;
magic beans
in a mason jar

    Life’s native seeds gathered ―
organic building blocks
the immemorial soul
of the earth sown
and reaped;
sprouting unstilted
continuum
for which
ever fleeting time
cannot hold


Jesse e Stillwater
09  May  2018

I wait in the quiet
not to scatter the voices
then snarled in cypress
I shift through a
hollow of gypsy moths
hidden in the moon daze
a voice unstilted slithers above

What is it like out there, beyond this place?

-everyone hunches in the crowd

like the rainbow snake
the voice makes home
around me and moves in
the mad underground
under me

What are you afraid of?

-to be quiet in another voice

*-to run like water