Poetry

As winter drew to its close, so too did my comfort
Numb in the sorrows and distinctive hardships
Obsessed by the need to prove my insubstantialness
The lightness of being was too heavy a burden
More, I demanded, carried; growing weary, growing weak
Until the proverbial final straw tested my limits ...

The plague of unholy thoughts runs through his head
Skittering critters cover the far wall
As sleep falls stubbornly into the crevices
And a smaller sun rises over a broader horizon
Yesterday is blur, and yesterday’s yesterday, more so
Walking the line separating mundane from mystical ...

He checked his pocket for cash
Drove the posted speed
Followed all the rules and laws
Constrained by mores, beliefs, a body of limits
He listened to a radio preacher
Heard he would only find peace if he served ...

She shone with the light of all the ages
Focused to a single brilliant point
Setting fire to my very soul
A purple and chartreuse dress
Dipping low, cut short
She danced on the empty dirt road ...

Prophetic exploration
Through the tender veil of time’s essence
Diving into her folds
Moistening the moment
Drenched in amazement
As our ecstasy unfurls

One love;
One moment;
One fragment, dangling, alive
in the sweet glowing sorrows, taken
in the precipice of your flagrant imperfection, taken
just ...

the dark mystic glow of you
captivates, willingly
imprisons me, as you dig your
blue and scarlet fingernails
into the small of my back. Your
evil knowing smirk betrays little ...

I am caught in your web
Oh spinner of night
Changing forever
Dismissing all blight
A glance and a glimmer
Exploded in light ...

I found a new way
prayed every day
every hour
meditated
modified beliefs, habits, behaviors
mediated betwixt two competing halves ...

I’m your bedtime story with morning coffee;
a sweet song flowing with flames of thrusting,
infernal, forbidden, bursting,
writhing,
forever. As fingers trace rolling crescendos of
your every vibration, lying in the preordained moments— ...

I regret that I will continue on this
path I have blazed. I regret that I won’t,
can’t, change course. I regret that I
have chosen to believe that change
is impossible. Or imprudent.
I regret the lessons of momentum, that ...

Lyrics without a destination
A meeting left largely to chance
Arriving in forgotten solace
Seeing her as a stranger, as a confidant, as
Potential.
Inexhaustible nervousness ...

And the siren sang
And the day began
And the willows bent
And all hope fell
The driving rain fulfilled the forecast
Forty days of flood predicted ...

So many distractions
A world awry in a busy mind
A life of demands, expectations, unmet
Progressing ever slowly
Solemnity unsettled
Peace, elusive ...

Underneath it all, the source of
light shines, not curtailed by
the lack of translucence,
the minimalism
of humanistic praises
leading only ...

I seen’t Granny a walkin’ down the holler
She done waved at me and I waved back
I remember how the look in her eye
Come back in the dark that night
And woke me plumb from sleep
I heard tell next day ...

I stood in solemn contemplation
Glanced at the meaning of life
Where black meets white
Blending to quiet browns, royal violets, flowing reds
And decided in that instant
That I’d contemplated for quite long enough ...

There's magic in a blank page
Clean, white, pristine
Where hope can find her way home
And the muse is ever welcome
There's wonder in a fresh day
Inviting weather's inevitability ...

What am I without you?
Six months ago, one was enough. I was comfortable in my solitude. But life is changed now. I am changed. I am changed in the possibility and the reality of you.
What am I without you?
I am the moon without the pull of earth, careening recklessly through empty, dark space. I am the silent morning songbird. I am the blues guitar, tuned, ready, but unplayed. I am complete, but empty, filled in winsome void. I am a rowboat, adrift on an endless sea.
For what is love without love's lover? The flower, gone to seed.
Time ticks mercilessly on. The train's hypnotizing drone on uneven tracks. Entering the dark tunnel. Light fades. Blackness overtakes. ...

Trust in the confusion, and
Let life come and go
Hold the chill no longer
Enjoy the falling snow
She walked in windblown silence
Through days that ambled fierce ...

Trust the confusion
Trust the fear
Stand bright in the dark
And pull love near
Still the voices
And silence the din ...

My world tilted
In that first smile from you
Sweet, brave, manifest altruism
I felt the waves of bliss and enticement
Melding, harmonizing, vibrating
In an instant of audacious...  ...

Thankful... 
For two legs that walk in the direction my heart leads
For a heart that hears God's whispers
For a place to write my words
For ten fingers to write my words
For a heart that moves my fingers ...

To what value is faith when it avails so little? Show me the hidden secrets that keep me from my path. I know your face; your face is kind and good. Your face is beneficence. And yet with all the kindness I see clearly in your eyes, you speak not. You taunt me; you haunt me; you leave me imperiled and alone. Close, yet impossibly far from the wisdom of but a word.
A solitary word and I would be healed;
But I am met only with your silent hand.
You are the force of correction, of wisdom,
But utter lovelessness.
Why do you force me to choose between dim and bright? ...

From a past near forgotten
You transcend time and space
Reacquainted in passing
Your beauty awaits
What once was pure myst'ry
Might now be revealed ...

From under the faded black door
Springs a faint light, a twinkling
Hope, I dare wonder
Could it be?
Purified in gross inequities
Dancing a slow dance with terrors ...

A crowded subway station
Trains arrive from every direction
Non-stops, locals, orange line, blue
Bombarded, overrun is the station
The nightly news
Three people shot ...

What was it about her eyes? They were dim of color but of neither character nor light. Her grey eyes were the color of sadness abandoned. In her eyes he found hope. This, he realized, was to be his lasting love.

I wonder sometimes if poetry is dead. Replaced by texts and tweets and our proclivity for retreat. We want to be close, but wander instead.
The autumn leaves still change
And breezes still blow
As tuned into the vast blue portals
Short echoes are all we know
Instants of grandeur ...

Here's what I ought do:
Respond to my emails
Rewrite my latest novel
Enter my expenses into QuickBooks
Wash my car
Go to the gym ...

Embers dwindled as the night grew old 
Matt added one more log, then another
She slept peacefully in the down-filled bag three feet away
Connie, Constance Marie, his angel
His one true love
Sleep evaded his harried soul ...

Reflections of the seasons 
The rising of the winds
Lifted on the sweetness
Of melodies within
Reflections of the reasons
The flowing of our lives ...

A stark glance at starbirth
The haunting now replaced
In explosions of her music
Through the once forgotten place
The vivid red velvet
Of a redawning star ...

Occasionally
A phrase holds on
It rises and rides through the seasons
Filed away, it fills, instills, chills, simmers
Echoes of a slight suggestion
Build in the background of a quiet mind ...

Choose a timid smile
Releasing hidden hopes
Sharing a heart's slim beat
Grasp at love's retreat
Dive into an instant
Where free-falling sorrows mete ...

I set aside my passions
Waiting for your hand
Dancing in the silence
A lost and broken man
I gladly fell asleep
Denied the rising tide ...

I surrender.
Where do I turn but to you?
Only you can fill this empty space that is all I now know.
Madness is on my only seen horizon.
Take me to that place I have forgotten.
Take me to the only place that heals. ...

A time of renewal
A chance to find hope
The dawn of awareness
The spawning of grace
Dark days of sadness
Of sorrows and pain ...

Thrilled by the sight
Of your captivating dance
Moved by the feel
Of your soft surrender
Awakened in the call
Of your beating heart ...

Air and water
Heaven and hell
Sweet Reggae beats
Calming the swell
Stripping the bottles
To the essence of truth ...

Across the crowded room
I shot you a glance
You shot back
I allowed a grin
For just an instant
I could feel you ...

Slow-moving streams
Light's fulfilling thought
Nothing's as it seems
In chocolate-flowing dreams
Rich, vibrant, savory
Dark, warm, alive ...

decades of fury
tamed through calm winds
flowing through
polished brass
polished jazz
color, exploding ...