---

∴

when i learned

you were gone from here,

memories

of Our Life

flooded me and sit in pools

in yesterday’s heart.

∴

 

 

---

---

∴

i dare you

to be loved like that,

seen and held.

would you dare

to love like that in return?

we could change the world.

∴

 

 

---

 

---

∴

i remember good.

in it,
i only wanted good
in the quantity of more,
which was easily had,
for good regenerates itself
like hibiscus blooms –

new everyday
and twisting in at night
in tight little umbrellas
that keep out the rain.

good, like hope,
imparts an endless supply
of strength for the walk,
of character for the wit,
and comforts the traveler
as she goes.

amusements enthrall without trap
and hearty laughter comes.
sleep is granted in restful nap,
and terrors taunting cease.

yes,
i remember good.

is it by peaceful rationalizations
that we trade her?
is it for promised destinations
that we leave her?
it is a tricky business
to defame her,
but many voices therein lie,
whose business is
to tantalize.

i have indulged to my destruction
the fantasy of me
and what a silly pillar
is one erect
without good
that grew the seed.

good,
i remember you

like the whisper of a name
that sends chills upon my spine
and squeezes my heart in anticipation
and joy and fear.
good fear, from awe.

and i walk now
whispering
the name
i do not yet fully know
lest i forget again.

∴

 

---

 

---

∴

she enters so effortless-smooth,
as though all her arrivals
were on well worn carpets –
red –
for how stately
she comes.

her hair is yellow and white,
soft,
yet contained
and you’d like to touch it,
it’s a lion’s mane,
and you know you could never.

but the capture really
is done with the eyes,
that flash with blue
and deep blue-green
like abalone patches
that catch in the sun,

that never look directly at you,
at least not long enough
to be satisfied.

but how could you be satisfied?
unless you swam in them
longer
than necessary
or wise.

and people would talk,
besides.

 

she just.

won’t.

speak.

 

but you stay silent
to make space
that she might,

speak.

 

because
o,
what would she say?

 

she’d say something,
you’re sure
that would alter you.

that would skew the world’s slant
and color your view
so that finally,
you’d see like all those
saints and mystics
that saw only beauty
in life.

 

so you wait.

 

but the door opens,
and you’re called,
and led away
to other rooms
and less worn carpets –
not red –

leaving her in that lambent light,
where she still sits,
and glows.

∴

 

 

---

---

∴

what love is love that is illusion?

’tis but a dream
that wilts upon waking
and does not sate the day.

yet like all dreams,
can simultaneously taint the mind
with fear of loss
and elation
for it’s ephemeral existence.

o, dreamed-of love,
do you becomes us?

or do you keep us
married to mirages
and focused on phantoms,
that pass over
lovers’ faces
like clouds about a sundial,
obscuring time
for a time,
enlarging the heart,
and not filling it?

 

still –

you curious catalyst –
you kindler of deep-hope coals –

i am sure of love
as living

even if only in one’s dreams.

∴

 

 

 

---

 

---

 

∴

 

the hounds of heaven

and the hounds of hell

seem equally yoked

in might

 

and lest we find our selves

torn at the seams

’tis better

to feed them both right.

 

∴

 

 

---

---

∴

i cannot look in lovers’ eyes
nor in the pages of the distant sages
who beckon me back
to archaic ages
with wisdoms
like windmills
that spin
and hypnotize
on the horizon,
but whose breeze i do not feel.

whose milled power
churns
for some other soul
to harness and use,
not i.

i cannot look in the young ones
for i am not young,
again
and again
i find.

i cannot look in the aged
who have wearied of our lot
and who wait now,
to finally find
what all the disagreements were about,
and if there was anything
in their long lives
to have disagreed about at all.

were all those holy wars
myths masquerading as monarchs
when murderers, mainly,
they were?

i cannot look in nature,
for that too, is but a looking glass.
though in it
my reflection finds,
the maker of it
was a more masterful mind.

i cannot look
back and in
where the springs of me
are said to begin –
it is a snake,
eating it’s tail.
it is Narcissus’ fail.

in all that is about me
i cannot look.
but in the way of a mapless cat,
who innately discovers a course for home –
a home directionless and lost –

i search for you
endlessly.

for there is nothing else on earth
i wish to find.

∴

 

---

 

---

∴

i have set my song down.

my strings have gone still
in the searching for hope
in silence.

but no,

not even here,
in solitude
and being,

can i find that elusive muse.

 

she left me
she left
and stole my heart with her
anon.

i beg for her breath
in the laughter of children,
or could she come
on the call of the swan?

i swear that i’ll find her
on a moon –

that cold rock –

who splinters
and darkens till new.

i must be mistaken;
so i squint
in confusion
like a man
who has misplaced his shoe.

but hope
is not owing.
not to me.
she’s no slave.
and she walked
when i took her for granted.

and now
when i pick up my song
to remember

there’s nothing
but tin on the strings.

the echo
of hopelessness –
hollowing –
sings.

∴

 

 

 

---

 

---

∴

it was a sail.

wrapped up in a roll
like an aspen leaf horn
before blowing.

where once was a little
grew larger than life
and i watched it
shade everything else.

in the cool of it’s shadow,
in the heat of it’s gaze,
i slept
till reality fell;

it filled my head with
strange honest dreams.
it discovered my grain
where smooth things seemed.

upon waking
i wondered
at all that had past
and could not discern
life’s hull from it’s mast.

but are not both things
of equal import:

that which keeps you in water
and which moves you upon?
and how can one move
when the windblower’s gone?

∴

 

 

 

---

 

---

∴

there is great achievement

in getting nothing done;

 

especially

 

when it takes all day

to not do it.

∴

 

 

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