Magnolia Tree (IV)

Shadows bathe, low and warm
Harmonies to the shy new light.
Leaves droop, but behold revelry-
They are a garish, fluttering green.

Such is the rare moment, reservation-
Nature's finest face in modest veils,
Pale peculiar pearls of creamy sheen-
Carved, exquisitely layered,
In thick chains of light and shadow.

Like a garment well made, it lasts-
Four seasons, still a fresh sensation.
Simply, the spotlight quickens elsewhere,
An audience still unsought.

If He Sleeps Soundly Tonight

If he sleeps soundly tonight, then
I'll taste the pink coral winds,
Rushed through unprepared morn,
While they still brew behind their canvas.

If he sleeps soundly tonight,
I'll close my eyes, feel phantom roses
Grace glass lips ajar, an empty scent bouquet.
It awaits, the single bloom
That spring did not touch.

If he sleeps soundly tonight, then
I may forever paint him in good grace;
Another, born of the same batch,
Yet I see my champion.

Night Rises

Night becomes a floating city;
Our dead ambitions walk and
Make gardens pass the walls
Into the houses.

Everything outside falls away;
Only the moon is true.
Most close their thick doors,
Suspended on an endless sea.

A world of windows, no walls-
(Shadows fill and sink them)
The feeling never quite drains way,
Come tomorrow, as
Only the tide retreats.

Transitions

I wonder where we go at night;
When all tasks of the day resign themselves,
Dreams find themselves softly
Resurrected, in the silence.

They tangle together
In warmth that we steal away-
taken from those who don't sleep,
suspend their lives to breathe.

Music plays as time dances into place
For those who still move along.
In silence, the rest keep hoping
Tomorrow will gently ease in.

Clipped

When he takes my hand,
i remember we're not meant to fly,
astound or rewind (our) clockwork orange;

the world was already on its knees,
dull with marionette lies,
gypsy jigs pounding coins on pavement,
only half alive, from who knows where.

the sky was snuck a forgery,
with moons coaxed from paste;
mercy disbanded and blank contracts
filled with something else.

I hug him and keep wishing,
I cut a little piece of reflection
Gently where it frayed from Night;
My eyes sting with salt.

Perhaps the moonlight would not fall,
Swell into its etched tattoo-
That changing mask upon the sea-
If we would just give it all away.

Paradise

Lovers do not choose
Which springs should fall as memories,
Which hold summer so close
to their chill shawls,
Seasons sneak by in a matter of days.

Sheets of rain may wrap the world
So deeply in a cocoon, all things tied
to an endless metamorphosis;
Every moment is suspended.

Sunlight may cascade, just the same-
New wanderers made of us-
Entwined in pastels, or saturated
with everything under the sky.

Whatever it should be,
We find ourselves drawn together.

The World and I

I have lived my life many a time,
Spun years and years upon a day.
I have seen the joy I wished to see,
Yet all alone, these memories sway.

I have seen a sunset a hundred ways,
In varying degrees, every sky does yield.
Upon the see, these stories went,
And seldom missed a storm to field.

I have loved my loves, unwrote goodbyes,
Gave reason to myth not true.
Am I to expect an answer
For the things I did not do?