Becoming, Permanently

I live- but a ghostly reflection,
A phantom body
Of what I could be (and am).

I thrive- but an endless struggle
Beneath the clearest understanding,
The sheer clarity,
Like a sky on the sky.

I search- but a puzzling treat
To what I already know-
To savor, to redraw the choices.

I am a moving magic,
An ongoing revolution- to define,
Redefine my change, I say!

I am not perfect, but I,
I am to stay this way.

Origami

Each fold- a potential, physical
Dive from the probable,
A new shadow, a sound
Brushing against the others.

Each tuck, a verb whispered
For itself- the entity, subject
Coming to life, deeply detailed.

Black. And White. It seams,
It arrives methodically
That my soul should grow wings.

Battle Cry

Fire and ice, a layer
Long spread on the glass-
A glaze, separated,
Less than complete.

Pull the shields, the silence
From the infinite turns, niches,
The secrets from the tamed-
The war begins noble.

Sit still, and it follows,
Paints a canvas of soot
(Smiling eyes don't see).
Overturn yourself in the night,
And uncover a prowess long set.

On the Pedestal

The finest of them,
The most eminent
Swerved, dodged narrowly
The sweet, sweet coronation.

The highest, the obscure,
The worthy of pride-
Cast like a thousand sighs
Upon the disjointed sea-
He stands alone in sunrise.

The rest, young and old,
Reaching or pulling,
Say a prayer, smile for him.

Shadow

A smiling, crouching shadow
Sings the sweetest lullaby-
Stooped, yet linked
In the night a thousand shades.

Only then, in the pool of light
Is it simple, just
As any love, found alone-
Mercy and truce.

The days are fooling,
The endless turning times
But the lightest cogs
In a turning, turning shift.

Chattering Essay

Spices-the magicians pieced
All the sensations, left as keys
To a sister of the soul-
Thrown in arcs, circumventing
What seems to be a point.

Concentric? A bit accented
In the illusion particular,
The allusion circulating-
One of the old breed.

Yet, so far from the origin
We sit and watch,
Stand and clap
For one of ours- at best
A collector, magpie-plumed.

Expectation

Marked silence? She sits,
Stands from a falling throne-
Her crown waits, she says.

It is gone, only hoped,
Only dreamed, dreamed away
The only heir she so kept.

The last question,
Before the light caved
To a coughting empty world-
What is left?

Legends of Hope

Transcending- but a glimpse
To the finest, behind the eye,
Behind the scattering
Of any light at all.

There, it waits, in the glory
So blind to see, shrouded-
The strong voice- echoing
That tangling, spidery song.

The true gods that run us,
They empty this little world,
Drown in tears at her feet,
Come washing back to us all.

Luxuries

The bars, like gold wires
Drawn from smooth flame-
In these cold nights, they bow
A bending, wondrous welcome.

Pulling, pulling, the molten cage,
The unhammered rivers fall
Quite minutely, a magic told
The air around to cave, to
Spread some weakness and fly.

It's all just to fall, unhampered
As broken voices speak tongues-
A past forgotten, uncatching,
The empty molds a-waiting.

Damsel in Distress

She was perfect in her own way, perfect like no one else could be. Unapproachable, perhaps, in about three of her facades, but perfect. Perfect was a moving state, you see, a transient state waiting for the next perfect, the better perfect. I really wish she would find that perfect, perfectly. I've been wishing this for a very long time, you see. When the next time comes, and maybe she comes around, maybe I'll stop.

Perhaps I already missed my stop. Perhaps that's why I'll keep missing her, and I can't be wishing anymore.

I'm not the princess, and never should be. I'm not the damsel in distress, and never will be.

Tempter

Climbing, borrowing of the dark
its finest gems and stolen furs,
They lost and pass unseen.

Her wild, wild eyes, slip,
Fragilely tousled hair-
An overbloom of a dream
Who looks the other way.

For such common rarities,
The strings were long set, knotted
In dangerous parallel; the sky falls
And never quite picks up.

Apocalyptic Fractal

In staining succulence, overflowing
A rising mathematical sky,
Precision falls too easy- rushing
Sand ro rock, coals to diamonds.

The blood of the land found
A closed improbability,
Streaked deep in solemn earth,
Pulling in over out in rapid course.

The sea became a broken sky,
The globe curved beyond as
A bare heaven showed jagged streams
And its store of forever sunset.

Entitlement

The not-so-simple direction
Not-so-simple perception
Argue simple,
Beat the solemn speech.

A psyche tips a drunken toast,
A mute stutter
To the kings of the hill,
Always starving and getting richer.

An unsimplified gown, trained
Unsimplified shoes higher
Tossed coiffed, unsimplified hair
All under a crown new currency forced
Upon this rarity
(it was complicated, before).

Now, she totters forth
For the crowds of simplified,
Feeling more and more a queen.

Friendly Monster

Letting go is simple, why
The thing falls up, clawing,
Shredding gravity, screaming
At rare, questioned mercy.

It climbs, beyond the trees
With curlicue written love,
Black as the day it first drank
The brilliance of the sun.

Your name, in unending lights, now-
Ugly black tears, unsmearing
Where you didn't swallow them,
Such shallow, shallow agony!

Your name, an old vow
Sworn and signed all over the sky-
Unbroken, unfulfilled, gone,
It's still yours.

Disillusionment Up

Dispossess the sky,
Disposses the loving, the yearning
Nothing the soul holds
So close, perhaps its only friend.

One by one, it slips,
Silvery strings fly free
So thick in the air, it clears
A quick, coughing wind.

We can only look on, soon.
The pain comes, not just before
And never leaves anymore.
We reach, but never grasp,
We grab, and fall further,
We fall, and may never rise.

Sweetest Dreams

A faraway sound in my ear
Tunes me away, only to hear
Glass blown kisses mixing nights bitter,
Scraping sugar crystals across the sky.

Cinnamon swept night, to day,
Dries the crisp, yet shyest
Sigh through the shimmering veil.

The clouds float an empty foam-
Drip drops a rainy, rainy world
Upon a molasses moment, stalled.

Pink Pearls

Uncontained in its pride
Just to be the sunset's sea,
Just a second.

It chimes a cascade, a jangling
Of a world never painted-
Skipping shyest desires
Gasping, floating at the gills.

Far lay the empty liquid sands
Barren, and still sinking away,
Mined of all but fantasy.

Day and Night

The finest of them, sweet
Strayed a steady course,
hid a shadow behind.

Her sisters, seeing more beautiful
Finer a worldly mind,
Walked firmly, disappeared
Darkly through the glass.

The finest sunsets, the longest
Threads spun on the sea-
They were gifted mist and dew,
Wove over but mercy's night.

The last of them, sweet fairest
Stayed at the barest point;
All jealousy choked at Dawn
As the light was pawned back.

Shame? What Shame?

The refinement of a thousand years,
Her sweet ocean eyes glow
Empty as the pearly sky;
The fairest countenance, a blush
Near wasteful as the steady lace,
Seaming each and every virtue-
A hidden corset tied.

Perfect in every way,
My dignity finds solace
And no solace at all.

Enchantress

She strokes the finest stores of mind,
Sweet reservoir eyes, shining
hair a running river;
All but the scent, an exotic rose.

Her complexion swirls, brighter
Than any Indian summer night,
Two still lanterns wrapping coals
To a new, low strumming.

The spirits of the deepest fires
Forged her unapproachable charm-
Smiths lost in eternal sands
Wrought a beauty, so written,
For otherwise defeated nights.

My Finest Friend

She rages, loves, laughs
Through my gray somber eyes-
Caught in our own spell,
Neither of us see too much.

At once, fire and ice were one,
Unable, in their natures,
To find the sweetest bloom, not one
Amid their finest forces.

We steal time- it comes empty,
In clean scooped puddles without her.
Barely drained in her warm tones,
They only glow richly, beautifully
Beneath her smiling, full moon.

Beyond Giants

A small person is gifted,
Sparingly, the biggest secrets-
Lying awake, in his small space
In his small soul, in his soul's soul.

It becomes a journey, a fight
He wants and needs- he is lithe,
Tipping, walking the line
Between glory and vanity.

This world seems to big, too low, up
For anyone on that tightrope,
Dangling between
The man next in line and
Too many means and ends.

On My Own

I close my eyes and he is there,
Sweet tendrils of touch and feel- lukewarm
Spewing, raging from memory-
He calls the name of another.

Without flaw, without faith of plot
Runs one night to the next;
My dreams draw the finest shards
Of a poor mirror's broken kaleidoscope.

To yearn is empty, passions thrive,
Hide, and shroud my old crudity-
Secretly spartan walls unsightly,
Still alone at siege's end.

Exposed

Right at my hands,
My mind has two halves
Pulled open- to rust, to mingle,
To suffocate each other (briefly).

The mysteries only tantalize,
Tempt at some endless possibility
Reveling in a dance of the dark.

In the light, all is quiet,
The chandelier still swings
A melancholy creak-
Another closed door lost.

Cold Journey

These questions were once answers
As answers, again, become questions-
Infinite knowledge confines- lost
In small boxes, one by one.

The divine leap is far away-
To dream beyond a plotted field,
Beyond the milky river, leaking
Such intricacies, fancies
Need not, yet needed- we follow.

Soon, we are beyond the doubters,
Lost voices calling us back, darkly
To the endless circles, the company
Of mirrors in right and wrong.

Aligning Souls

We walk in silence, not fear-
Simple splashes of vibrant blossom
Grace, fall so faintly
To the empty eyes of Far Away.

We walk in comfort, not certainty-
The fragrance abundant, filling
Its own admiration, stops
Before any devotions (still impossible).

We walk in truth, not luxury-
This spring won't always be
Quite so teeming, so merciful-
The breeze blows sweet, indecisive.

We walk softly, not rippling
Our water lily roots-
They sink beyond the painting,
Fall to endless watercolor ponds.

Intricate Optimism

A disgusting thief is greed,
Which prods at sleeping shame-
That poor, dull face
Long far from that pain.

Yet, the plunder pushes, defies
What seems to be its pulse,
To all, but some hidden, lost heir
Its darkness truly bequeath.

The only, so common escape?
To be born a sin, yet bearing
As a fugitive trader, Unknowns
Stolen from beyond the dark.

The Heavenly Plane

Angels are to be dreamed of,
And aren't so far away at all.
They talk so strange, some say,
One finds they rarely call.

It's not so fearful, not so strange,
To be silent, and to hear
Simple words, simple tales
As pain we know so clear.

The kindest souls we come to be
When to us are fortunes clear-
When we dream as reading hearts
And not as mirrored fear.

Infinity

When the designated end is lost,
A simple vagary misplaced,
Beginnings begin, and
Endings end, in between.

At the last of the light,
Of the true, thin, black line-
Between is's(and "is not"'s)-
Yet another start.

Emotions

Are we meant to cry
Just as we laugh- easily,
And so well?

Breathtaking, it reaches
Our very core- we shake,
Possessed, are gone
By trajectory of thought;
We close our eyes, our ears
So caught, redhanded-
The art of living.

Only in dreams, though,
Have I trembled in such sorrow.

Life- we lift so high, then plummet
To grow our wings
Until, at last, we barely recall
Just when we're due to fall.

Mixing of Ideals

If only miracles occured
To save, and just for love.

Battlefields die, yet empty
Of ghosts present and past;
Hospitals, too- but still full
Of not dying, not waiting-
A maze of emergency rooms
Where small sufferings rarely end.

Reach further,
Beyond words, colors, and sounds.
Reach further, Beyond,
And any old Evil becomes good.

The Knitted

I smile upon this-
A simple hour, so blessed
With the infinite mysteries...
In certainty, of course!

Each stitch- a narrow room
Full of chatter and light,
Written books, even,
Meant for the smallest soul.

Here is the art of possible,
Pounding away at impossible
To nearly frayed thread.

I piece so many-
Little up-wind, down-wind,
Crevices of barely-shadow.
They open and close-for me-
In infinite variation.

The Universe, Today.

It exists, strong and lasting-
A yarn of simple years,
With me as love began,
Still with me.

We were once tied-
(To God Himself)
Now merely ourselves,
Our souls are so tangled,
Frayed by the time.

I hold it in my hands,
Firmly, yet so light.
It frays so little today.

Healing Mantra

I shall purge myself of all things by immersing myself completely in their beauty.
I shall clear myself of all thoughts by letting them fill me, one at a time, until they all strain and purify.
I shall purify my tabula rasa by filling it and letting all pass from it gently.
I shall speak by listening and filling my actions with sincerity.
I shall be free by exiling my desires where they may be one with the world.
I shall be timeless by immersing myself in time and passing with it.
I shall think and be thoughtful by setting my obligations free.
I shall spare the life of my obligations by giving them freedom.
I shall fulfill my obligations by befriending the life of the mind.

In this, I shall be whole.

Dear World,

Note that I feel shame, for
Finding,
Seeking,
Looking on- just for Beyond,
Which I strive for.

Pen after pen,
Notion after notion-
Taken from an endlessness,
It becomes mine, somehow.

Soon, this shall be mine,
So very mine.
You will not be mad,
So very mad.

For now, I am my cage.
You are your cage.
I'm not yours, AND
You're not mine.
Yet. If ever. With love.