Silence

A constant gift in every ear
The oldest volumes be,
Read, and read, and read, (and read)
Till greater than the sea.

Replace one, and another comes,
The sweet wind's shawl to slide.
Lighting seeps the flame of frost,
The crackling forever plied.

Hold it close to you, and listen
Coldest where its secrets lie,
An ancient spell of purest words
Deserving no reply.

Try it one, as you may,
Choke, sputter, and see,
Through strongest spirits, on it flows
Yet no one's master be.

Remnants

Suppose I

could.

Suppose I could shake the longest, dryest of waiting tears until I'd never cry again, losing my reluctant love where it finds someone perfectly happy.

I smile, keep, keep walking, and it is gone. My dearest, my very last resistance, gone.

Watching.

Suspended in the sorrow that overtakes the wind for a long, long while, waiting, sitting on the meager shadows of rising and falling night and day. The cycle gets heavy, watching her dull, scratched reflection on the sea.

From far away, a tree grows where the sad little shame had been, already staining, bridging every little star to the sun and never, ever stopping. Built on tears, where the salt became the sand and the rolling, twisting sob burrowed deep and right through the rock, it wrinkles in disgust at the blushing sunset, and does not know how to smile.

Star to star, branches tip close as they can. To the others, they say. As long as this tree is here, no one shall fall, ever again. As long as this is here, every dreamer may walk forth, merry, on this thin, thin ice of a night.

Soon, there shall be a forever, stronger than the others, the little one hopes.

I shall touch where my master failed, and I shall glow in the night.

For all the dreamers, to sit where I break into the glassy night, I stay.

Beyond Magnolias

The sky opens widest,
Shy of any return, dancing
at the edge of another complete
Being.
Nobody watches, so slowly
when all the softness goes
seeping into ground.

Color walks forth, shedding
any and all pretense, shining
brighter than ever before;
The world is really still
when colors cease to quarrel, the best
of all shades shed the same.

Take another step back,
See the cotton thread wind
pulling all of us round, away-
Sheerer than any quiet sky,
they race down the horizon
in neck to neck harmony.

Early Morning Dreams

It's overblown world, etched
In ink and graphite
Miracles
Of endless avenues of dust.

It's never night, never quite day,
Blooming yet faster, faster as
The world draws upon itself.

Oh, to dream, to walk on lines,
Drawn split seconds, pushing
Every which way- up
across, and even in!

Someday, all will be drawn
As for the past years,
Into the waiting, the hollow
Pillars of salt and sand.

Still There

The moment's journey went astray
As the country road does bend,
The wildest run so very swift,
No one could ever make a-mend.

This dust, it rolls, so high and slow
Across never a straight post fence.
Why, it caught up to the sea,
Spent immortality, hence.

Your love is endless,
But a moment thought,
As it waited for an end.
Yet on the deepest summer night,
No map the stars defend.

Perhaps Endless, Perhaps Not

When is it, that the fog should clear?
The world speaks humble
To the future so dear.

To the future so dear,
Should the silence hence mumble
And itself not fear?

And itself not fear,
Says the dream who'd tumble
To the future so dear!

To the future so clear,
Go the toasts drunks grumble;
When is it, that the fog should clear?

ELSE

Cast aside all delusions,
All royalty of brown, murky thought
Swamped in wanting, starving want,
To the token marble statues
Fawning in the well.

Beautiful, are you, where
Phrases should be full, curved,
Naturally dangling, or perhaps not,
Running fast and dark, dark blue.

You are someone, not like them,
Or anyone who might say such-
Not even you, then!
You are something completely, entirely
ELSE.

Unlocking that Within

She laughs- a low, living noise
With wings, pulled from the aerie,
Long, ash thin legs
Hum-drumming, plucking
Strands of untouched sand;
Swish, to the lonely little wind,
Farewell once again.

Her eyes are stolen whirlpools-
The tide rises and falls
From a secret place
Where her cocoa shadow roses
Rise from little seeds,
The land but a ribbon, torn rashly,
Fading from the endless Blue.

This all wells in the soul, you see,
The truth of all that could befall
This great faraway shore,
A paradise, rising again and again,
Missing, dropping and picking
New refrains each time.

Face Towel

Unseen beauty measures silent;
This took a long, long way-
A short, little gray blindness of metal
Rosily taken, unremarkably spun.

At one dark turn, it was a forever
And "ever" meant "meaningful";
Sweetly bitter tears caught silky,
A sticky, screaming vow of poverty
As perhaps, some lady's friend.

Still now, it stays, stays rushing
The meekest rough thread in and out,
Barely through a daily smile-to-smile,
A barely-course, almost sinister.

All angers and humors take to
Destroy vanity into a simple mind, for...
It was not hard before, not anymore.
Still in love, it softly caresses this
Unreasoned oddity of scrubbing work.

Somewhere, the virgin form exists
All broken and innocent as before-
Soft was awfully hard, then.

Grain of Desire

The buried, endless want
Falls a straight path- down
Like a closing, yearning vow, penning
that almost silent wish.

Like spring, it falls, hits
not enough, not even full once;
Eventually it mourns, instead
upright and dreaming time away.

Here, it shall be- far, well marked
when you are long gone,
The perfect conclusion, doled
to this backwards-reaching seed.

Emptying

We live in a forever; It falls
in a bell jar- capped,
sealed with maybes, have nots
Should haves- little lights, burning
in long pillars of faith.

Waxing, never waning
from the sunken clarity,
We are but born, and donning
The finest we could hope for.

Beautiful, as we wait-
Smiles like spiders, climbing up
up like eternal baby saplings- rich, but bent
Where the world curves in.

Magic, it seems- magic to uncap,
To look straight ahead
in a world of ruthless angling,
Moving windows and tipping walls,
To break this, somehow, as it falls.

It

Beautiful, beautiful- we twirl
The intricately laced insides, shyly,
Until they cascade, flash
The ghosts of awkward and dumb.

This is the moment,
The pinnacle, the pain
Surging where we are not
As exactly as we be.

This is royalty- we make
A light way in this world,
Colors mixing mad, as we please,
Endless as borrowed time.

Dream's Doll

She smiles, truly hapless,
A creature of not thought,
Not love, true longing,
Not really existing- right?

She aches at the core, the
Plunging, surging maze-
Caught in endless spotlight
Where all the problems hide.

A story, a story- a dead heart
Told, untold, told,
Interchangeable, perhaps,
But sad, and a bit real anyway.

Magnolia VII

She saunters forth, the lady,
To sway at her will
(for the wind is about the same).

Here is all new polish, all grace
Bearing so steady, heavy
Like the hope of endless sun-
Tragic, but wise and true.

Most pearls now folded away,
Never is it so simple,
So kind and touching a light-
Only decidedly still.

Soul Like Water

My mother sings a fragile song,
A mystery, for anyone else
Who hears but the words.

Broken, they tangle, dive a thousand leagues
To where they truly breathe-
A silvery, ghostly binding,
Beyond to the misty, mistaken core.

Here, they gather, gather
Unsifted, cold, unwanted,
Blue web like the ocean above
Until the waters break to strands.

Starry-eyed

To live in a place with a million stars,
Each, bold with colored fire,
Cut to burn eternally, however soft.

A million- touchable, real,
no numbers, once lost, no grief
To bear such a burden.

One million, and I will fly
Where no one can reach or grab me,
For this is the fall.

As It Is

I live in a world where things exist as overstatements, and yet, are not spoken at all.

I live in a world where things exist, and somehow that is enough. For everyone.

The wondering, wandering, and maddening desire to know more prevails.

There are no absolutes. Only absolute pleasure in the spurts of understanding.

You don't think this is real?

It's very real. Look not to prove it. Look to see.

Mourning

What secrets lay forbidden and smiling,
Says the far back, the heart of hearts,
Spread, arms wide and clumsy,
So lushly open, yet mysterious?

A shy, shy matter- just eager
Running with the fount of life even
As it overflowed and gave
This all her bold, bold pleasure.

Now, to apologize,
To be shy, quiet
Once more.
The phantom of that happy
Place, she isn't ready to run away.

Cleaned

The glory of a thousand thoughts-
It used to spread, dissect
Its mistakes, its secrets alone.

Shadows became friends, neighbors,
Trading meager light, little life
warmer and warmer.

Plain as day, they seduced the flames
Now hungry, truly pulled out, (up, about)
Truly shrunken away-
A pounce from an empty post.

But a Moment's Notice

She stands before me,
Her smile always sad.
The music plays around her-
My symphony.

She does not see
Never saw, actually,
But the eyes ebb all away.