Hydroponic Ode

Pretty castle on a cloud, 
Your foundations taken in
a ghostly maze unfolding-
a drifting life
on a cold liquid breath. 

A new home, this is- 
new soft sleepy hands
to tug at blind roots-
a basket woven tight
for sitting.

Forget the silent shadows,
forget the dark velvet-
the full, heavy embrace
of a thousand generations;
Stand on a million
tendrils of curious light.

Grow with me- 
Let us swim down,
shed our drowning shells
to show slippery skins- 
above us, forever
our offerings to spring.

Unfolding Under the Trees

The sun drops a dusty screen,
a curtain through
the window in the tree,
a wall of leaves, wood beams
thick as winter
and summer and fall.

I lay my heart down
(the roots rise
to meet my eyes)
beneath a blanket of ferns,
shadow puppets swaying
a silent chorus- on stage
a lighted sky.

Then the whole world forgets
I am me, dressed,
washed in another light-
little hairs on my legs, my skin
treated with another fantasy.

Here, I wear slippers of sun
on peasant feet-
I've no claim to truth
but a life, a whisper
beneath my cracked toes.

Here, my flat eyes common
see the concrete scraped away-
all I've known
a little, hard creek running off,
a kite string
light as my sigh
bound to a heavy heart of green.

The City in the Night

A river runs, a river runs
where the people do not rest;

I sit and watch, my post
in a ship old as extinction,
the stream of hiding souls.

By night, they rise
higher than the trees,
skim the dreams, the wet crumbs
the grit of the watery stew-
silly souls are fed
who know to fly away.

So many, they are-
they cover the moon,
leave the city of dreams
a sleeping Atlantis,
drowned in what it knows.

One Sky

Forget the moon,
so it falls
fighting the burning tide
between that other sky
and yours.

Forget and my brown hand
kisses its trembling face,
my touch, the moon
crumpling into this memory-
a sea breaks up on us,
my sky and yours.

But give me, this
sad, unending cry-  this hand
that does nothing, nothing
but praise the faceless gods,
and so it will be-
one sky once more.

As It Must Be

Shake the skies in my starry eyes,
take the key to my open door;

Bottle my cries,
they'll break as time flies,
set a fire across your floor.

But stay, take me
and my tangled lies,
free this heart
from its burning ties;

Show my soul
where its magic lies,
and I'm yours evermore.