Tomorrow, Butterfly

On frail wings
Spectacles of memories
Perhaps well suited for the pin
To mount up in some gallery
Go sailing far beyond my reach
But I should never wish it so
That beauty on this grander scale
Be found confined
By greedy man
Or turn of hand
As time, life, and love demand

Tomorrow then, my butterfly
If winded currents sweep you so
I will not keep you
No, not for trophies
Not for thirst to see your colors
Freedom owes itself to us
Your gilded wings deserve release
The slightest touch
Might hurt so much
For something there so precious made
So, to the breeze, I send you off

Tomorrow then, my butterfly
Today may be a time unkind
The sunset speaks
Upon your fragile form so sweet
Fluttering beyond my reach
But I can be
Content to know I held you close
And met you on this journey we
Were christened for
Before today was ever dreamed
Farewell, I hope you keep your wings

Trickery Of Fates

Trembling hands tucked tenderly in the pockets
Of an overcoat pretense ministered with a smile
Nervously adjacent to a tangled weave of angels
We administer the dosage of a thousand sleepless nights
I feel the tug of Atlas asking penance for his negligence
While I, beneath it all, can muster nothing but a laugh
The serenade of symphonies concluding these procedures
Is the theme for those who fall in love but never make it back

To Pull You Closer To My Heart

Dreaming of a dialogue
Waking to an empty room
Singing of a foreign life
Sleeping in a shallow tomb
Oh, it’s easier than we would like
Being empty oh so deep inside
When the smiles take your breath away
But we didn’t really feel that way
Did we?

Shaken to the inner core
Radiant–a shade of love
Taken to return no more
Taken what should be enough
Oh, it’s easier than we pretend
Holding everything beneath our skin
When the beauty makes you turn your head
But the ghosts are always in my bed
Did we?

Dreaming of a dialogue
Maybe through a clouded glass
Whispers in a borrowed car
Something for my hand to clasp
Oh, it’s easier than we believe
When we turn around again to leave
Does our story ever wear you out?
Do the memories feel as faded now?
Did we?

Saving all my energy
Palms outstretched as I emerge
Dreams are never what they seem
Coming up for air is hard
But it’s easier than letting on
That the little things are passing on
If I encountered you in open air
Would you remember me like I was there?
Did we?

Dreaming of a dialogue
Messages and simple words
Even though I know it’s gone
Sometimes, with the night, returns
Shadows of a dearest friend
And I feel like I could fly again
With my arms outstretched into the dark
To pull you closer to my heart
But your gone
And I’m here
Going on
And I ask
Was it dreams?
Was it real?
Did we?

Dawn, The Omen Of Day

Dawn, the omen of day, with shroud discarded
Pierced with stars retreating
Wields sharpened rays to chase shade
Deep beneath the overhangs
And with it sleep, defeated

Counterplot

Dedicated apparitions
Baited into empty white chapels
Where someone speaks
Who isn’t there
And no one else responds
Yet, in dropping pins
And hurricane force winds
Subliminal messages evacuate lungs
Like ships
Squeezed through a channel mouth
Outbound

Someday, maybe, our dotted lines
Undrawn on maps penned by time
Will meet
Where x marks
An island of thought
Everyone there is you
Each driving small cars
Wearing tan skirts, black shades
And a fondness for smiles
Something akin to babies
Who have not learned
To cringe
To reason sensibly
Or to bend beneath the backwash
Of public opinions

There we are–found
A stuttering ode
To all things bright and beautiful
Cadence like chocolate poured
Softly over pursed lips
And frost bitten fingertips
A counterplot
To rule a world once destroyed
Tyrants abolished
Forsaken deserts of thought
Now holding cautiously in palm
A sea of dreams beneath
Where us
And nothing
Meet

Wolves Against My Heart

Do you know the sounds
The creaks–the moans
Of doors on hinges bent to break

Do you know the nights
The weeks–the months
Of barricading my mistakes

A moon has risen but from spite
These apparitions–they assail
Our weakened walls, exposed to night
As lanterns fail

Then come the wolves against my heart
We cower, peering out the cracks
When all the seams are torn apart
With broken backs

Do you know the feel
Of roughened grain
Against the flesh of sweaty palms

Do you know the dreams
Of the insane
Once driven out of town in arms

A sun will rise against the east
To burn its trail above our heads
And with its destination reached
We will be dead

To feed the wolves against my heart
With scraps and portions we have left
A fragile remnant of this art
That we did best

Clouds I Packed

Fragments of the bridges we burned
In the charred grey haze
In the soft blue grass
My hand on your future
Your palm on my past

Little scraps of clouds I packed
In the zippers and pockets
Of the walls we moved
And the paint we peeled
For the dreams we drew
Under stark white dots
Oh, the skies we knew
Were

Bigger than the snowfall over those mountains
And bigger than the love all over these hills
Our sky was on fire
Our hearts were our needles
Our eyes were a compass
Our bodies unbound

Bigger than the words repainted from ancients
And bigger than door frames over this house
Our sky is on fire
Our blankets untorn
Our love is like water
Our bodies still warm

(sorry for the delay. I’ve been relocating and adjusting. Thank you for your patience)

A Conversation

I look into your eyes–you stare
I find an irony somehow
In everything about your face
But I push that aside for now
I ask you of the life you chose
And is it working out so far
Behind the tired rings you wear
All the bitter nights have carved
Colors tell the story well
Though you simply shrug and laugh
But we both know you’re not yourself
And maybe he will not come back
I look into your eyes–so deep
I ask you if you have regrets
You slowly turn your head and speak
Whispering replies in breath
“I wouldn’t want to say it’s good
Or claim that I am glad at all
For how it all turned out–or could”
But then you lift your head up tall
“I know that this has cost so much
I know I may appear unwell
But heaven here is hard to touch
I guess I had to go through hell
It doesn’t mean I’m scared to burn
It doesn’t mean I don’t look back
I could have walked the easy way
But I choose not to think of that”
If all the sleepless nights were stars
The galaxy is in your look
If all the tears you cried were words
The lines across your cheek are books
I look into your eyes–you stare
I find an irony somehow
I see you every day right here
But cannot seem to search you out
And when I think I know you well
Or when I think you’re feeling fine
My mirror finds the truth to tell
Your tired face is just like mine

Dreamland Renegades

Five acre smile
Under backlit sunset braids
Did we set the world on fire
I think we might have
Burning up
‘Til there’s nothing left to save
Did we catapult the moon
I think we might have

Open roads
Counting fence posts on parade
Did we think we’d never fade
I think we might have
Overbold
Plotting midnight masquerades
Did we think we’d get away
I think we might have

I took the wheel
Like all the world was ours to steal
Every golden flake of cloud
Tucked away behind the thought
We are real
Chasing colors like the blind
Call us dreamland renegades
Much too perfect to be caught

Ready Or Not

Summertime dreamers
Wintertime love
Drinking up starlight
Waking up God
I could die perfect
We could die young
Tied up in angels
Ready or not

Still

Although, within my heart
I must concede
I have no cause to hope or feel
That there is more
I love you still

Although, within my mind
Quite logically
I have succumbed to what is real
I must confess
I love you still

Although I cannot speak
Of all I dream
Or ask for all to be revealed
It seems to me
I love you still

Although you may be far
It cannot change
This certain passion of my will
I had to say
I love you still

The River And I

The river and I go side by side
It runs, though I, content to walk
Am in no rush, though tossed about
And ever turbulent, no doubt
But less intentional in stride

The river and I, we both do long
To find the sea–the open deep
I feel my path will longer be
For I am less at liberty
To chase the places I belong

The river and I have much to share
The downward path we both pursue
I feel I fall but never rise
And dashed upon these rapids white
The fate I find is rarely fair

The river has more voice than I
It has no fear to speak its mind
It gladly tears the earth apart
While on its path with steady heart
It makes no stops and forms no ties

The river has more force than I
To cut away at standing stone
Its lonely goal by soul inspired
It runs always and never tires
With naught a thought to quit or die

The river knows not how it moves
Nor does it out of malice roll
It merely seeks its distant love
Relentlessly at every ebb
And presses in, around, and through

The river and I, we both know well
The destination of our call
We know which way we need to go
Though how to turn we may not know
And what may come we cannot tell

The river and I, though without words
Walk side by side along the bank
I long to run as does this friend
But how I fall and how I bend
Has broken me in shattered thirds

The river and I have parted ways
It perseveres while I digress
Returning to my former lot
A life, a day, a time forgot
With sentences I long to say

The river and I will both go far
Adapting to our circumstance
Perhaps, since I am not allowed
The river will reach you somehow
In freedom on some distant shore

Midair

The bullet pierced the breast in flight
In plummet, life has traded light
For darkness as the feathers fall
It never touched the ground at all
But somewhere on the journey down
Relinquished fate and slipped away

‘Tis better to be killed midair
Than caged upon the ground in bars
Or traded for the songs you sing
Without the use of heart or wing
I would much rather die in love
Than live as though it’s not enough

Painted Vessel of Passage

Skin, oh the falsities stretched over flesh
As a smile, or a laugh, or a wish
Twisted in foreign hieroglyphics
Subtle nuances of portrayal
With which we deftly parry
The thrust of probing questions
Or misguided salutations
But skin is not what I am
And this boxcar bears no resemblance to the passenger within
Merely a painted vessel of passage
Oft’ the canvas of a graffiti made to fade
A forest, blocked by trees
Or, perhaps, a tale that no one would believe
That is us
That is me
Beneath

Set In Stone

Set in stone
Like the letters overhead
When my sleep becomes my rest
Lay a flower on my chest

When I’m gone
And the earth becomes my bed
I have nothing to regret
I have lived and loved and left

Maybe Dragons Are Misunderstood

Just because you’re hard to kill
Doesn’t always make you tough
Just because you never smile
Doesn’t mean you never dream
Just because you’re breathing fire
Doesn’t mean you cannot love
Just because you’re different
Doesn’t mean you’re dangerous

What if all the dragons
Are just brokenhearted fairy tales
What if all the monsters
Are just souls without a home
What if all the blood we spill
Is digging our way down to hell
What if everybody
Didn’t have to be alone

Just because they don’t believe
Doesn’t always mean you’re wrong
Just because they cannot see
Doesn’t mean there’s nothing there
Just because you’re far away
Doesn’t mean you don’t belong
Just because my skin is thick
Doesn’t mean that I don’t care

What if all the villains
Are the heroes no one understood
What if all the peasants
Are just kings without a throne
What if you and I were never
Scripted to be bad or good
What if everybody
Didn’t have to be alone

Stratus Arrested

Stratus arrested
We escort the vestige
Of dusk and deliverance
Over the threshold of
Coverless endings
A yarn of our spinning
In blood we invested
And stratus arrested

My Muse Is Gone

My muse has gone
Alone, I cradle souvenirs
Her phantom dances in the songs
That haunt my ever-waking dreams
Against the vacant beckoning
I hold a tired candle light
A vigil of my sanity
For memories
Of fantasies
And better things

My muse has gone
And, in the absence of my tears
The shadows, in a desperate throng
Are clinging tight beneath my eyes
I harbor them–my dark disguise
A mask across my empty face
Expressionless
Impressions of
This cold embrace

Conjure You

Lonely, I conjure you
But conjure you is all that I can do
Spells with which I summon you
Are whispers that this empty night rebukes

Lonely, I conjure you
A figure woven of the finest air
Ghosts and stolen residue
Afoot upon the vagrant shards of moon

Lonely, I call for you
In saline brews of misbegotten eyes
Wrung from hollow avenues
Of brokenhearted alabaster truth

Lonely, I conjure you
But conjure you is all that I can do
Phantasms and dreams of you
Are dancing slowly in this burning room

Too Soon

Press your fingers on the wound
We can’t
We can’t allow the blood
To leak away–this is too soon
A love no memory can fill

Breathe again–you cannot stop
I want
I need your eyes to move
Do not succumb collapse and swoon
These gashes surely have to heal

Take my hand–you must respond
I won’t
I cannot leave you now
If only just an utterance
Bestow a sound upon my ears

Look within these pleading eyes
We were
We are the stronger sort
No matter how our heart is hurt
The pain reminds us it is there

Oh, agony has pricked
Into the depths of what I hoped
But still the battle rages deep
Beneath the skin of my desire

Oh, the beauty we inflict
Upon a world that never knew
Has been distorted into blame
To feed the embers of our fire

Oh, you know I’d give the last
Of every breath I’ve yet to take
To pull you safely from the fray
Into the circle of my heart

Oh, you cannot slip away
Beneath the torrent of this pain
There is so much for which to stay
And I am not retreating yet