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

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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?

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)

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

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

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

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

Unaware

Come awake
You pretty little star
Surrogate
My angel, unaware
Speak to me
In languages of stare

Come alive
You precious little ward
To protect
My sentimental heart
Dream of me
In reoccurring parts

Come away
You unassuming saint
Separate
The channels of desire
Be with me
Awaiting by the fire

Come inside
You interwoven soul
Resurrect
In deepening resolve
Evermore
A paragon of love

Sometimes You Can See…

It isn’t all that often, but sometimes
You can see love
In tiny pinholes
Bleeding through a ebon sky in variable densities
Light
Ignited
Ancient
Caravanning the distance in waves
Predating the cracks in our fragile hearts
Washing upon celestial shores in swaths we call constellations
But we never really knew them
These eyes in the heaven are to faces unblinking
A glance by chance or divine
Falling across time
Onto a serendipitous second in which elements align
Providing oxygen to my tired mind down here
It isn’t very often, but sometimes
You can see God
Burnt through in the autumn hues of dying dreams
Shaken and piled up for sweeping
Where today’s decomposition becomes tomorrow’s fuel
To wake life where death stirs
Like children coming forth from sleep
It isn’t often, but sometimes
I think that centuries may just be unwitting catalysts
Love, launched long before the orbits breathed a full rotation
Locked in motion
Ancient beyond recognition
Struck here tonight because it was the only place it could go
And we are nothing new
Me and you
Just tiny allegories of immortality
Caught tightly
Spun lightly
And bundled up in woven threads of something
We did not create
Embodiments of unity even the stars do not comprehend
While bending arms of light to touch us
These broken compositions
These stolen notes
We have written in stone over the face of what we know
Are our epitaph
That
We love
And it comes with no permissions
Branded deep within a sky that casts no shadow, but is its own reason why
And so am I
So I decide
That if the sky makes no apology for light
Despite the blind eyes we bear
And if the stars believe the distance here is worth the weight of infinity
And if the pain of decomposing becomes the beauty of tomorrow’s bloom
Then I love you
And it must have been true
Before they wrote the first line of the first word
Or spoke of things like this
It isn’t often, but sometimes
The world moves
For small things
And life springs
From cracked dreams
Under the ancient eyes
In this ebon sky
Where, it isn’t often, but sometimes
You can see love

The Ink Is You

The ink is you
The blood, the love
The pain dipped in
Beneath my skin
The ink is you
Indelible
And I approve
Of every line
The ink is you
The brand I wear
Reminding me
Of all we are
The ink is you
Unfaded mark
My friend, my dear
My lovely scar

Adore

Streetlights play with shadows as pedestrians stroll under
Flickers stroke your hair and hover gently on the strands
I could watch for hours as the world keeps moving onward
Placidly content to hold my universe in hand

Storefronts sell their fancies catching glances from the children
Snowflakes grace the fabric of your sweater as we stroll
Hands entwined so I can keep you safely near me always
Hats and furs like armor in our fight to thwart the cold

Have I ever told you
How much I adore you
How much I am warmed to know that you care
Have I ever mentioned
You have my attention
I’m pleasantly caught in the heat of your stare

Crystals form in corners of the windows through the city
Taxis run like blood cells through the arteries of town
All the decorations and the lights aren’t half as pretty
As the silhouette you cast like magic on the ground

All the presents pale beside the gift of being with you
All the vendors fail to place a price upon your love
Every time you smile I think the moon gets slightly larger
Glowing like a dream and you are what i’m dreaming of

Have I ever told you
How much I adore you
How I’d stop the world if it was what I had to do

Have I ever mentioned
You have my full attention
Totally transfixed and wanting nothing else but you

Not A Traffic Light

Traffic lights have such an easy job
Blinking life away, oblivious
To shattered glass and acts of tragedy
Or signs of cardboard begging charity
Who am I to stand aghast at life
Twisted metal spilling in the streets
And ask the reasons why it all should be
When I could wait in quiet apathy
But I am not a blinking traffic light
I am not a lifeless entity
Conscious to the wreckage we create
I am not content to sit and wait
We have felt the force of passing forms
Ripping through the course of our intent
I can taste the spillage of our hearts
I inhale the putrid bitter scent
Burnt and broken heaps that once were love
Scattered on the landscape of desire
Empty vessels gutted in the dark
Hope that we abandoned to the fire
Sometimes I would like to be machine
Incapable of tears for what I know
But I am not a traffic light that blinks
I cannot tell when to stop or go

Chandelier Of Stars

In the vaulted cathedral of night
An endless chandelier of stars
Dangles brightly overhead
Where bedded oceans
Speak whispered waves
Upon a shore of bronze-grey
Sometimes in the recompense of chance
Two hands pass
In fleeting grasps along parallel lines
Where neither gravity nor time
Stays long enough for tea
And neither do we
Surety for a pact yet unfulfilled
These glimmering fragments
Of twinkle-eyed enchantments
Blow in on the offshore breeze
For a dance on the hem
Of secret seas
Beneath the chandelier of stars
Where all we are
And all we ever were
Is a blaze of torn sky
Trespassing the atmosphere in night
To write initials
In a constellation
Visible for one millionth of a moment
To be held on lips too small
And kept in safes too thin
Before the breeze returns
And claims its stray sand dancers
Beneath a chandelier of stars