Dreams Of A Flightless Bird

A wisp of scented breeze
Over gently stirring fields
If time is here at all
Then it must be standing still
My heart escapes my chest
A balloon without a string
The body that it left
All the evidence it came

I want to drift away
Where the mountains meet the sky
Ascending on the storm
Like a bird

I want to disappear
Without waving a goodbye
The sun to keep me warm
On my way

A wisp of scented breeze
Is my harbinger of grace
If pain was ever real
Then it must have been erased
My dreams escape my head
Like a flock of winter geese
These endless numbered days
Are the path to my release

I want to drift away
Where the ocean hugs the shore
The tide beneath my wings
Like a bird

I want to disappear
Like the early morning dew
Alive again and new
On my way

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Protest

Clutched, I find our picket signs are
Painted hearts on wicked minds
Graffiti love–this sleepless town
A neon drug with wired sounds
The weak, the few, the scattered are
The warriors of tomorrow’s coup
Indifference: the enemy
The power: us. The weapon: you.
The cause is what we make of it
With future eyes’ unsilenced gaze
Across the codes we write of love
Across the viruses of hate
We pen a history to come
A melody as yet unsung
And cast our vote beneath the sheets
Of being free–of being we

Joining Only Hands

Bind me not
To groups nor parties
For these are formed to fail
With frail positions pounded out
From clay and fragile things
I take my leave
And ask
To hold no allegiance
Save in joining
Only hands

And if a war is struck
Or fire-breathing dragons
Challenge knights of my realm
I choose to fight
For good and right
Alone or adjacent
Without the slightest regard to title
Or stature, as it may appear
And joining
Only hands

Aside with pretense
For I need no such elevation
Call me a peasant
Without a band or crown
A face in the crowd
Who bows to no one
And everyone–equally
Skin nor caste replace
The bravery of joining
Only hands

If you must ask
“What side will you defend?”
I will depend on love
To know no enemies
And take no prisoners
To cast no shadow so large
It may consume
The innocent
When joining
Only hands