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

Advertisement

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

Of Those Who Were

Walls–they tell of those who were
The visage, faded, once was clear
Oh where have you then disappeared?

Into the night? Across the sea?
Or do those jaded memories
Still haunt your halls, as they do me?

Foregone–the night so cleverly
With darkness swallows every tear
A soundless cry on soundless ears

But walls–they loath forgetfulness
And not as I do they so turn
Their stories are not fast unlearned

In somber unrelenting tones
A chorus of distress is sung
For spirits absent far too long

T’would be such bliss to quell their taunt
But as I seek I find you not
And feel at last I am forgot

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

Black Lake

Still, like death
The lake awaits
Unbroken glassy surface
Like a mirror peering wickedly
Into a soulless sky

Swaths of mist
Arise and drift
In loosely woven curtains
Just beyond where earth and water meet
Across the silent tides

There beneath
In waters deep
Entombed upon the bottom
Lies a remnant otherworldly fleet
Forsaken by the earth

Biding still
Their time until
A winter swallows autumn
And the ripples wake this blackened lake
To lend their corpses birth

Tale of the Vanishing Artist

His footsteps, once upon a time
Struck soundly on the paved walk
In steady, even beats they rang
Into the crowded streets they sang
A chorus of ambitious thought
They did before, but now do not

His fingers, once upon a time
Performed their craft for crowded rooms
To raise the spirits of the saints
And soothe the souls of those who faint
A glimpse of hope to them impart
They did before, but now do not

His eyes, oh, once upon a time
Were brilliant blue and spoke the truth
Believing in a better plight
Believing they could set things right
Without the fear of falling short
They did before, but now do not

For once upon a time, it seems
He vanished into nouns and verbs
And faded into distant dreams
To still be seen but never heard
His soul translated into rhyme
His heart converted into poem
No more to walk among the world
But now, at last, at rest–at home

Ordinary Starlet

Thinking in clichés
As she jaywalks city streets she never
Drove through anyway
‘Cause the lights never turned green for her

Drinking galaxies
Through the straw of her peripheral she
Passes through the flume
Where a million other particles

Collide
Collide
The sparks have burnt the runners in
Her eyes
Her eyes
Are deeper than the drainage pipes
She rides
She rides
On not-so-magic carpets through
This life
Her life
An ordinary starlet who
Has never found an orbit
But refuses to burn out

Derelict parades
Of the ships she never anchored drift like
Ribbons in her braids
And cascade across her shoulder blades

Quiet escapades
Slither in beneath the burden of her
Unrequited days
‘Till the memories unbuckle and

Collide
Collide
The sparks have burnt the runners in
Her eyes
Her eyes
Are deeper than the drainage pipes
She rides
She rides
On not-so-magic carpets through
This life
Her life
An ordinary starlet who
Has never found an orbit
But refuses to burn out

Pens & Needles

Tapping the page
For a delicate vein
To inject with the dosage
Of ink and its stain

Struck by remorse
For the injuries caused
To offend such a fabric
With my brand of pain

But I pressure the point
Through the skin of this ivory
Piercing the heart
Of an innocent leaf

And it never revolts
Against me and my thievery
Innocence torn
By the words of my grief

The unspeakable, spoke
From the absence of healing
Prescriptions I wrote
In the songs of the night

A transfusion my throat
Sacrifices from feelings
Like dissonant notes
In the wrongs that I write

Words Without Noise

Visit me, spirit of poetry
Lend me your pen for a night, if you will
Bring me your charms
Let my words be the arms
That incircle her–words she can feel

Visit me, spirit of poetry
Spare no expense to impart me your grace
Teach me some lines
That may quiet her mind
And inspire a smile on her face

Visit me, spirit of poetry
I have no physical form she can see
Give me a life
In the letters I write
So that she might be present with me

Visit me, spirit of poetry
Here is my soul–melt it down into ink
Show me the way
I can speak and convey
Every praiseworthy thing I can think

Visit me, spirit of poetry
Take my devotion and channel it there
Transfer your spark
To the beat of my heart
Till my words can remind her I care

Visit me, spirit of poetry
If you have any compassion, indeed
Trade this: my voice
For the words without noise
So that I may provide what she needs

Happy Face

I think I need time or space
Maybe just a bit of both
To bring back a smiling face
Tonight it’s out on loan
Not that I’m all that sad
I think it’s the aftermath
Of crying too hard too much
And they don’t make pills for that

The pillows I sleep with know
Oh when it rains it pours
I turned all my insides out
There’s nothing to say anymore
But I’ll get along just fine
And soon I will find a place
To translate these tears of mine
And put on a happy face

Trouble has come and gone
Maybe it hangs around
I don’t feel like checking tonight
It’s late and I need to lay down
The world is an awkward place
For being a sensitive type
There’s too many ways to fall
And not enough help to rise

But I’ve got a drink beside
The bed stand where I will sleep
The headache will fade by then
Along with the rest of me
I do what I can to believe
The choices we make will count
For something beyond these dreams
It’s all worth the cost for now

It could be worse I suppose
And that’s what I tell myself
We have to keep feeding our hope
We have to keep up our health
When all of these tragic times
Have turned into history
I’ll look back and say it’s alright
It’s still worth it all to me

Looking Up

Make faces at the lemons
Life provides for flavoring
Don’t cry for broken wishes
Life is full of better things
You and I were made for dancing
Let the rhythm lead you on
I know it isn’t easy
But it’s worth another song

Don’t stop looking up
Pinky promise you will smile tonight
Lady you’ve cried enough
Everything will be alright
We have so much more to do
So much to be thankful for
So I’m going to smile for you
Knowing that I love you more

Stop swinging punches darling
No one is attacking you
Everyone loves you so much
Don’t say you don’t know it’s true
Patience is more than virtue
Peace is just a choice you make
Choose the best that you can do
Do the best for heaven’s sake