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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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?

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

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

Metronome Steps

Click
Clack
Always in time
Closer in rhythm
With days that go by

Click
Clack
Steady and slow
Closing the distance
In echoing blows

Click
Clack
Beats from behind
Hunting my movements
In chase of my mind

Click
Clack
metronome steps
Building crescendos
Vibrations of death

1:08

Your reddish glow betrays me
Eyes awake and gazing in the dark
Counting off the phases
Minutes fast erasing from my sleep
I have memorized your numbers
Stricken from my slumber where I lay
Passing sums and figures
Every one a treasure I can’t keep
You tell me of the hours
When to wake and shower for my day
All the seconds ticking
Circling and tricking me to move
But your calculations falter
Falling short of altering my state
Count to everlasting
You will never task me how to live
There’s much you cannot measure
Pain and joy and pleasure in my heart
Passing times and seasons
Cannot steal my reasons to believe
I lie awake and thinking
I defy your silent blinking by my bed
You can age my frame in moving
But you cannot tame the love inside of me
So count as you are able
Power drawn from cables in the wall
Speak what is your mission
Tell me the condition of the day
But don’t sit there and threaten
I have no intent of letting you decide
These moments I inherit
I will do with as I choose and think is right

Arrogant clock

The Deadly Manner

Marks across her eyes
She takes the shadows from the corners
Sucks the feeling from my lies
And steals the morning from the dawn

Dancing in the dark
With a deadly sort of manner
Wilted flowers on the mantle
And the scent of something wrong

Lips that never utter
Though they faintly mouth my name
As my heart begins to stutter
And the silence fairly screams

Skin as soft as satin
As her arms embrace me gently
In an ancient form of Latin
Voices echo in my dreams

Life and love and laughter
Shrink away within her presence
As she leads the steps on quicker
‘Till the movements stir the leaves

Out into the courtyard
And I cannot pull to stop her
Underneath the waning moonlight
Falling slowly through the eaves

When did we begin
My memories are dull and faded
They betray the story’s ending
Though I cannot see the start

Hand in hand she takes me
So much further down the spiral
And, in tempo, I can feel it
It’s the rhythm of my heart

Earth below my feet
These empty hollows in the mist
Here as she slows the spinning, calmly
Pulls my head against her breast

Sounds are far away now
And the light has made it’s exit
Her lips–so cold and timeless
As I taste the kiss of death