"The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves." ~ Victor Hugo

Somewhere in Time

There was to be nothing
which would exhume ghosts
from entombed memories
No visible letters or gifts

So, I returned everything
to their respective boxes
as if saving them
would keep me closer
to your smudged fingerprint

Maybe decades down the road
they'll open naturally
crack the spine of their prison
roll out like insulation
over the dry solitudes

Or, maybe they'll forget
decompose unnaturally
laced with an arsenic of grief

Maybe they'll be discovered
by a young married couple
who closed on the house
after probate

Or a teenage daughter
rebelling against relocation
while still believing in dreams
finding the sealed boxes waiting
in the corner of dusty artifacts
overlooked, or purposely left
by a bequeathed

Maybe she'll be silently stunned
like I was at 16, unwrapping
by the small attic window
a stack of WWII correspondence
tied with a red silk ribbon --

Real Love letters that began
"My Dearest Darling...",
just as ours had -
maybe she'll believe
just as I did

That surely, surely
this is a Love that survived
Somewhere in Time

~
© February, 2017

For the Love of Words

Write it, damn you!
What else are you good for?
~ James Joyce

For the Love of Words

My dream
is for writers here
not to just have fun
but to also love the Word

LOVE Poetry!

Love it as you love your belongings
because it will outlast them

Love it as you love your home
because it will survive collapse

Love it as you love your mate
because it is infinite

When all is said and done
and you have become immaterial
all that will remain is the poem
for generations to come

Dip your feather-tipped individuality
in the inkwell of breath and register
each moment, and the next
experience by experience

as a testament you lived
~

March 2017

Love is a Verb

I've been growing a tiny
cutting since last autumn;
She moved into a pot
from a windowsill glass
that was once a cup
before tasting her first
drops of summer rain.

By late spring she'll be ready
for moist soil; by summer
she will have survived
harsh winter elements;
by early autumn she'll
birth a new cutting.

She will grow to a mighty
flower from a little cup
not because I'm a gardener
or have a green thumb

But because I Loved her.
~

21st Century Emily Dickinson

What penance is to be paid
for dropping the large brown eggs
of your eyes,
their content saturating
the busted cartons.

And all my childhood horses
and all my imaginary playmates
can't put them back together again.

I can only try to explain.

Blood is the life
and I feel mine in these Sacred lands.
Each spilled drop fertilizing
a blade of grass.

My Heart a Mother Elm
embedded in these woods,
My fingers rooted in past lives
My breath warm with memories.

These mountains bear my shadow
and that of our Father's people.
And perhaps somewhere in Time
I'll belong here again.

But how can I look at you and pretend
when Poetry is pulling my Blood
into the open flow
of its own veins.

I do not fear solitude
but yearn instead
for its peaceful existence
from the world.

You are strong and brave
have kindled my being
that I not freeze in the winter.

And I could write here forever
in this glade of wilderness
watching you fish, smiling at me
but were it not for Destiny
drawing my name.

I promised you an answer
when I was ready;

It never had to be said.

But, the question you asked
altered the existence between us
and I've never been good
at permanence anyway.

The Truth is all I have to my name.
Drink it from these cupped lips
partake in this
aching tenderness between us.
Departures are never easy
even when blessed.

I have not traversed Time
to surrender my own judgment
to the ordinary Life.

My Intuition is borne from Innocense
and it follows the Poem
into dark recesses of a Future
I fail to understand, but accept
as absolute.

You have always been with me
even now,
in the taking of my leave
Love travels with me.
And, another makes her way through Time
to lie at your side in age.

I glance back once at you watching...
but there will never be regret
or loneliness in the company
of Worded Verse;

Only a 21st Century Emily Dickinson
contentedly alone at her writing desk.

~

bleed

when we're in control,
we feel like we can prevent
a catastrophic event

we feel invincible

no music will be heard
without our orchestration

underground aqueducts
will never contain sharks

the sky will never rain shit
clog our small engines

our hot air balloon won't exhale
against an albatross' beak

fuck all that

I'm dizzy from charting the course
I'm spinning without a compass
filling the grid of my own Vortex

I can't breathe; anxiety
is my middle name -

but, I'm not going to grab
that Island created by a history
of my fossilized foot prints:

I'm going to fall to my own death

I'm going to see where my skull
cracks and I'm staring
into the eyes of a little mammal
who burrowed its way to the top
pretending not to see
so it would go unnoticed

its flaking eyelashes
winking at my blind secret

observe the concrete from above
its stained geography outlining
some foreign country
papparazzi sniffing a story
of scandelous nudity

that one crow sitting atop
the rotted tree trunk
a black-robed Omen
tapping against a termite

I'm going to goddamn bleed
until my arteries empty
shrivel into a curled leaf
crushed under foot

spreading its veiny
lips to suck Air empty
of its own oxygen

until Life's engorged breasts
lactate, drip resurrection
into Our dry roots

bloom Poetry fertilized
by Our own blood
~

Capt'n of My Heart

My Dearest,

The crippled shape
of your words reached
my atrium today, slightly
squeezed before filling
its chamber with content

Metaphors of melancholy;
a congregation of meaning
lined at the stationary font
of Holy-Watered Belief

Such intricate calligraphy
exposing delicate vulnerability
so perplexingly genuine

Repentance behooves me;
patterns my own quill
having etched various
designs in sorrowful motif
across personal existence

We all, through experience
sacrifice innocence
upon an altar of misstep;

Momentarily surrender
balanced logic to mistakes
we'd later regret

These Life-altering Teachers
of consequence puncture
the landscape of History
with the contrast of Dreams

You beseech Forgiveness
to ease the burning of Moments
and summon Hope

But I say yesterday is gone
and what was never Lost
needn't be found again

What sin is so grave
to warrant waving
a Sun-Dusted wand of Grace
before any Human presence

I am neither Jury nor Judge
over the blueprints of others
except for those of myself

On the contrary, I am You
I am Her, Him and every One
between who've thrown stones

I have no power to bridge regret
nor heal wounds except to move
forward with Time's Love

It's all I know

The Absolution you seek
waits Patiently within Yourself

Whispers, "Come Home to Us"


My Dearest
Page 2

You seem so good at leaving
So adept at forming Goodbye
from an alphabet Null and Void
to my stationed vocabulary

I always envisioned Love
as the First Mate of my Heart
weathering swells, repairing sails
navigating obstacles

You Jump I Jump
No matter what

Until our ocean found its shore;
our bonfire its song
our lips its rum

Maybe I've been wrong

All I've ever known of survival
is being left behind
to stay the course

Abandoned at the Helm
or Universally separated
by unveiled dishonesty

I don't know how to give up
or why I still Believe in something
that hasn't manifested itself
in this long Life I've lived

Perhaps I'm meant
to pull anchor, turn starboard
and sail straight into the Fire

Alone

Who knows. . .maybe someone's
on the other side
having already been through

Maybe it will be You
perhaps that's where you've gone
unable to bear watching Us burn

And maybe You'll say
with a smile on Your face;

" What the Fuck
took you so long? "

My Dearest
Page 3

I do not profess knowledge
of that which I know not;
all I can offer is a Spirit
that won't surrender
to the lack of Faith
nor promise
what isn't mine to give

That even Lost at sea
with little or no provision
there is happiness

The Future is her own Mistress
elusive to any grasp
and constantly summons at will

We are powerless to her pull
yet the method of arrival
is of our individual choice

We'll stumble, our bones breaking
persist, rejoice, succumb
to the disease of showerless days
and detoxifying stench of rot
on our skin

Beg for fresh water

Maybe we'll feel ashamed
try to cover our naked imperfections
exposing weakness in the hull

Shame can become a deterrent
refusing to reach for a buoy
in shark infested waters

Opting instead for ravenous jaws
to scatter its sinew and blood
across the current as fish food

It can be an excuse overthrowing
a weary Vessel in weakness;
a Mutiny against Love;

an unholy insurrection
becoming the new
Capt'n of Your Heart:

a cold, unfeeling hollow
of Living Death
without the fullness
of tears and Joy

Or, it can be squelched;
led Northbound into the rocks
a failed shipwreck of debris

While You cleverly double-back
South for the open horizon
of possibility

Like the True Pirate You are
and Capt'n of My Heart

All My Love

T
~

Live Again

I. “Climb The Path with Gladness”*

The veil hoisted midway up the mountain
nebulous images reflecting my voyage
into the scenery beyond my window

Bygone shapes presently existing within
an interdimensional portal expanding
to bridge the timelessness of energy

Fossils of consciousness channeling
their essence: migrational light-beings
and hues of saffron-colored dryads

II. “The Eastern Gate”**

The entrance is lengthy but smooth
beneath my tires, the clammy forest
emptying a waterlogged containment

The last trimester of the swollen lake
gestates with rainwater amid warmer
than expected temperatures

The cabin is vacant to my presence
visions of you approaching manifest
sodden steps compressing grass

III. Wen' de ya ho***

For an instant I am disoriented
stillness abducting my senses
questions my geological bearing

Have two weeks truly created
such a difference in a knowing
that recently seemed so certain

The bolt on the door jars open
vying uncertainty against time -
reservation stalls with your entrance

Your approach is sedate, wordless
drawing hesitance from distance
melding into my breath, you whisper

“Welcome home, my Ghigau” –
in the exhale we both accept
the time-limit of the hour glass


IV. “Dlatot La'ahavah”****

Materialistic surroundings vanished
leaving only a dimensional presence
satiated in a countenance of being

In the tenderness of transference
dissipating doubt to knowledge
I could differentiate nothing

Between the past or eternity
On the contrary – all things
beget a (w)ho(l)ly fervency

Fathoms of amazing grace
flooded a tribal will to wait –

We t(w)oo shall live again
~
© January, 2017

* Buddhist devotional song
** Christian hymn
*** Cherokee Morning Song “I am of the Great Spirit” (translation)
**** Hebrew song “Doors of Love” (translation)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhcgX1VHsgk