Tag Archives: poem

The leak

I’m leaking proof of a former life onto the new lawn.

I followed the hose all the way back to the beginning

but I can’t find the place I need to repair yet.

If you hand me a tissue, please, I’ll dab the melancholies

with a brush of orange tint a ballerina’s blush

I knew the sacrifice made will be larger than I expected

but the gifts and blessings I’ve become familiar with grow

They’ve landed on healthier soil, soaked in similar whiskey

aging better than most I’ve known but the hose is leaking

I just pray it doesn’t kill the grass.

Where am I?

The weeping Southern skies can’t promise to choke me humidly.

The rising stars refrain from performing to crickets and frogs.

Abandoned is the sinkhole of basal intent to protect!

I lay unfamiliar in a bunk bed I don’t own; reeling

I am packed tight in the blankets like my luggage.

The air (thank you Kay) is different here; archived scents

I watch walls blooming colors warm with sunset, not Volunteers

My breath keeps coming but I’m still holding it,

The weeping angels of Southern skies wave; I love them

I blow a “kiss my ass” back at those who stole illicitly from me

But that’s barely a toot of air forgotten after a pizza bird

The process will digest as slowly as Mayfield milk gravy.

Self Sacrifice

Feathers

Feathers

When you came to me, you were more than a dozen.

Everything about you was something it wasn’t

I bent my fingers to shape your hands

I reconfigured my halo to destroy the badlands

I stripped the feathers from my wings that flew

I fashioned them to show you the skies of blue

I made horrifying textures smooth for you to build

I wrapped your intimidated heart against the freezing chill

I comforted primal screams from your terror filled nights

I kissed your cheeks lovingly while you fought the fight

I defended your body, your mind, and your spirit

I gave you safe haven, wouldn’t allow bandits near it.

I guarded you with a Battle Queen’s power

but (SNAP!)

like that

you snaked away in the witching hour

while the bells of winds change rang in the bower

to return to the dark from which you came

afraid of the light that I showed you again and again.

I release you back to your puzzled up mess

It is with deepest sorrow, I lay you to rest

I shutter my windows, lock up my doors

mourn who I knew you could be; but won’t be I’m sure

until you know your own value, nay, worth

my heart no longer yours, your memory dispersed.

Stardust and Oceans

I held your hand while stroking your cheek

Whispering to you the depth of my hearts belief

You stared blank at the ceiling but I knew you still there

When the winds stirred the curtains to brush at my hair

With rattled breath you returned to the ocean

Waving goodbye with the power of rawest emotion

Your sweet and gentle passing has erased your pain

But in doing so has increased mine, bring on the rains

Silent your breast, cooling of skin, I sat next to you so very alone.

It was a sacred privilege, an honor, to walk your stardust spirit home.

Mother Moon

Mother Moon

Mother Moon

We feel the sway of the moon

To our mother’s bosom we cling

At the heaven’s feet we swoon

Full or dark we’re worshiping.

The pull of tides cradle hearts

At her breast we are mollified

In her arms we’re created art

Full or dark, we’re pacified

Stars in her eyes

Reaching for the stars

Reaching for the stars

When I awakened from the dreamless deep,

I was shocked to realize that my eyes could not see.

I had no way of finding upon which path to set my feet,

because all I’d ever done was walk around in sleep.

But then I found the very stars of which you, longing, write,

and I followed them into the sky; into the sacred night.

PTSD: A Lost Loved Cousin

I heard taps play over picnic grass graves.

It felt good to be remembered kindly for a day

No words of hate shouted, no reminders to my face

The forgiveness of sacrifice, seen in a different way.

I wanted to go like my brothers before me

I wanted to serve with my life, if necessary.

I wanted to be the hero that my father and my uncles are

I wanted to accept their mantle, to be their shining star.

But all I could say when I returned from that place

Was, “No more. I feel like such a disaster, such a disgrace.”

I lived in terror that tore me apart, shredded me inside out.

I couldn’t look in the mirror without hating my every doubt.

I couldn’t reach out for help, because who would understand?

That I didn’t even feel real, that I wasn’t even a man.

I was a soldier without a war.

I was lost in my inner storm.

Although I lost my life, not on the battle-field

My family still stood and by my graveside kneeled.

I heard taps play over picnic green grass graves.

It felt good to be remembered kindly, if even for a day.

The Banquet

Old friends are the ones who holds your secrets tightly. Old friends are the ones who holds your secrets tightly.

You have come knocking at my door with your basket empty of fruit.

You ask to break bread with me once again, I welcome you with a banquet.

Forgiveness is not necessary when there is a parting of ways with no faults

Things just happened to work out where time apart was required to isolate

Not for feeling alone, but for the seeds to take root, grow, and bloom fully

I offer the platters laden with history, telling each yarn with great verbosity

laughing together, we drink deeply, offer consolation, counsel, connection

We cut cheese (grow up!), melt it onto the bread of reminiscing

our peppered words burning our faces with our shocking youthful antics

I sit lounged in my chair, grateful that the air we share is no longer pungent

It no longer stinks of half-truths, unspoken words, and lost opportunity.

We rip shreds of the layer cake we build with our conversation,

skipping layers of icing, jumping slyly from one inside joke to the next.

We burp satisfaction, of time well spent, appreciated, and honored.

As we rise into the light of a new morning, I escort you out with welcome

for warm and happy returns at your leisure when the need is happenstance.

As I bid you adieu at my doorstep, you turn towards me, arms full of bounty.

We smile the smile of 1,000 lifetimes ago, promising 1,000 more.

I declare, I am

I declare I am

I declare I am

I declare by action

You can not call yourself a dreamer of dreams

Unless you first close your eyes to willingly sleep

To strip away reality that’s solid to your skin

Throwing blankets against the world’s forgetful sin

Standing not in the sands of the shores

But drowning in desires begging knowledge of more

You can not call yourself a writer of poems

Unless you first strip back the skin to know ‘em

Stripping down to muscle, blood, grinding bone

Becoming so grotesque, by default, displayed alone

Repulsing your own belief that you were enmeshed

Engaging your spirit fully until it bleeds through your flesh

You can not call yourself an artist of the arts

Until you’ve ripped shreds of everything you know, torn it apart.

Chopped off arms, legs, noses, fingers, and ears

Assembled them into a shape that disappears

Become a nothing awaiting rebirth to this plane

So you can become a God/dess of your own domain

Between the Worlds

A Snow Owl

A Snow Owl

I wander along in blues of sparkling seas

I witness a sail in the distance waving at me

I place hand over eyes in familiar stance

I wave back with my hips, a shift of my dance.

The forest closes in with a crackle of leaves

I’m not afraid, it’s welcoming me

The music turns up with bird songs and buzzies

The brook tells a joke that gives me warm fuzzies.

In a blink of an eye, my feet hit the sand

the painted desert that smells like Christmas is where I am

A solar flare singes my skin hot and prickly

but pain is small price when one lives this richly

A single leap, a precarious bound

I’m traveling highways, heeding the sound

of the zephyrs of change as they dervish round

Should I see you as I move, ever by the winds tug

You may not know my face, but you’ll know me by hug.