Creative
cclxvi.
(2024)
This life is certain death with time to spare
for days are filled with hours set to lose
the minutes they with breathing do compare,
as I with every second spent with you.
Hold fast the seasons lest they lose their grip
upon the leaves that give our branches sway,
for only by your side may summer slip
into the equal night of autumn's day.
What shall I ponder first, the sky at noon?
The sweet fulfillment found in every flower?
The countless stars, the temperamental moon,
or moments spent with you that feel like hours?
Though time will pass and we will meet our end,
these words shall live and thus we love again.
cclxiv.
(2023)
Refrain from love. Alone your heart will bloom,
your rose amongst the thorns of time will show
that roles are to be taken, not assumed
and dreams are seeds of fate yet to be sown.
Though thoughts of her for you still represent
the springtime joy that youth is bound to find,
your actions balance purpose with intent
and thus reveal the focus of your mind.
So show me how you tend your garden now,
what trees you choose to plant within its walls;
though leaves will shake beneath a fragile bough,
a branch must overbear before it falls.
And so there is still time for life to show
the love you give outweighs the love you grow.
cclxii.
(2023)
When I look into your eyes, sometimes I see
the cloudless blue of the morning zenith,
sometimes the ocean with its boundless depth,
tranquil after hosting yet another vibrant dawn
and outwardly proud of the life it harbors.
But sometimes I pause
for what I see is a drop: a vast expanse
of space and time and trust, a story
of compromises and sacrifices, and a journey
we must both agree upon—
for it takes but one step too many to fall
in love, and a lifetime of pain to crawl out again.
Healing is a long process,
love takes but one look.
cclx.
(2023)
How can I write a love letter
if what I truly love is solitude?
If the love I have to give is sealed
in an envelope, unaddressed and unsent,
guarded forever by two stamps
and a return address in black ink
that assumes I can still navigate the past.
I must grow to love my grief
knowing that no child will ever
grow to bear my name, that name
that neither fit nor resounded,
never once identified who I really am
for too few are my syllables,
too short are my lines.
ccliv.
(2023)
An oak tree sways with the knowledge
that tomorrow shall not come
as father teaches son to fell
only that which cannot be spared
for death that does not brace life
stains the hands. The young watch
without mercy the actions of their kin
and replicate intent. To build a man
one must have tools, technique,
and trauma; to build with wood
one must have patience, and proof
the earth provides what is needed
and promises what is missing
for life to shape death in its image.
ccli.
(2023)
Your struggle has its purpose, tender one
a mind in touch with fate must never bow
to passions of the flesh lest flesh create
divergence from your everlasting vow
to spend your life in pensive harmony
with thoughts that beg to live in hopes you'll find
that crowded is this craft's eternity,
now gathered at the entrance to your mind.
Your faith will be rewarded, tender one
your sweetest dreams with time taste sweeter still
and fill your days with warmth that ushers in
an age when what you wish becomes your will
and how you choose to live determines why
though death will come, your name shall never die.
ccxliii.
(2023)
My sharpest fear is that I'll find you still
holding your breath, facing the wall, silent
content to lie for hours in the darkness
never uttering a word about how
stiff your joints are, how lonely death can be.
What am I supposed to do at that point
besides shatter, sift through mortal wreckage
looking for a fifth-floor hospital bed
from which you examine my tired face
with pain-blue eyes, disheveled hair, and tubes
that cling like ivy, feeding on your pride
ruthlessly indicating where your last
few wells of life remain, and where reside
the shades of you the sunrise can't have back.
Seeds
(2022)
Sunlight--
paint me a daffodil
and I'll show you
the secret of grace:
expression that blooms
quiet, beauty that fits
the void it fills
with warmth each glance
one upon the other
like a growing smile
Moonlight--
the darkness blinks
to clear its fragile mind
of borrowed hope
to measure those who long
the sky retracts, holds near
each face that wonders
why none shall live unwatched
if one should live at all,
give thanks
Starlight--
for we were once a nebula
dreaming of this, wishing
forever gave relief
the way arriving at last
relates the distance
between two fears
rooted in silent thought
contemplating how this all
could spring from nothing.
Death at sea
(2022)
is a stillborn bunk
with its pillow waiting patiently,
its sheets hospital-cornered,
blanket tucked (inspection ready)
photographs of home taped with care
upon the brushed metal
in the spot where tired eyes
are forced to rise each day.
is a pair of coveralls
still hanging in its locker,
forever carrying the weight
of a name no longer present
to join the ranks formed
on the weather deck
each morning—long before
a bright star rises in the east.
is an empty seat
at a table fit for twelve,
a silent conversation
between those who hunger
more for answers than sustenance
provided to the living
to consume in remembrance
of those who shall not rise again.
Out on the flight deck
(2022)
shelled by darkness
chin raised mind heavy
eyes asking questions
of the infinite
air swirling with salt
wave after wave
aft lookout nodding
in conversation with sleep
a handwheel squeaks
hatch opens near the fantail
twenty seconds
perhaps more
then the splash
that still echoes
each time I hold my ear
against the sea.
cxlvii.
(2021)
I hope to blink as slowly as the moon
so darker sides of me remain unseen,
lost in the night yet faint beside high noon,
forever blinded by the space between.
The past still haunts these sunlit eyes at will
eclipsing, now and then, my brighter days
with noble dreams brought forth yet unfulfilled
like shadows out of sync with every phase.
Must exigency wax while strength still wanes
and my sheer sense of self stays torn apart?
I fear that even time feels timeless pain
and mindful progress orbits near the start.
A day is but a day, each one in turn
illuminates a face I've yet to learn.
lxv.
(2021)
Do tell the past that presently we weep
each time you choose to haunt old corridors;
the chill of your bare bones each winter sweeps
the pain, like dusted snow, beneath our doors.
Speak not of days that you cannot have back
as you miss days that we must take in stride;
the rain still falls in ways that flood flashbacks
of how it poured at dusk the day you died.
Of course we miss the way your eyes lit up
when you were near the ones most proud of you,
but know that, though you're gone, you still come up
in ways our hearts can't help but hope you knew.
In rest, find peace with dreams of time well spent
knowing your voice lives on in this lament.
ii.
(2020)
No lovelier could she present her eyes
than when they meet my stare at summer's break,
yet hath within such gentle shades of sky
wondrous power, to gleam me brink from brink.
Suppose today we laid out each fair shade,
allowing every ray to soak in deep,
what would we miss, what would we leave unmade,
along from whence our time may sow to reap?
Just as a lover's gentle breath might wake
such peaceful dreams from clouds of sunlit days,
without these words forever I should ache
for sights of her alone amongst the haze.
My mind is restless, heart remains content
when waking days with dreams like her are spent.
The Albatross
(2020)
Four nautical miles from the turbulent coastline of civil war. Midnight in Mogadishu, wide awake onboard.
Landing silently, our UAV just returned from its invisible flight. It greeted the captain with intel, the sustenance of war. The stars seem to increase in number every night. Perhaps they are the souls of those newly departed, staring silently at what they’ve lost. I'm below deck most of the time. I have machinery to tend, fuel to test and feed to the engines. They're always hungry. So am I, but not for this. Yesterday I heard chirping on the flight deck that there would be a government soon. If only I could count on that like I can count the casualties. I can't even count on my own engines. They're always breaking down—with grief, I suppose. With stress from being overworked and out-of-place. They seem to do everything except help. And people are more complicated than wires and bolts and raging infernos of internal combustion. Especially war-torn people. Especially people fueled by fear and mistreatment and mistrust. How can the machinery of governance spring up to fill the void overnight? Can it? My soul begins to wonder, soaring above the melancholy of a gentle mind pushed miles and miles beyond some very important boundaries. A mind now disfigured and worn, left wandering the lonely waves of darkness that live between the stars.
A few pills a day
(2019)
Sometimes the words still come to me
at other times they must be caught.
Not, like, in a net--
a net is a tool
used for catching fish
or butterflies.
I'll stick with the butterflies
lest my ideas be harvested
from the depths of my consciousness
faster than my soul can replenish them.
Sometimes the words are so powerful
that they can be heard
in the distance like a passing ship
late into a night
of no particular importance--
that is, until it arrived.
That is, until it pierced
the camouflage I know as silence,
called attention to
the journey I know I will miss
should I continue
to wait.
I'd like to meet the mind
that insists brilliance
must be spontaneous
must be breathtaking
must surrender the lungs
to make room for the heart,
and I'd like to meet the heart
that beats agony
as if it were love
because it is love
that longs for anything
sharp enough to confirm
it has boundaries.
How profound a thing:
throbbing so hopelessly
in a dark cage,
silenced only
by the reflection found
in the untimely pool
of a spilled life. Red lines laced
with little white mysteries:
what is blood?
what is wine?
what is the great tragedy of man?
The great tragedy of man
is performed brilliantly
every few moments
by the very muscle most responsible
for constantly betraying its own safekeeping
in search of another.
Thoughtless passion--
as if the answer was another,
as if the only reason
it has yet to stop
is that it has yet to love another;
it has yet to hear
what at first sounds like an echo,
but if given enough
time and space
to feel wanted and safe
yet free to flutter like the butterflies
migrating desperately from yes to no
in the stomach of a young sailor
as he watches his own reflection
sail away forever
in that charming moment
it will find another.
Self-love is mysterious
in the way that sometimes
the very mind that needs
a few pills a day
to keep the trauma at bay
is constantly being asked
to self-identify in an empty mirror,
to display
who feels this pain in the first place.
It beats me.
Rxeady?
(2018)
Inside yet another tinted bottle
beneath an innocence-proof cap
ratcheting round and round
on my mind's desperate threads
within this oversized paper bag
distinguished from my kitchen clutter
atop a textbook of side effects
torn mercilessly from its staple
are more than a few pressed pills
compounded to help me decompress.
Rules and regulations restrict access
to my so-called peace of mind
all that's needed is utter despair and
at least one blatantly broken spirit
thankfully, or I would try everything
until I found a way to feel again
just make sure your pain is believable
to someone who may not suffer
but everyone knows the mentally ill
can't be trusted to fend for themselves.
What would happen if, one day,
one of those hopeless people like me
doomed to dependence on alchemy
to feel part of the modern world
decided to take it upon themselves
to simmer different elements
someone lucky to be alive today, since
nature wouldn't have selected before
until they found just the right elixir
to give them the golden joy of youth?
Certain questions needn't be answered,
some thoughts should remain thoughts
that's the spirit, there you go, don't stop
thinking what you need to believe
because medicine is meant to help
those who are unable to help themselves
and go take one of those little souls
eager to fill in whilst yours is away
and even though I've tried and tried,
I can't be normal enough to live without.
And so here I sit in bipolar standoff
frozen stiff with fear of losing myself
it's easy, just ask yourself what's better:
being yourself or not being crazy?
one sentient spring madly overflowing
and thirty stagnant little soul crushers
camouflage for those who stand out
from the crowd of just expectation
meeting to solve the age-old conflict
wherein problems and solutions blur.
I suppose I really don't have a choice
so to delay is to prolong this suffering
just go ask that mirror on the wall
what it would prefer to see every day
and grief once I domesticate my wild
spirit full of numerous summer days
because even eternal lines wrinkle
turning fair skin harsh beneath the Sun
so I guess this is goodbye, old me
maybe I'll shine like you again one day.
How it Sounds
(2016)
March 26th, 1892.
Abreast the dry creek and below the eroded hills,
shelves of cold tablets span the New England fog.
Arranged in lifeless rows--
oh, columns of man--
carving titles to a library
no further read than forgotten.
One can hear the lively spade
of the old gravedigger--
A man who has never met a soul,
yet introduces every body
to their keeper:
he who knows how it feels
to imprison the echoes of eternity,
how it sounds
to hear their silence weep.
The Lingering Night
(2015)
One century has passed since the Fog invaded our unsuspecting solar system. For generations, life on Earth has been sheltered beneath the ground, away from the exhaustive darkness above. So dense is the substance that has banished us to the depths that it appears almost aqueous in form and is far less suitable for human life than is the open ocean. These days, many people have lived and died without ever seeing the sun. Some were born without a heart that yearns for the warmth of our star—a soul too small for the body in which it resides—and some were not strong enough to try. We who remain do so in a capacity that is undeserving of our past, and tragically devoid of a future.
We were alerted to the approach of the interstellar cloud by three separate astronomers—two on Earth and one in the biodomes of Mars. They each noticed that the stars in the western sky had begun to slowly disappear. For years, scientists debated whether or not this phenomenon would affect our view of the sun. Opinions were so scattered that the possibility of danger became diluted in the solution of ideas, and out came a naive fascination for the coming cosmic winter. When it hit, it buried us both in darkness and a shadow of regret so vast that the two became indistinguishable.
Most earthlings perished from denial when the Fog arrived. A few tried to enlighten mankind to the dangers that were upon us, but most people preferred to wait for the sands of death to sweep them into its slumber. We who fled formed four colonies—three under the permafrost of the Antarctic, and one beneath the Alps. We lived quiet lives, afraid to alert the darkness overhead of our presence; our new world fashioned by the quaint ghost of a life barely remembered.
There were only six survivors from the Martian settlement. They had witnessed their life’s work crumble, and had seen their colleagues starve in the quiet of the night. With tears in their eyes they boarded a ship bound for home, not knowing whether there was even a home to return to. For months, they sailed into the eyes of the horizonless, fearing only that they would catch a glimpse of its soul.
We all remember the day the Martians arrived. Three waning souls wept as they discovered our lights in the caverns, and felt the warmth of the Earth’s core. Our welcome thawed their animate corpses, but their spirits still shivered as though they were alone on a planet far away. One man progressed much faster than the others—his eyes as fiery as the forgotten sun.
Each week he presented a new plan to expose our convicted star from its iron curtain. Sadly, we were never persuaded to leave our comfortable dwelling. He pleaded for years, but his words were not enough as we had seemingly resigned to our inevitable death beneath the world that had birthed us.
One day that man simply disappeared. We mourned, for he had been extinguished by our darkness. We all knew where he had gone: to the surface of our surrender. A group went above to search, desperate and afraid that we had lost him, had lost our only hope.
On the peak of the nearest mountain they found his body, his eyes wide open and his headlamp still reaching into the empty heavens. He had kept a diary, and it lay beside him, open. It read:
From the lungs of the lingering night
comes the cold sigh of death,
and so for one hundred years
we were forced to hold our breath.
Mal de Mar
(2015)
Silence--
not the lack of noise, but
the lack of meaning when
it matters most, the empty love
when I kiss the coast between swells
larger than my spirit and depths darker
than the morose bell screaming
into fog which neither listens
nor pities those
who disturb its
silence.