a year now

We lived a long way
Wandered through laughter, loving maze
Filled lost sensibility, fighting anger
Rising from laughing bones

A long way
Manufacturing emptiness, our passion
Out of nothing
Constructed temples
Later identified as selfish ignorance

Facing sullen angry outbursts,
Reality wrote a year-long poem from your
Ragged makeup, elements of tender promise
A little girl in woman's body driving sweetness
In a one-way mirror

Once upon a long time
Someone placed romantic roses at your feet
Trampled by fear, they grew back.
Stronger.
You cut them down
They smiled,
Listening to a business voice
Conducting overtures, every note well placed

Mind you, it wasn't easy
Understanding manipulation's manic puzzle
Falling on your incredulous shelf
Where dust words
Swallowed love's lies and eyes
Saw words perfect words
Arranged in perfect pleasing order
Facing a tortured joy inside
Misery creating you

sky dances

sky is a dancing watercolor
sunset rages
lightning fires at peak's vision
shuffling child voice
a solitary heart beat

roaring engines hum
colors spread wings
on leaves

wok liquid
solidifies paste
she stands silent
brown eyes burning fire

balancing desire with
hopeful acceptance

hard lessons - cricket sings

loose capsules
roll across deserts filled with
summer's fleeting face of light

no shadows
remain to guide grave seekers home

they roiled, roared and rioted
silence
forming new watercolors
creasing sky mind
with light

OM

the cell

we are all hostages
chained to the wall
wearing the same clothing
every day for 564 endless
recitations of plastic rosary beads

threads slowly unravelling
our simple minds

a Black woman in South Africa
said sanity rested
on seeing two ants in her cell

her tranquility

one day

they were not there
and she carefully
dismantled her blanket
tying single strands
into warmth
for her isolation

hunt

eye track rabbit
far form below blends in underbrush

wheeling,
floating
on evergreen peak drafts
eyes pierce a path you are destined
to follow across bare country

in out...in out
a flash of fur

patient, eye circles
above your feeling fleeting form

shadows do not confuse
one eye sees where you've been -
the other knows where you are going

rocks, volcano boulders, valleys and dry river beds
(where you never sleep)
old latent images
thrive to harbor your grieving desire

your shelter search takes on immediacy
as energy adrenaline wanes

wings fold with forgiveness,
trusted talons thrust
eye dive

with one last burst
you take evasive action
among wild berries
their sweetness a faint taste

my sharpness tears you away from earth
into another world

secret

give me a tie to terrorism
so i can file a suit tailored
by pure fabrication
woven on time’s loom

lucky bamboo said i’d find you here
fit to be tied to anything
where spirit is good
matter is nature
spinning on its axis

breaking the tie
into patterns,
endless knot
one line
undertime, inside time’s mystery
time is only the past and future
not the present

sharing information with agencies
let me introduce myself

married to consumption
my name is fear
an acronym for Face Everything And Recover
consolation
my timid friends say it indicates
Fuck Everything And Runaway

the bigger the obstacle the bigger the joy
one does not need a compass in the land of dreams

‘operating instructions for plants’
growth flow initiation
dispense resistance
correct motives
patient generosity
honor receptive side of warrior nature