follow

my skeletal feet are still dappled with sand.

the beach wouldn't let me leave it behind

and oh, do i know that feeling,

even too familiar. don't leave me behind,

i'll follow.

it takes awhile for me to bloom,

a corporeal flower arriving late to springtime tea.

with sandy toes i'm knocking; i hope

you don't mind that i've lost my shoes.

08.2012

gold and green

has the sparkle too soon

gone out of your eyes? just

find that western sky when you can,

the glint of gold and green,

the leaves can only shine back

and they'll put you right,

nature always follows through

and it'll put you right.

09.2012

time to go

twilight had difficulty bidding farewell that day,
clinging to life as it offered a view
and somehow found itself at a crossroads
pondering the left trail
or the ever-sought road not taken.

she faced the same dilemma each day
of being forced to go
though the day had been so lovely,
full on laughing breezes
and smiling clouds
and tired rain
and blistering thunder
and tormented wind.
at least the weeks all brought variation;
but in a way it made the goodbyes even harder,
like having to leave a new lover over and over
after finding the match is made in heaven.

torturous, dangling there
like a dream just out of reach.

but the moon won't stand for any dilly-dallying
now or ever,
as he's bound by his obligations
to the night,
contracted in ink and splotches of stars.

at a loss,
dusk is overshadowed
and dawn begs for clearance.

this is it,
she says, not quite ready
for another twelve hours
on her own.
alas, it's the inevitable way of the world
and as twilight was equal match
to night
she could not deny
that it was time to go
once more.

but she vowed to return
more triumphantly than before
as always.

01.2010

the birds, the humans

the birds showed off in warbles

of approval and distaste;

to mate or not to mate?

the humans grew weary of love games,

energies gone to hurried waste;

they halted and left it up to fate.

04.2010

drag-dropped

i don't mind the lonely bus rides
to a town with a train station like
this morning, for instance,
the sun rose behind the six wind turbines and
you know how much i hate the country;
it was the kind of picture that makes you think
God really exists and that people could be born
good. the clouds had been drag-dropped in,
you'll have to drag me screaming
from this kind of prophetic proof.

04.13.2012

breaking

suburban sunset rain falls down and i am
not walking in it or running in it
i am alive in it though i am witnessing
the maddening beauty of Mother Nature breaking
New Jersey's incessant heat wave this time around
Taylor takes pictures of it as if he'll never
see it again in his lifetime he may not who knows
i cross my legs on the coffee table it's not mine
it belongs to Starbucks but their furniture is so comfy
it feels like a living room with an impossible window
to heaven

07.2011

quick as it came

everything was still
except for trepidation on lips and breath.
a sort of unsettling, thorough dormancy.
the broken ground and its
blanket of hostility
screamed reality.
a pair of witnesses
had sealed their fate
the year before
and agreed to encounter this milestone
together,
to the chagrin of the surroundings.
they captured their only chance amid a glance
and when the storm erupted
it shattered the hourglass they'd so often studied,
claiming them for its own.
the sand had shifted
into overdrive,
indicating the final toleration
of all this.
it was done,
gone
as quick as it came
with two more lives to its name.
soon it would conquer.
oh yes, it was going to conquer.

01.2010

beauty, the sea

the sea has its own ways of
showing its affection,
always changing with the tide,
seducing stars at its will
and swallowing up sailors for breakfast.

it sounds harsh but when you think about it,
it's a thing of beauty, the sea.

01.2010

such fury down

it was all over;

an armistice of grandeur

when the world was left

a thing of destructed beauty.

no one was sure

why the gods had sent

such fury down;

but they never did reveal

their altruistic desires

to the quick,

who were ruining the sanctity of their earth

as fast as the gods tried to save it.

to complain of mere instances

like storms and vacant suns,

one would think

they were being robbed of breath,

none to spare,

armageddon impending.

pity in numbers for them,

fools who would escape under the sheets,

mourn the passing of sobering light

and commit suicide over scrupulous thoughts

that the rain will never cease

again.

04.2010

i'd find him words

the iridescent moon called my bluff
from his celestial tower:
'you truly don't look so tough
now; time has turned you sour.'
he glowed and sat there smugly,
and i thought grimly that my muse
must never think me so ugly
as when his inspiration i refuse.

it was nothing personal, but my hand
with lunar ink would not tremble;
even if stricken, all unplanned,
the pretty words could not assemble.
i thought it only right to endure the chide
of faithful master, who'd never suffice
to abandon the heavens he loves to abide;
even for me, no worthy sacrifice.

shaking knees stood on steady ground
and i made a fair bargain for peace:
i would write him letters to sway the sound
that silence makes when affections cease.
if he'd remain my muse when needed
and continue his ritual starlit dance,
i'd find him words, undefeated,
either for verse or prose, with a chance

to dissolve the distance, to make him swoon:
my dedication came alive in letters to the moon.

04.2010