These letters descend as fallen stars

Cataclysmic showers ad infinitum

Leaving shimmers in their wake

Beguiling, mystifying, yet

Ephemeral in their trace

When silence comes, as silence does

Our stars' dust pervades all the same

With visions we forgot, or ignored

Still glimmering, now settled

Upon midnight's sifting shores

Their eternities are only waiting

Expecting a soul's graceless presence

That human made briefly divine

From our rough and uncouth

Core pining a god's essence

No more nor less, we listen

A scribe scratching for remembrance

Perhaps one evening or another

We may yet find ourselves once more

Gazing out upon the crystalline cracks

Our words left upon those shores

How easy it is, to dream

Beyond our hand's trembling dire

But to dig in searching screams

For meaning, another thing entirely

When impatience festers to ire

When all's left are those stars

We marked once before

Fading as memories often do

Before dawn's hungering fire

I'm playing army. I'm on the warpath!

Please, Mom! Don't make me stop to take a bath.

I already swam in the pool today.

I am clean enough, so please let me play.

If swimming's not a bath, how would you define clean?

Gosh darn it, Mom! Why do you have to be so mean?!

No, ma'am, I do not want to meet your wrath.

But, really, I don't need to take a bath!

Besides, I'll only get dirty again.

Just leave me be. Let me stay up 'til ten.

Oh, hi Dad. Yes, of course. I will wash front and back.

Mom, when I'm done washing can I please have a snack?

Sleep stares back at me, refusing to take my hand. Every word that leaves their lips are meant to entice me and damp, dark clouds smothers my mind as the lullaby rings on.

However, the night persists, and weary fills every crevice of my sky. Familiarity is for the first time the enemy. Every old rhythm sends chills and ticks down my back and a thick layer of dullness' dust covers every furniture of my home. The echo of my steps are particularly loud and I stare bewildered at the sight. 

Something rips through me, as if someone fired a gun. Countless rules and methods rain through my senses as the stress crashes through me. 

"It's just another bombing of the calm, we've done this before."

Blood filled with every worry of the bone and a mind high on the sudden rush I fold my mind into myself, waiting for the collapse. 

Then an arm wraps itself around my waist and the storm changes to a dance. A gasp escapes my lips as the sky opens up before my eyes. Blossoming vines of rest swirls slowly around my limbs, lulling me. As I breathe in the thought of you Sleep squints at me from the dark corner, wondering for a moment why their words had been so futile. They move finally, taking my hand and settling somewhere in my chest. 

tell me again

how i pale in comparison

to her galaxies,

i’ll tell you

that galaxies can’t exist

without space

to contain them

and not everyone

is searching the sky

for stars.

I don't know if I'll feel for you tomorrow, or next week, or even five minutes from now

But I do know

I don't feel for you right now

I don't feel anger, or sadness, or longing or nostalgia

Because in this moment in time, however brief or long,

You are dead to me.

And it is complete and utter bliss.

I stare at the smiles

on plastered faces

thinking of the conversation

that lead to sparkling eyes

in a captured moment

I wonder where those 

good times went

I wish I could jump back

into a photo of memory

to live in that instant

forever

but this time

the laughter will last more

than a camera flash

without effort or performance.

with anxious eyes

i explore

my personal book

of lamentations

as i regret

life-choices

that feel like

shadows quivering

as sheet metal

in the autumn

of my body,

so that sadness

sways like

loose branches

and, now in my sixties,

i fear dying trees

until i recall

the day i met you –

when life

began, and when

the sun began

to shine brighter.

our life

is an affirmation

of sky and peace –

a windy blanket,

rustling in trees.

our relationship

is as graceful

as purple twilight.

your words

are silver

bubbles in

moonlight.

10/19/2016

Once fettered 

to leafy venues,

a milkweed menu

a leggy procession 

for each step taken

wandering munch

Now flitting

blown by breezes

blue and vast

for nectar cast

proboscis drawing

nourishing nectar

Delicate, lovely

on Odyssey

in company pass

folding stained glass

clinging to trees

like leaves

Back to the unknown

Home.

October 16,

A loveless sense of regret

for time squandered and spent.

A fragmented, fractured mirror

for shattered, suffered hero.

Bereaving melodies sing

soothing songs of fading.

A pity given from us,

a flame of love without lust.

But spark the candle to torch;

a hunger's conflagration,

our shadow's fixation

to follow without remorse.

Our paths are darkened roads,

our hand's the candle, the torch.

Stumble in self-satisfying tripping,

or onward, fearless of slipping.