King of Sandcastles

All the little boys begin
by feeling the power
of costume and cape

learning man versus
nature-
good guys and bad guys

until one day
the costume
becomes a uniform,
clean lines
disappear and
superheroes
become firemen

capable of brazen acts
of valor.

Before the selflessness,
all the little princes
are pranksters,
putting a single grain of sand
inside the oyster shell,
into the monks shoe,

and these became pearls,
of course
time
refined
things.

Little girl, I was called
Firestarter,
and practiced the title
often on bridges.

I have never seen the Sandman
in my sleep,
but in my wake
I feel the sand
filling me in-
side.

Apropos of the ritual 
I chose
to be buried alive
after I say
I do
wish
to be cut by pearls
into innumerable
and indistinguishable
pieces of myself

made up
of ashes and rust
as it must be
my nature.

I must confess,
the arsonist
admired his work
while I wed

the King of Sandcastles
before the tide rushed in.



Photo credit: Galveston Island Sandcastle, Texas, taken July 2011 in Public Domain.

Savage souls

Awaking in an angry state is akin to acting the part
of an apparition among the living,
all fume and red plumes of frightening doom.
Gloom radiates an aura, blue inside under dark ceilings and
thunder changes nothing permanently,
Just as the tree that falls alone
grows moss, grows quiet, and softer,
it is still a tree.
I am left pondering the source of this bitter acid
that arises, ferments, builds pressure
and makes fissures up to the surface-
Yet, I feel 
I must
already know
the signs of arson.

There was a day when I was a child
that I wished I could end it all. I tried to die,
I ate the poison apple
and failed to fall asleep for the
happy ending.
I then became enraged
at having been
the subject of someone else’s destructive desire
to fail. I did not disappoint
myself.

We have all been told often enough,
‘Patience is a Virtue’, this equals that,
and yet, this is short of equi-valency.
Silence does not speak a word
about solutions, nor does forgiveness map
alternative paths
to higher ground.
Believing is seeing hindsight
with foresight, evidently,
possession is one-tenth free will,
anymore is often less
than enough to kill you.

It was not meant to be
Today-
I live to hear the words;
fragmented, at-best, good luck, hard to grasp,
Not the right fit-
And I do not quit

because this
is for me.
And this
finds me
looking happy to have survived,
and finding
anger was a phase of letting go.