Before four

Must be some-one

Wakes me pre-dawn 

At 3

Mind a maze

Organs ablaze

Quiet cacophony

Stirring the still waters

Must be some-thing

Which must be known or

Revealed to the euphotic zone

Poetry and ghosts arise

And mingle, my solidity heavy

Disruptive to the lucid dream

Must have

Second thoughts

Choruses drone, stuck

So it seems, 

telling, reminding

Of lighter times 

Than the chasm and coffin can

Offer an anxious creature

Of habit and habitation,

A disheveled dwelling 

And the slumber until

The next hour

Or

Finding what I must be

Looking for. 

Painting by Edvard Munch - Sleepless Night. Self-Portrait in Inner Turmoil c. 1920- MM.M.00076 - Munch Museum in Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons. 

Avow

Truth be told-

The clean secrets

are the ones

most easily over-looked, 

like tiny happy pills,

like big gulps of fermentation

like bottled pride, 

once swallowed

often gets caught

tickling the throat

edible if not credible

sharp.

The bleached lies

are the ones treated

as though sterilization 

made us all safer

instead of regretful

for draining the color from

all storied possibilities.

Cheeks and skies

Sunsets and dawns

pinks and yellows

the way you see

plain as day

something always there

in between...

Kisses like clouds

Words like wind

fighting infection and odds

debating the will without power

Nothing to trace

Distance cured us all

to be saved for later

Revelations.

Painting by Gabriel von Max 'Praying' c. 1915 in Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons. 

Rosa rubiginosa

I used to advise him to pick a rose 

by its smell

First,

which was like asking him to choose a girl for her personality

First,

the roses I chose

bloomed often, I cut them and left them

to fragrance the big kitchen.

The rose I have now,

Was lilac,

When I found it at the hardware store.

Now,

it starts magenta, fades to purple,

then pales to near white with dark pink edges.

I get a bud every

So often...

Like life,

I think,

I am always happily surprised to receive

He never tended to the roses

Anyway,

I remember vividly

the wild ones we saw on a walk-first

he denied they were roses at all

Despite the thorns, the tiny neon magenta buds, 

the telling

Leaves

And so I never insisted

A rose is a rose

always keeping

my scents

about me.

Painting by Maxime Maufra (1861-1918) - A Bouquet of Roses - YORAG , 19 - York Art Gallery in Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons. 

Half-dozen Mud cakes

Back to wood

decks, quarter-size spiders, webs, moss 

and creatures stirring in the hollow

nights

Back to no

side-walks and skirting into the duff

or mud when cars and trucks pass

close-by

Back to walking

in the woods, again, sheltered 

from the horizon and its deep-wide

glistening

Ends of days

In so many ways

I thought I would 

Never

Be back

It all seems

to stay the same

Except I

Must leave again...

And then again

If I never left

I would never be

Back. 

Painting by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, 'Combing' c. 1891 in Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

As the crow flies

On still days

with drooping flags

and contented leaves

Sounds somehow soaked in

between the crevices

of broad daylight

I sit as still as my body

Allows

shuffling feathers

a crow passes by 

my hair

Lifts

and the clouds tip-toe 

Along the rounded horizon 

I don't see any

Evidence of spin

and even while held down 

in place and time

I feel the thousand 

mile-per-hour trajectory

Of every thing 

and cannot help

but try to follow

Which way

it all goes.

Painting by Akseli Gallen-Kallela, ' Boy and a crow' c. 1884 in Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Ex-isle

This world 

is not for breath

for feelings

also come and go.

As hard and light as 

Push and pull

Go.

Busy hands and 

bees-electricity, alter-

nating currents, the unseen

Never again 

Now

Where were we-

Many moons ago

and always one moon

stoic satellite

Spinning our own orbit

one side-sunlit

Not saying

darkness always becomes

Her-

Or shall I?

Painting by Robert Henri 'The Reader in the Forest' c. 1918 via Wikimedia Commons and Google Art Project, in Public Domain. 

Home

This name does not belong

to me-

This body will do

For mobility of the restless soul

Escape from all

This

killing ourselves

Sweet poisons of security

in a sense

Never enough

To fill the seams

To fit to the letter

To tie loose ends

Try to forget

Let go

without remembering

What it was

The name of something

That kept us.

Painting by 'Winslow Homer, 'The Green Hill' c. 1878, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons in Public Domain.