WORDS & PLACES
"ADRIFT"
Mostly I am no one.
For a long time I was a piece of driftwood wandering aimlessly.
Adrift...
softened by the waters and windblown sand
my heart carried no weight.
Tactical - with my finger tips
I find meaning.
I idolize
I make war
and I’m mostly (not) sorry.
I enjoy the illusion that I am yours.
The audacity of me
pouring this into empty air without dread.
Heavy waves
the horizon just hanging there.
It’s another world
a boundless zone
the light is breaking
and I’m almost ashore.
"NIGHTBLOOMS"
The singing of flowers
and thorn-wrapped succulents echo.
All day I have sat here.
Waiting for substance, creating the perfect memory.
This is summer.
Fade into grass
into night
into constellations
into dreamscapes.
I wait for you here, referring back to nowhere every night.
I drink up more sea water questioning, “am I any closer?”
I awoke so light wanting to give you the sky
but my throat is on fire.
Clouds float by, always glistening and granting gentleness.
To survive, prescribe me hope...
certainty that the sweetest has yet to come.
"NOT BLUE"
Real bittersweet.
like the hibernating flowers bloom
so sweetly
while I hold tight and longingly to seeds I’d like to sow sooner. Where sweetness and bitterness
is swept to nothingness.
like the rain gathering in puddles proffering towards the ocean
as a wild and uncultured stream.
A conscious passion joined by the changing of the season,
not in heart but direction.
Amorously, I hold a humble appreciation
for what was and what is to come.
forever north
floating
and dancing for you
- bittersweet but not blue.
"Validity"
What lies over the fence..
A drama like the rain that fell in handfuls last night
followed by the morning sun,
the wet grass soft under my bare skin.
What flashed before me was a falsehood I already knew. blooming like petals, I believed their truth from time to time.
I fantasize.
Yes, I dream. I hope way down for so many things.
Recklessly I demand them gone
and they disperse to silence and dust.
With a bemused grin I think, “Offenses truly have no validity,”
and clear the moral fence.
I blew a kiss, tuned the commands out
and fell deeply into the ocean’s sweet serenade
forever after.
"Fruits of Depth"
After the rain passed...
the ocean never looked as blue,
the pasture as green
the world sparkled anew and refreshed
replenished and quenched.
I’m not interested in the poised
give me your gritty, darkest depths
your terrorized dreams.
The dimming of the day takes humility.
The voice inside me softens
suffocating any incompetence.
These portals grow freely
and I speak openly to them
maybe for the first time.
Dig deeper.
Beat faster.
Bright colors beaming - “You are all I truly need.”
Thoughts obscure
fear of depth - so loud I could touch it.
Broken love
bound tight
no room for imagination.
Please, dig deeper.
"Bright Burdock"
I didn’t know where I was going but it seemed important.
At dusk I went alone
thick grasses and bare kiawe.
Treading a dusty path
I embrace the last of the days sunlight spilling into the dark blue.
There I remember
how you brushed my hair back
and stared longingly at the slivered moon
as if you needed it to shine bigger, brighter. I’m seaside
I’m floating
I’m a witness again.
I see the burdock dried
desperate
and standing with power.
Flowers, flowers, feminine flowers.
I mean to leave but I stay longer
remembering
“Time is for dragonflies and angels.”
Purple hues calm my eyes
while my feet recollect the trail home.
"Cape Cod"
Muted clouds and soft waves
greet the pale coastline.
mists of sea water
strangely sweet
and distant cries of salty gulls
are part of the body I call home.
It was my last dream before waking.
The rest gone, like lost ships in the night.
In the fog I steadily recall
the seasons we once breathed.
Perpetual moments flickering
the past, present and the abstract.
I concentrate on the distance of what
I can’t understand.
Lost at sea..
I realize my longing
while walking your shores.
"Lady's Slipper"
I could be an orchid.
A delicate orchid of the north, the lady’s-slipper.
Delicate, not to be confused with fragile nor weak.
The je ne sais quoi of her being cannot be tarnished
nor taken alive.
Think deeply before bending down
with intentions to break her stance for amusement.
An old tree stands beside her
holds no power but his own sacred greatness.
He knows that even if her world was to decay overnight
- her essence will live on
forever embedded in the roots of the forest.
Spring has returned and words are left unspoken
she wonders if you’re stuck inside your heart.
She will continue to follow lonely roads
expecting nothing and hopeful for everything.
If that isn’t lovely, I’m not sure what is.
"A Morning Walk"
Our eyes met, locked and time stopped.
my eyes conveyed, fear not -
I am humbled by you and the sounds of your landscape.
I perch on the ragged fence line
what separates you and I
and tilt my head at the wonder of your perfect existence
- unseen and impeccable.
The sound of high ocean winds
amidst the golden and green grass
the sky shining - so placid and beautiful
please let me stay in this moment a little longer.
You are not as self-aware as I
and I envy you for this.
Good morning and stay wild.
"Entranced Cacti"
Like a black bird flying away
a brave creature facing the day
the cactus withstands many waterless desert days in stoic patience.
Forgetting the rain
as though daily life is but an idle thought.
Are you bored yet?
Branches grow, roots form and flowers die
I guess that’s how it goes.
I loved you then
as cactus flowers seem to bloom in the night and now that’s gone too.
Beware of budding thorns
shifting shapes upon their own accord. Spiked hearts are deep
yet thoughtless
blooms fleeting
and spines leave you bleeding.
A volcanic bed decorated with crushed coral.
some pieces new, jagged, and rough
others smooth from life’s erosion.
Sitting in a hammock fixed to thick kiawe trunks,
I swing my legs with force...
momentum follows
and I become a pendulum.
Matching my mood
my pending pensive thoughts watch the world
the waves break melodically.
So unnecessary
I kick my shoes off and give my gaze to the horizon where shapes emerge at the surface
and spout with great significance.
Brimming with illusion
unseen presences like these trace the contours of ones soul
chanting divine mysteries full of knowing and bright light.
Oh, how well I wish them - do they know?
On a desolate beach pleasures can vanish fast
usually at dusk
when overarching shadows
subtly cast the inevitable fear that no face is forever.
"Angel Trumpets"
Outside my window
Lethally poisonous
Poised with allure
Stunning in scent and sight
Casting spells with each new blossom and petal-fall like supernatural
Like nature’s bitterness
Mouth open.. and
still tastes highly edible, intensely sweet
Maybe the books were ill-conceived
Maybe this is farewell
Maybe this is fate
Always returning to mind over embittered matter
Voodoo bouquets of Spanish Moss hang.. disorderly
perfect
an obsession
I must go there.
Down long dirt roads lit and silhouetted
by canopy cracks
I fall in love again.
Beautiful isn’t it? A mystical expression. Nothing really happens unless we try to see it as something else. They say, "it is what you make it." Life is highly textured; you feel the grit of sand, softness in tears, the thick and teeming fibers of ones past. They say, "rainbows depict the promise of a new life." I feel my humanness today, each grain of it. Private, innate, and small. My own illumination, there is no other way so I devour it - piece by piece, before it’s too late. My sadness is real, though stupid, as eventually everything withers. My happiness too is either not real, cast away, or limitless. Again at 4pm I hope rain to fall gracefully before the soft grassland. Evening clouds, dissolving slow, bring forth the night sky to set sail on the day's completion. Rainbows, a medicinal seasoning, one of nature’s finest dreams. The future is still limitless and free. My how the light shines when the imagination pours past shadows and disdain.
