Far Away From The Blue Eyes of Summer

Autumn isn’t wasting any time

A chill grabs my heart

As I watch the Dogwoods

Fall apart

Soon enough these leaves

Will leave

And I’ll be forced to stay

Frozen against

The lifeless gray

I yearn for the fire

That flames no more

I cry for the colors

I knew before

But nothing

 Comes and rests

 its cold hands on me

While the sky

Sprinkles its dust

All over what I used to be

Now colder and older

 with premonitions

Of what January won’t bring

One less voice

In a home that used to sing

One less smile

To dance around our hearts

There marks the mile

Where the pleading starts

I cling to August’s leg

Like a tearful child,

And I beg.
And I beg.

I don’t want to be far away

 from the blue eyes of summer.

That was the last season

to see you alive.

The World Needs

The world needs
more people stopping to embrace
the poetry that exists--
swaying in silence
in the midst of noise & traffic.

The world needs more love letters
to console its loneliness--
written in cursive--
letters curving & stretching
to connect like a stream
of souls holding hands.

The world needs our rhythm
to join its own,
Our hearts to applaud together
and become loud enough
to pause a rushing crowd.

The world has more poetry
than it can love on its own,

and that's where we come in:

Down the aisle
To marry the art
that was meant for us...

To stand on its hills
and bathe in its sun

To dance with its meter

and proudly wear
its shawls of syllables

To run with the freedom of its verse

To love its warm breath
whispering around our minds

To swim with its bravery
when it rises like a wave

To pay attention when the sky
Wears a new dress

To thank the strong breeze
For passing through

The world needs us
to enter loyally into
its family
and take great care of it..

Connection

Here, in a place

That is only quiet on the surface;

There is a faucet that runs

As constant as the night

at the closing of the year.

I wash my tired face

I soak and scrub the few faded decades

off of this map on my hands.

I inhale the pulsating fragrance

of my freshly varnished hopes and plans.

I am unsure if I am an extension

of this giant spinning world,

or if it is a dizzy part of me.

Whatever the connection may be;

It stirs question upon question

That entertains the hopelessness

And transforms it

into something butterfly-like.

Contemplation of what I am

and what I should be doing here

Overflows and dampens

 the sympathetic air

I’m never a step closer to knowing

But all the stars my eyes have met

Are there, bright in the sky, still showing;

and something about that sight

urges this wanderer to keep going.

Beneath A Rising Amber Sphere

Such a heavy day...

I awake and immediately feel

Its weight pressing me down;

Squeezing life,
 dripping despair

Drops that now take up residence

On the threads of my pillow’s cotton case

Where my eyes once shut for comfort

To trade the square shape of now

For the complimentary colors of an abstract place

That place is closed today

And I am open only

to the sharp and real dimensions

Coming into focus

Beneath a rising amber sphere

How it manages to acquire such height

I may never know

but I want to live

 within that glow;

It must be weightless there.

Last Swim of Summer

Be with me a while;
Dip your evening shoes
In a pond of floating Forget-me-nots.

Meet me at the edge
of the very same place
Where once I met a smile
That resembled a youthful you…

Cleanse the doubt from your eyes,
but leave the beautiful blue,
round, wet surface where I go to swim--
Mermaid-like;
delicately diving into the soul of you:

For truer air.
For deeper breath.

Smother this fire
Screaming from my lungs,
Until soft, calm clouds
Are all that’s left.

I'll Never Forget

Tonight it hurts
So deep

It stings

To remember
To forget
To Spill

To hold emptiness
in one hand
and with the other
try to fill

To lie beneath a quiet
indigo sky
with thoughts trembling, and chilled
Hiding out like a hermit
in a shell of a heart
that will never come out and sigh

Ripping out the grass
like the earth owes me
But it is time
that never repays its soaring debt
While I spend each age
with ghosts I'll never forget

And I know how the rain feels
When the wind won't stay

I know how the eyes feel
when distress fogs the bay

I know how this pen feels
It writes what I can't say

I know how the waking feel
when the sun burns their dreams

I know how the night feels
as it hides its streams


I know how the winter  feels
visions of vanishing breath

I know what agony feels
it kneels close by,
 and cries the name of death.

So Many Things

I am so many things,
 like the fighting gloves of an octopus,
 bruising statements across the clean sky.
I've lifted the how and dropped the why.

 I am so many things,
 still learning to live in peace with this crowd in my heart.
Praying to God that my hands can open this cage
and free the innocence into the air of infinite art.

Kites

Why do we fly our dreams
like kites in spring--
so high
and so far ahead of us?

Is it because the gold of day break,
The sugary lumps of winter mountains,
The gaze of a day dreamer,
The myths that hear our silence,
Forgiveness,
Acceptance,
Trust,
Heaven...
All reside in that far off acre of space
playing together with Peter Pan smiles?

We give beauty
a free, permanent vacation in the distance;
then stick our brick homes
a thousand prayers shy of a touch.
We work for money instead of attention
and wonder why we aren't paid very much.

I believe we all have enough light
and tears in our eyes
to plant our dreams
in our living rooms...
even grow up alongside of them
like sapling siblings.

I think we can move closer
to the shine of our treasures;
and only throw them up in the air
for the sky to catch and hold
at night while we rest.