Disparate Heart
Made of thorns & parry
I thought you better than this
Moved to pity & then Toledo steel
Bladed with desire
Cutting through love
Looking for yourself in the openings
But this you are already too full of!
You understand so little
Stopped short of full tide
Withholding the forward of completion
Gentle heart, will I take you in compassion?
Shall I find you a nest of ordinary love
Wherein to rest? And, then, will you so?
We have parted a year ago
Your proud blade & I
We have discovered many centers
Many sendings.
We yearn to be the ocean
Covering a high-tided beach
Once more…
It Wasn’t A Dream
I moved one small thing
and the world of dust behind it
came to light.
So it is in life:
I peered behind one thought
Into a world of teeth & claws.
How many times to clear this?
As many as it may take, perhaps?
Barrier Reef
Protecting the tender lagoon of love
Tidal & green inside
Brimming with schools of thought
Flashing in a silver unison of silence.
I will no predator among them,
Coral & Carol interchanged
My bones all unseen
And as beautiful.
Briefly Then
I’ll tell you the story of my life:
I Am. That’s about it for now.
Oh, you want details?
I have been advised to not follow advice
I have been told to sing, but practice silence
To run, but now, to sit-stay
To love “in cautious abandon.”
Whom shall I believe?
Who shows me the reality of hard-packed dirt
Advising me to see only stars?
Allow me just a momentary hug
Heart-to-heart,
An angel wrapping wings around a tree.
I have lived so long on so little love
I am beyond existence.
Parallels
I have news for you
These double lines that merge in the distant vision
Don’t merge.
I assure you – it’s a mirage.
For as long as they go together
Somewhere they part
They encounter division
Become singular of purpose
Each no longer the other’s destination
It Is Time
Oh, I have clung to you
Like a child her child’s blanket
It is now to set you down
A dried pen I’ve shaken hard for ink.
I’ve run downhill on our friendship
Now out of fuel, spent completely
Yes, time & past time, months of days
We were to have together
You swept from the calendar
And folded your arms.
Our years are dry as kindling
Our friendship lost in conflagration
A wildfire of no know etiology
One careless match-word
All is now ash.
I’ve poked & prodded with my mind
For reasons for reasonableness
Yet there are none hidden here
None to be had
So let’s say not farewell
but say goodbye.
I brush my hands of loving you
I did all I thought right
While being only wrong.
No Light
Bring on the unlit darkness
the moveless tide
the ink all fades in loveletters anyway.
This burden of relief a wonder.
Once emptiness to fill, now fallow space
This ravished ground
Stupid
It was a turnkey operation
Our being friends
Immediately, I offered entry
Together, we closed the door to others
And tho I wondered where, at times, you went
We found each other at need.
Your many truths were also false
Perhaps mine, only returned?
Your final insult wormed around my edges
Not quite belonging, yet taken in…
The door flung open, invited exit.
I prowled outside, peering in windows
Rattling doorknobs.
I’ve salvaged from the shed,
Made myself a hobo bag I shall not carry long
I leave you to your limping life.
Striding through the white picket fence,
I close & latch the gate.
So Long
This is the last of you
Out of my heart, I say
Your scruff & hind in my hands
One more time
I toss you from the environs of my heart
Your compass after – find me no more!
I clap my hands
And watch you disappear!
llll
