brazen heart

Shout the wild as you
pluck the arrows from
your heart
Drip the blood that
flows as tears
Dig the spaces of your
ribs, hear the
demons roar their
mountain fears

can one be both the
bandage and the bruise?

What is the measure of a life?
.... What does it mean to be?
And what does it mean to live?
These two are not the same.

unraveling

Lift your hand to
the tree, see the
holes in your
body, feel the
empty of your wounds
hear the hollow of
your sound as you
run from the fault

Take hold of your heart
stop, break, beneath the
blood, bend the
branch to bruise
the loud

Quake the birth to
know your signs
root the veins and
sprawl an oak to
reach the sun and
bathe in light

Find your voice to
gain your sight

lumber

From the nest into
the fields
sing the golden crop
beneath the wheat sun

With hands to sow
the joyous seeds
and the scratches that
burn, laced between
worn fingers

Red travels through the
cuts, palms
healthy as the soil
sprouting leaves and
life and green
twirl the sticks and
build a home

grey

I refused you, I
spat you out of my
lungs with venom, but
still I wait for a
word, a letter, a call;
still I watch for
your ghost
And like a child I
come crawling to this crib
alone and the world is new
learning what hands grasp
what palms can hold

I burned you like an
old album's photo
grey with dust and fondness
I ask if you were ever
real or just
an image of pretend presence
I ask if I am
still lonely, if I am
still lost. I feel the
ripples of my heart
quake with murky beats, I
pull on these veins that
flow like a stagnant sea

Breathing without a compass
dizzy from the fall
we are always at
a crossroads, crashing
cars in this
crater-covered trauma
don't forget that
constant-healing bears
constant scars

And with constant shaking, hands
melting, reaching, searching
I don't like how it feels
to start new
I don't like this
puzzle of
me
and
you

12°C

As sure as the
leaves howl and their
tired branches reach and tremble
I was certain your scent would
linger, wrapping itself around
my fingers like a rosary, a
fragrance to adorn my
neck like jewelry

As green as the
mountains roam and as
brave as the ocean, I
felt our footstep's journey, I
believed in forever-ness, I
accepted our trust

But like the cold, painted halls of
cathedral walls or the
dying dew of winter, we are
empty, faded, dimming
I glance at vacant rows and
rooms without souls and
hear its swollen sound

Your memory was
warm as wool around my
shoulders, but with the
season swell, winter cried and
its fondness yawns and pales

My breath can barely melt the
frozen silver, and as I
glimpse your far-off figure
walking in the distant cold,
I don't miss you anymore.

hum

Strike the palms then
bathe the bruise
Watch the wooden stars with
splintered eyes
Blink out the burns and
stare the sun
Quake the hills that
grow green and damp in the
cavern of the heart

Wash the rain of dirt then
stomp the soil
Drink the air
exhale its colors
Hear the wound and
let it roar
Hush the sound and
soothe the blood

Descend the quiet
Command the still.

22.

Laughter speaks the stifled mind
the silent heart behaves
evading depth for easy jest
in comfort we live enslaved
For words intrude the inner space
they question human health
why disrupt imagined peace--
we hide behind false wealth
The quiet things we do not hear
the sadness left unshared
to fracture fragile circumstance
we often do not dare
Thus we drift and stray ourselves
professing family
but soon we find the thread undone
to tremble in calamity

ancient

See you see me
Our shadows behind the trees
You were me and
I was you, playing chapel
beneath the dark blue canopy

And now I stand on
far-off shores, limbs
strong with other craft
I glimpse your back, a
curious glance, aware that
the branch you hold bears
scars of me

Letters carved on leaves breathe
affections to the wind
"I miss you" but
who, to you, is "me"?

I am flesh but I am ghost and
I tremble soil and soul
I live in whispers that
kiss your mind, I am a
ripple in your tide, I
quake and stir

But I fade and now am
dust to sift between your hands
You touch old thoughts like
constellations grand, unknowing that
the stars deny your reach

Primitive and distant dreams
from clay I drew a different me
Yet still I have you anchored here, and
you hold onto me

With ropes we strain our
lands towards us, with
hands we stretch
across this ravine

The universe unfurls before us, but
still I reach for you, and
still you reach for me

puddles

rivers
stuck on asphalt
watch the mourning mist that
wakes a tender wave:
mellow ruffles swimming in the
depths of watered rifts,
cobblestone collections of the rain

green grows in the open breath
but sleeps half-open in the clouds, and
blue chants the sky stretching
here to melt the colors binding

the whisper streets tread the
gentle quiet--the murmured town of
grey dust shimmer.
muted strikes against the pavement
hum their thousand mumbles, lifting
somnolent strides, blinking
yellow thunder

above its broken ballad
floats a diary to the wind
"search the shy sun," dreams its words in
brighted hues, but water paints the
pages damp to hush the thoughtful ink

yet
a pair of valiant boots
pint-sized and young,
animate the sunken raindrops,
vanish beneath the surface-skimmed.
drizzles dance on puddles settling and
ripples climb the air and swell
but between the the liquid whirls and
rubber leaps

who
        stirred
                     first?

vines

There is a house on darkened streets,
Whose wounded walls resound with secrets deep
It throbs yet echoes none; silence in
Its veins unwinds undone

In its aches old sorrow coughs, like
Weeds its thorns descend the dusk
Crooked roses choking frames of wooden doors
Broken whispers twist on shattered floors

But beneath the planks a forest grows
Its leaves alight with gentle glow
Soil perfumed with ancient air
Twirls thick with kindness planted bare

With glimmer green its promise blooms
Young sprouts murmur loud typhoons
Tender-winded voice like distant tales of lore
Breathes soft to heal the swollen soul

Unjust.
The universe is so unjust.

http://www.kaleo.org/news/uhm-s-annie-runland-killed-by-truck-accident/article_d4abe2ea-ae55-11e3-bd2c-001a4bcf6878.html

I'm so sorry, Annie. So sorry.

Black Suprematic Square
Kazimir Malevich

s u s p e n d

w o u n d  t a n g l e  a g o n y  c h o k e  b l o o d   b r e a k   g r a v e  s u f f e r  d r o w n   b r e a t h  t e a r   d e a t h   h e a v y a c r i d  f a t a l   h a t e d e s t r o y s o u n d  d a r k n e s s  l i g h t  a c h e  s t a b  h e a r t  b u r s t  s u n  g r a c e  l i f e   b e a u t y h o p e  s o u l  t r a n s c e n d  f l o a t  b l o o m f r e e  h e a l m e n d  e t h e r e a l  a i r  s i n g   t r a n s l u c e n t b i r t h  r a d i e n t b l o s s o m g e n t l e f a t h e r m o t h e r n u r t u r e h o m e r e s t p e a c e l o v e

fragments

4/4/13

Sometimes silence is the sweetest
music. The turning spokes of my
bike, the night wind blowing, the gentle hum
of faraway cars. This is the music of memory.
It connects deeply to something I cannot
possibly describe. Like the passing footsteps
of a stranger, this thought lingers but then is
gone, and I am lost from that fragrance
only to be found by this present world. I keep
biking, because the movement somehow helps
my thoughts flow.

. . .

On this corner, the light glows strangest. It is
soft in the blanket of the night, the air
gently pulsing with a quietness that
heals my heart...

. . .

God, was I Your dream? That
You desired me before creation
burst in birth and light?
And how, in earth's mosaic, patterns of faces,
have I been found exceptional — unique?
If my life is the result of two unified
bodies, a mass of cells and neurons and atoms,
a product of aleatorical picking when my
genes and chromosomes mingled... but You
say You thought of me, You think still?
Who am I? That You would watch me
grow, bones in my skin and knots
in my hair, bruised shins and dirt-stained knees?

What are the feelings You feel in Your
heart? If I am made in Your likeness, and
my nostalgia brings me pain, does Your heart
ache with beauty too? Is my longing pointing
to a deeper truth, when You say I was
made for knowing, to be known, to be loved?