The Child

I used to believe that the moon followed me
Everywhere I went,
And I could see magical shapes in the clouds
That no one else could see.

Then I grew up.

Now, I can no longer obey the stars
Because of previous commitments;
I cannot follow the sparrow
Because I lost track of her,
And I cannot draw pictures now
Because people would laugh.

I have lost sight of the moon
And the clouds are just things that rain.
 

Marionette

I am your puppet

You make me dance on crimson thread

With Mardi Gras dreams and violin strings

While the little children clap chubby hands

You, in your pulpit

Directing the farcical charade

Weaving nutcracker tapestries

I, the obedient prima ballerina

Made of papier mache and ermine,

Dance minuet

Smile painted smiles, past perfect

Through doll's eyes with camel's hair lashes

Dream aberrant daydreams

Of quicksilver ponies and chiffon sweet-peas

Don't laugh at me, please

Don't laugh

But now the show is over

Finis
 

The sacrifice

She lies before me, face-down, blackened

Starveling child of death;

She is a testament to the failings

Of mankind.

Don't let them crucify you

It's not that you couldn't stand the nails,

But the fact that it was the people

You loved the most

Doing the hammering

 A Daydream in Indian Summer

If wishes were dishes,

I'd have to do them all.

A basket full of wishes, turned to stone;

The fluff of a dandelion

Gone to seed, sailing

Blue-skyward, vessels in themselves

Life encapsulated, parachutes

She made the jump, but

The chute failed

GERONIMO

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth

If only there had been a haystack

She would have found the needle.

The wishes, now tugging heartstrings

Strumming mandolin strings

Tied to apron strings

Flying wishes, soaring on kite strings;

She tied a key,

The key to the city

To the end of the string

And waited for the lightening to strike.

In reality, a wishing well

Is just a big hole in the ground

That swallows up your money.

And what are prayers,

But wishes with wings?

She held a worry-stone in her hand

And tried to wish away the past

But she realized that she needed her past

To make her who she was now.

When you wish upon a star

Ice-crystals form around the edge of your brain

And everything looks hazy;

Kind of what happens when you're in love

Or a truck hits you.

Tell the wishing well

I want my nickel back.

Reaching

Sometimes, ugly things reared up
In her throat, rising
Like a tide of scorn and longing,
Sometimes they won. 

Sometimes, they bit and gouged
Their way out, with sharp little teeth
And talons,
Sometimes they gagged her,
Sucked out her breath.

After all, she had not asked
For such a rude and tasteless existence,
Such a ruse.

Even the fact that she held pity
In her soul for others
Was in fact amazing in itself.

In earthly contempt of ritualistic things
She gave up quietly
And without a fight.

Chances

As frail and silken as a spider's web

More than a little, less than a lot

A fine and fragile tendon of hope

Glints in the moonlight.

Twisting from it is a fragile leaf,

Afraid of losing to the wind

Or me.

Who saw the twisting windmill reach for the ground

And leap from its lifeline,

The wind owning its destiny,

The sky its only hope?

When all is said and done,

We can only fall freely

And travel our destinies

When we let go of the strand;

For hope binds us to impossible dreams;

And if we can only release our desperate grasp,

We may float free.

Hanging on to a meaningless dream

Or a meaningless life

Leaves us to twist in the wind,

Bound;

But most of us are afraid to fall free,

Afraid to let go of what we have

To purchase a great unknown.

Reflections

I am a stranger in your midst;

I will go through the motions and be done.

I have fulfilled my purpose;

There is no sense of loss.

There is nothing that I can offer you;

Only the empty vessel fo a dream,

A fragment of despair.

It is all an empty cask.

I only exist in the hearts and minds of others.

I can see no reflection;

I am only real in my relationship to others.

The rose is dead, my love

But the thorns remain.

You will cause me nothing but pain.

Sometimes, we are so busy building walls

That we forget to put in the doors.

Sometimes, when someone leaves us,

We think that we have to leave every relationship first

Just to beat the other person to the punch.

Sometimes, we hurt so badly

That we don't let anyone into our lives at all.

Some of the people on the outside

Fill our lives full of people.

Bad people. Crazy people. Any people,

Just because we're afraid to be alone;

But we're just as lonely, if not lonelier,

As the people who forgot to put in the doors;

We're just lonely in a crowd.

Each month owns its own days,

Each day owns its own hours.

The firelight of time flickers, burns low

And finally winks out.

All that is left

Is a ring of stones

And the charred remains of what once was.

If we are lucky, we own an embroidered memory

As the pillow upon which we sleep.

The artist must push on, painting

With words,

Defining the order of existence

In the stroke of a pen, like the presence

Of a thousand angels

On the head of a pin,

Or the death

Of a leaf.

Outlander

I have arrived, my suitcases empty

But I am unyielding.

To find the ring in a land of compromise

Would be, indeed, a rare thing,

But I am still hopeful.

I led the way at times

At others I was still and waited

But to no avail.

For once, I have known defeat, and loss;

For not the first time I have felt their sting.

When I grow old, and curse the sun

I shall only be cursing myself;

Cursing the differences and the samenesses

I unfurled in the wind

And the sounds of silence I made

Into a tin cup.