Nowhere

the mists lift
time left us behind
I find you
here sitting
thinking
always melancholy
you always do return
somehow
to tighten the
knot
that loosens

why do we live our
lives searching
for what is not of
this world
it never ends
tomorrow will come
and find you
another quest
I will still be here
waiting

and maybe in time
I will learn
not to miss
your vacant place
in my heart
but now there is
nowhere I can go
that will
take away my
memories of you

11.15.96

Cherry Trees

I see your
happiness
bubbling like
a spring fountain
your eyes dance
light as the day
Under the cherry trees
we lay
singing songs
we laugh our way
through
our little paradise

11.15.96

Writer’s Block

My dying blue irises on the window sill
valiantly standing tall in the wind
lasted barely four days
criss-cross the masking tape on the window
vanishing strings…ideas are born but they flee into the night
not yet, sleep has to wait
till words imprint themselves on this page
I wonder if a crystal blue rose
could hold the drizzle of an entire day
too much to hold my sorrow born of
clouds gathering in the horizon

please, please
while thought is still coherent
I hope to do this
write a profound poem on everything
action
this is all a front
for something ulterior, something I wouldn’t dream
of admitting to,
I am waiting with these words
even when I vowed I shouldn’t, decided not to
now for want of resolve, I write this litany of nothingness

the tinkle of a million imaginary glass bells in the wind
romance is dead; I watched it die and wept its passing
but more for myself, my
bonafide efforts to orchestrate something out of
nothing as the pretentious wind come knocking
bittersweet,
long ago I left my city of lights but that was then
nothingness…just here and now
as twilight shadows flicker on the barren page
the frosty moon laughs mockingly
I think … we think
the poem and I
agree it is time to stop

4.30.97

Gone before light

Spirals
the face in the dark maybe
could be must be
looming in the haze with tell-tale eyes burning deep
dreams are but landscapes through time
flying clouds on a thread masquerade of
masks we orchestrate our lives around

Breathe
the word that resonates
through these walls
where are you when I need you most?
Scents of the season hang in the air
the sweetness still a distant memory
while the poison arrow takes flight
misses the apple
a distant reality the mists take us to
unfolding into…

apprehension drawing
into the inner core drift far out
inside my mind twisted vines
closing up the maze, lost
losing the material world to grasp the ethereal
Want is a need that stands
between the safety of the nest and
oblivion
metamorphosis of principles beyond need

Just to bring sunshine into my life
is that all that you
can possibly conceive how could you
love without embracing the shadow
the other self that watches the play till her turn
the essence slips past your fingers
cries frail in the night
trailing like white scarves cut by the wind

the sea, always the sea
chased you just
stand in the stillness of night
feel the fingers reach to pluck a strand of one of your nine lives
cats eyes in the swirling violet storm clouds
choppy waters of the deep void where once
a fragmented heart beat
this ship could sink to stop
what I’ve started

Just a thought that never again
will I come this far only to turn back
but too close too soon
time draws near
the kindness of a stranger within us can mislead
Is it a question of deja vu or do I know this too well
windows of a past life still resonate
from the furthest recesses of space

How could the past touch me now
in this nowhere where time is no more
awaken the self that sleeps away her sorrows
and bring down the rain that
torrential waterfall that breaks away the barriers
Legacy of tears and fire fulfilled
did you exist just because
the only soul I have remain lost to this lifetime
Eternity is too long a time to hope to
tip the hourglass
start over
or maybe the ticking of the clock will cease
irresistible games we play at risk
you say you will risk anything
once upon a time it all ended
and now as the wind whipping at tangled hair
and complacent sea frothing at your bare feet
no game, none
just this growing chasm in between our worlds

Gone before light


4.17.97

In Hiding

Far and deep in these iron woods we stay
awhile
compressed silence in a nutshell
falling dusk shroud the winding rutted path
mapped out before us
complacent, we gingerly step
into these tracks
too big for a lifetime to fill
with lithium drops
in passivity we chain our dreams
gaze at the world outside with languid eyes
and frozen hearts to wound our way
b r o k e n
and dysfunctional around these
perfect steps we cannot forge
or like a rapidly flowing river
rush to covert the sea
these snow white paths bleached with
ideals
that long ago dared to step over the ledge and leave
the conventional
wisdom to its own age
the muse beckons
come forward with a handful of unfinished songs
a bunch of singularities a day
we stumble along looking for affirmation in
the absence of security
the champion’s theme to mask
the blur of a world spinning its way in
to oblivion
shrill and unrelenting, expectation screeches her way
forcing us to admit we are lost
where are you going, where are you going now?
4.30.97

Conundrum

Thoughts like rain out of a blue sky
the farthest journey
left to chance
calling on serendipity
all these long years
what else is there left to ruin?

Two worlds

Always in the swing of things
improvising
I am a lonely soul afterall
craving the of a stillness of a city
lulled after dark
before dawn stirs the dreamer from sleep
is there no place to call home
the wanderer
prodigal daughter
blind to what she has
someone like you

One heady summer night

dreams in collision with life
we conspire to flout
every force that ties us down
a moment fleeting
engraved in memory

Tempting fate

this is how it began
misteps leading to more
through closed doors
too late to erase
only time erode and blur your imprint
the paths maddeningly parallel
so can they never meet
unravelling the settled mind

Till

fallible vessel
waiting for release

Morning after

stillness inside
has time
robbed your memory
convictions unravelled
fallen angel once beautiful
awaiting the day the sun ceases
to rise
a clean slate

Adieu

a last thought before parting
journey in search of the unknown unrestrained
a choice between all or nothing
blinds for my weary eyes have tired of seeking
yet in the absence of gratitude a quandary
truth though obscure prevails

In

I know where secrets lie
deep recesses of night
there is something in the air
one day long ago
my longing stopped

walked this path before
dreams must remain incomplete
the void remains close the door
sangfroid and precociousness
to traverse both worlds

Epiphany

Sometimes
the walls come down
and there is clarity in
every moment

Syzygy

I saw your face in the crowd
just a moment before you dissolved
in the blink of an eye
Picked up the pieces
well I moved on never looking back
Then all it took was this
to unravel me

Contemplation

Silence falls like a veil
smell of earth and crushed grass fills the air
count a million souls watching
from their lofty place in the sky

feel my way along the crumbling wall
at the edge of the world

seek to flee your safe harbor
perhaps I have already stayed too long
time gathered its wings and flew away
along with my resolutions

Dissonance

I creep about tangled within your clutches
boxed in the austere maze

Ennui

I wait for the long
winter to pass
for the long days of dreariness to
end how deep has the bleakness
soaked into my bones they ache as
I meander the passageways

Love: I think
I am fully cured of it
now I go through the motions
of being alive but never truly
innocent not quite myself
when I was twelve

To Whatever End

We strive to purge ourselves
of old ghosts
with precarious steps along the ledge
between sanity and ecstasy

perhaps I hesitated too long?
now tomorrow is but a step
out the door
tomorrow our worlds clash again

Farewell to Elessar

Falling to pieces again over Arwen's fate.

The bells toll for you, Estel
departed beyond the circles of the world
No comfort shall there be for me
but taste the bitterness of mortality

Now under these fading trees
hasten the end that we may once again
Walk on the same paths
ever a memory in song

Diatribe on Love

I think love's grand design is to weave a tangled
web of dreams; round and round the train goes
for I love you and you love her and she loves
someone else and it doesn't ends until it
reaches a punctuation of two perfect halves
that have found each other so that the universe
breathes a sigh of relief and then somewhere else the
chain continues with the millions that seek
and dream alone in the night wondering
if their soul mate dreams under the gaze
of the very same constellation that sprinkle
across the sky or if what separates them is
not a matter of space but of time.

Dedication

Some of my old poetry ones from my college days. For Bertha, who was with me back then, and now, and I hope many more tomorrows. Happy Birthday dear!

Elsewhere

revisited
the twilight forests
light and shadow
whispers in the hollow
place that day never visits
all at once silent
the curtains of stealth fall
unhindered the predator in the gloom
place where time shudders
and the night bares its face
the ground swallows and spits venom
into tangled undergrowth
of paradise lost

1.18.98

Rain In The Heart

I can't stop the torrential rain
I can't stop it is always raining
My heart is flooded with the rain
The storm is over but the flood isn't over
I am drowning in this sea
It is of my making, some of yours
I try so hard but the walls always crumble down
My dam is burst and for all
the world to see I am picking up
the pieces but it is still raining
raining, raining
Even the sun hides her face
She is lost in her agony
Can you stop the rain
For I don't now why it never stops

03.14.98

Stonehenge

Too soon the path strays
Aside into dark whispering shadows
In the field where all around
The stones of time stand tall,
Casting age into the granite cold surface
Numb, my cheek against the night
I hear my heart beat echoing through the ages
As they gaze down upon me
The stones of time
Lay upon countless lifetimes
Too many then to lose faith
And fly far back into the recesses of time
Would that my soul find peace in those days
Past when these lost words find the parting
Sigh of the wind
As when the ancient stones
With cold nonchalance
Stand their ground

03.14.98

The Room

I walk again
in this familiar room
scents of long ago
yesterday's memories
hang on its walls
so lonely in this place
now that you have gone
there is no reason to return
One last glance around
at the place I had treasured most
once upon a time
and I close the door to it
forever

03.04.96

Dusk

Closest to the last ray of the departing sun, the flickering
shadow of trees on the ground I stand.
All around is silence, waiting, listening.
Whatever games they play it hardly matters anymore.
Not while standing on this ground of earth and dead
leaves, watching the shadows
go flicker, flicker. While the sky drapes itself in changing colors the wind
whips up a rhythm. Rustling leaves
all around above me. A rustic melody. Of things not of this world but
maybe one that lies beyond where the sun sets.

Standing there my heart learns to want all the things it could
not understand and feel as though I have to have wings
at the cost of my soul.
Leaves crackled, trampled on. I know the newcomer without taking my eyes
off the vanishing light in the west. He walks up beside me
He does not see
the dreams of another world in the horizon like I do. Only the fleeting
wistful sigh of the wind betrays my reverie.

The world is now void of sun, color and warmth, but it matters not. I have
not just a dream, but a reality.
Curtains down on another day

04.10.97

Awake

Roused out of dreams
still swirling
in the vanishing mists
awaiting dawn
when the sun creeps up
in the soft glow of the horizon
they play around
in the dark
dancing around in my mind
which sleep abandoned
at my hour of need
want is all I can do
in my sleep
my dreams take me to you
now I am awake
all I have is
the distance that separates us.

02.06.96

Weariness

Here in moments stolen
dare I awaken what lies dormant
and seek what forgotten cities
keep within crumbling walls

Taste the bitterness of
morning with lingering fragments
memory fading beyond grasp
swept away on the last wave

See the mists part
slipping away
walk again as one
when the world was young

In Search of Sleep

Come and play with me
but butterfly wings have
fluttered
close and the beloved has flown
a world away
blown to the edge of
the world
in light and more darkness
I wait for sleep to overtake me
in its infinite cover
and find myself a relentless dream
wild stallions flying in the wind
for love's grasp has loosened
and caught in
the angst
of forgotten dreams
the rain falls unhindered
lost I seek solace
which at long last
arrives in the last wave.

Existence

All at once my journey falls into a rhythm
at crossroads I have come upon
an epiphany of minds
my love I have lost my faith
only to see clearly than ever before
I thought I had lost an eternity
only it was just within the grasp of my
hand as all roads lead
up to where we are
so thousands of other lives and dreams
are just reflections in the mirror
I kept all my hopes in a box
and stowed it away
longing to forget
to set free the truth
and find a harbor safe from the winds

I will seek you in the desert
for life has become
as fragile as a silken thread
fate plays her hand and leaves her cries
blowing in the wind
the light in the dark as secret as the
life that grows inside of me
that fills with trepidation yet
overflowing happiness

The winter of my heart has come
and blurry visions of the days past
my heart has gone to lie
under the cold earth
silent

The Storm

Droplets of water
rush down from the sullen sky
they cling to the glass they slide
rivulets down to breathing earth

the gaze in the misty glass
light flashes over moss and stone
instantaneously thaw the still night
my word my song

wash away

breathe and break
the chains

to the one left behind

The Secret Garden Revisited

Far away the golden days
when summer plays in my garden
My secret place where
grows the things closest to my heart

And time stands still

Falling around me
The sky falls and along with it
My dreams lie in wait till
another year and another dream
Has come to pass

Twilight

Twilight in the violet seas
Intangible the route to take
Falling thick the night
With curtains of silence
All around these invisible strings

Knotted around the hearts we collect
Resonate
Away they come with words unspoken
Perched on that white-washed wall
Waiting to see who goes over

I am one that oscillates between the truth
And beyond
Have we our expressions numb from
Icy cold winds whipping into our eyes

Too much to risk from coming away
This vantage point
I watch but forbid myself to believe

In hope that rises from the
Seas of eternity