- into the wilderness i go to live among the feral things i sing to the moon driven by instinct no words serve this master be as one with the wolves sire twin pups who shall one day bring the world to heel and knowing fire let it follow in their wake - #poetry #vss365

- inscribe my name on a tablet of jade tell me i will be great tell me i will be sage for in my mind’s eye i see clouds cross the sky shaped like Qilin shaped like Buddha and there is sunlight and joy in my breath and so many secrets of birth, of death - #poetry #vss365

- midnight moons were my muse until you a pale eucharist upon a pewter midnight sea forgiveness at a distance step into the quiet your briny name swimming away to her glow undersea ears thickened listening for you - - #vss365 #poetry

- playing Chopin on the baby grand nestled in a bay of windows awash in apricity hands lush and liquid in D flat major meting out delicacy fingers alive with passion a trickery for the ear to wed beauty with complexity an April Sunday snow begins falling - #poetry #vss365

- new day new blessings that’s what you told me of destiny that’s what you told me yesterday when it was sunny and warm but morning performs its investiture in frost and i lie anointed in fever’s grasp alone with a broken furnace - #poetry #vss365

- the sea is too riled today and i cannot see my reflection only feel its pull on the sand beneath my feet when the waves recede am i pretty? hair unkempt in the breeze the gulls avoid me seafoam gathers on the rocks and i lie down in it hoping to get clean - #poetry #vss365

- i’m not sure what you expected from me – some sort of miracle? i never had the strength to roll back the stone to emerge from that grave cerements clinging damp all the while you standing sentry hammer still dripping with blood so certain of your own salvation - #poetry #vss365

- i’m not sure what you expected from me – some sort of miracle? i never had the strength to roll back the stone to emerge from that grave cerements clinging damp all the while you standing sentry hammer still dripping with blood so certain of your own salvation - #poetry #vss365

- i try to listen [i really do] but you often take so long to get to the point and the world is full of sounds - traffic and bees and the wind through the trees i mean, words have their place i get it just maybe less than you’d imagine [at least for me] - #vss365 #poetry

- after you, i knew the true nature of suffering what it means to be alone, absent meaning or purpose thoughts can be insidious things - when you roll a boulder up a hill only to watch it roll back down again a loop with no end - always thinking always thinking - #vss365 #poetry

- the lushness of your scent - i taste your proximity an unseen trail of apricot and almond i'm reminded of oleander under a shadowed tower the sea breeze binds its ache to me, but the words delay only letters remain - malformed and failing to describe love - #vss365 #poetry

- your suitcase packed thick bursting in fullness rain gathers in puddles on the sidewalk outside the doorway i always found it strange you painted the door so black so empty and how easily i can become the water in those puddles dragging your wheels through me - #poetry #vss365

- i promised to follow you to the ends of the earth but now that i’m here, i’ve learned in fact it's flat & all my long-held notions of ‘round’ have fallen over its edge my heart sinks like the sea spills a waterfall into an abyss absent its plunge pool's echo - #poetry #vss365

- there is beauty in silence a stillness before the sun mounts its horizon the quiet whispers in reeds ‘long the river spirit-secret gossip the breath held as dew drops plop from flower to grass blade, darkness has its own voice and it sings me away from the dawn - #poetry #vss365

- memory is a cruel master – and visions of the mind remain unreliable the cost - a penance for the purgation of my sins i hear a goddess bathing know only shame i touch a father’s blood and feel deceived forever blind - i crave that wet of your lips once more - #poetry #vss365

- love-broke [and a bit bereft] i have left all material things behind the interest i have gained in the bank of “you” is not [was never, turns out] enough i have cashed out all deposits liquidated my assets and burned that fucking bank to the ground. - #poetry #vss365

- my body desecrated tattooed in your script i am tainted by the mark of Cain Eden has burned, its gates have sealed love is an obsession isn’t it, my love? we kill for it again and again - blood is sacrifice blood is ink scored in my flesh, such wanton prayers - #vss365 #poetry

- in this graveyard of the heart the night creatures howl i am at once the fog creeping between our headstones the moss feeding in your rain-pitted epitaph and i am dying, once more, in your arms whispering to the silence aching for your kiss - #vss365 #poetry

- it’s raining on Easter, and i’m wondering what to do with so much gray we no longer celebrate resurrection, not the way we used to every day, we muddy our faith with the pain of living god’s gored hand that once carried me feels far less gentle and farther away - #poetry #vss365

- since you left me i exist outside of time a dustmote dissolving in sunlight slowly losing mass i am a broken hourglass you left beside the board spilling its sand onto a surface without meaning yet the game persists and i am left awaiting the mercy of a dustbin - #poetry #vss365

- nature breathes a sigh, a release shudders off the burden of nurture seas steam mountains crumble cities burn i seek shelter in her aftermath naked outside the garden stones in concentric rings... may they guide me east to you - #poetry #vss365

- here in this place where sea meets land, high in the clouds, i stand on the edge - searching final paper final pen in hand the kittiwakes call my name, searching, asking me to fly, but i am a poet i am a wingless thing and the sea sounds so pretty - #vss365 #poetry

- i am a virus, an invasive species made to survive by taking - Agent Smith ordained me. i overtake your DNA, rewrite you in my image, feed you to my need. as the world of man falls, i will never hunger less, just proceed to take more, give nothing back. - #vss365 #poetry

- i knew you once, the last star of morning singular in your piercing sapphire stare below you, the shadows gathered in their whispers above you, only the stars of god exalted you and i was left breathless, afraid your gaze might find me so alone and unworthy - #poetry #vss365

- i was born forged from clay spellbound imbued by spirit commanded to obey no true heart to feel love or remorse to know the regret of an ending when i never knew how i began just a was, and a was not, a conduct unbecoming something, yet nothing, all at once. - #poetry #vss365

- fog thick along the lakeshore my hands peel it off, cotton-candy cloy, fireflies lie in wait, moving, sugar cookie dew, sticky upon my lips, lick them slow, with purpose waves lap on stones, wee sprites hide from me in the reeds, laughing, wreathed in oleander. - #poetry #vss365

- abandoned cars lights plug the highways the screams bloodflow of humanity littered like leaves on the hill there is fire the charnel house shall burn the silence an illusive gust exhales absent of meaning to give is to serve follow the prophet. - #vss365 #poetry

- i recall a night with Oscar Wilde lying in a gutter staring at the stars contemplating virtue wondering ‘bout our mothers laughing in our eyes pooling their light as floating bright lilies each prepared to revolve ‘round the next simply waiting for one to ask. - #poetry #vss365

- i sulk by the river a dour daffodil, petals damp with spring rainsong, its steady lyric hopeful, yet mourning the frostbite of winter it saddens me to be less fascinated by my own reflection, distorted by the deluge, a golden blur, a smear along its surface. - #vss365 #poetry

- i have desired you in a most elemental way in cloying waves of wool-soaked downpours rumbling, purring, aching lighting black skies burning down the tree line howling your name inches from your face forgetting your love was a canoe shattered within my tempest - #vss365 #poetry

- lost in your soft satin, flesh alive, i am summoned by your blue flame, the fullness of its heat, thick with the subtle promises of immolation, an end to this pent-up frustration, a release to be the ash inside your smoke, feel me rise again and again and again - #poetry #vss365

- ‘tis a strange state of being when the faeries listen to your calls the walls have ears takes on new meaning late at night a banshee’s keening sets horses mad with fright and i scream back into the black an unintended endorsement their surveillance is alright. - #poetry #vss365

- the angel didn’t want to vote for a new god, another figurehead to fade away again; there were so few believers, every day a war, children starving, the seas rising in flood. no wonder faith wavered. her halo flickered in reply, sorry - i’ll get back in line - #poetry #vss365

- fall on your sword, they told me, take one for the team it’s only a life, and life, after all, is sacrifice so i did as they bid, cut a divide inside of me bloodlessly clean better that way, less mess to see, one last memory, for you, and still - et tu, Brute? - #poetry #vss365

- i knew i was too late when i saw your face the sun had left your eyes the blue had faded to that concrete gray the expression overcast holding back rain in denial of the thunder that sought to shudder its way free - #poetry #vss365

- morning meditation coffee cooling scent of roasted hazelnut mediating the debate between nightingales and larks loudest in this liminal space unlight nondark where Romeo was wiser and Juliet never had a balcony - that’s not how Italian homes were made [first sip] - #poetry #vss365

- hold me through the horrors teach me to plead plead me to bleed less today, but with more intention than before night resides in En Ghedi full of grace listen to me entreat you - i am the mortar in the pyramid, you are the clay, a foundation too afraid to hold. - #vss365 #poetry

- the bar smells stale, but it’s cool and suits my face just right, another Saint Paddy’s, another night rememberin’ Christ’s craic, horses’ corpses, Fianna footfalls fadin’ o’er Yeats’ grave another Saint Paddy’s, and perhaps i’ve partaken a few too many pints. - #poetry #vss365

- the chair rocks on the porch, squeaks calling the birds to sunrise. the quiet light paints, filled with rickety things, each straining to surpass the other, shadows relent beneath the dew of dandelions, and i draw the blinds once more, hoping to find you within. - #poetry #vss365

- the water swarms with snakes spawned from the violence of sunsets, when the apples fall from trees, and the clouds gather, purpled bruises on a baby aspirin platter, you hold me tighter, assure me, your scent a quiet remedy, the hissing fades away. - #poetry #vss365

- spring arrives teasing snow or rain, confused which form to assume all is water all is thirst sunlight has forgotten warmth hidden in apricity moss grows on the leaside of a stone i recall your eyes at once, water and snow always full of sunlight wet and living - #poetry #vss365

- a mother’s sigh when she hears a child’s laughter at play outside ghosts do not laugh they stand in a corner all gray and sullen shell-shocked eyes and they moan but never know why only stare at their mother who whispers a name full of breath so curious - #poetry #vss365

- the view from hell is precious - all the stars of god arrayed like thrones radiant redemption if you bend a knee admit you’re less, unworthy, and grovel the pain of hell is knowing the truth: those stars are long dead and their promise of light is so unbearable. - #vss365 #poetry

- learning to swim with Selkies under a maiden moon that summoned us nigh upon a time, once, knee-deep in the loch, i study the chop catching clouds wet denim, sopped and clinging like that memory of you, my wee bonnie lass so far upon the sea so far upon the sea - #poetry #vss365

- o my love, i hear your squeaky bike tire before i ever see it, air-deprived and rusty, a scarred rubber lung’s last ballad, a sonic ear-fuck dalliance an end-of-record static. skipping. skipping. skip. ping. all ache. no harmony. a dying thing come to see me. - #poetry #vss365

- i’ll save the world today. absent any messianic mission, no souls needed. save the carpenter stories for bedtime, this man’s an electrician. i’ve learned to capture lightning in a bottle. plug it into the power grid, and never miss your favorite tv shows again. - #poetry #vss365

- outside the gingerbread house beneath cotton candy clouds children gather mesmerized eyes white as marshmallows listening to the tv through open kitchen windows spellbound by faraway sounds of Sesame Street songs and the secret smell of a sweet old lady’s pies - #poetry #vss365

- the night sky’s dead eyes glisten like gleaming tears captured in the floodlight of an interrogator’s final threatening like the gleam of jewelry fake finery forged of glass bound by silver chains that burn the skin green as grass we gasp our final word: amen - #poetry #vss365

- i pace around the wishing well my final gold coin pressed deep in my palm anxiety is a wish inverted a mind subverted by worry i could walk away buy you a diamond ring drop to one knee or be magnanimous cast it down the well and see what emerges - #poetry #vss365

- we learned in our youth to cherish the land, for what it can yield, it could also deny, and hunger runs soul deep, an ache greater than love, the greatest hand we can lend is one to plant the seed from which springs the tree, its fruit, bountiful and sweet. - #poetry #vss365