- it used to be your eyes undressed me, poured over my body like baptism, saved me from my sin, sanctified in their need. but today your eyes revile me. my flesh sears beneath their heat, covered in blisters that refuse to heal, even if i kneel, begging for water. - #poetry #vss365

- there’s a dim glow to hell a pallid silence where memory dies and love turns to shadow where you are gone and i'm left holding the heartfelt ache of loss there's no fire or brimstone just pathways paved in bone and the best intentions a choice, leading to nowhere. #poetry #vss365

- once a home, this funhouse feels filled with halls and mirrors, doorways locked, privileges rescinded only distance sustains, what remains of my smile, a wonky reflection, repeated down endless hallways gathering echoes of your last goodbye. - #poetry #vss365

- i could never afford gold - not the good stuff; instead i bought you affordable silver adornments, then ran out of money, so robbed a church for more; but if i stoop any lower, i might fold in upon myself, become the origami swan you’ve always wanted. - #poetry #vss365

- frenetic as a sloth, i blink away the sleep, groan the dream words into being, seeing gray rain sing. last defiant stretch, emerge from this cotton-blend cocoon a flightless butterfly, slapdash day ahead, nothing planned, maybe a nap. - #poetry #vss365

- there are helicopters above me lurching, always searching, the rumble of their approach drowns out the laugh tracks of late-night TV, black and white Addams Family kooky, altogether ooky, i broke a lightbulb in my mouth once, pretending to be Uncle Fester. - #poetry #vss365

- i am a storm cloud thundering down the freeway, a frontal boundary of low pressure where all barometers fail, hail upon the freeway, your hands locked, trapped under an overpass, i am unmissable - a white roar, stalled over you, drifting ever eastward. - #poetry #vss365

- so misunderstood… the oftentimes horror of a simple gesture, the displeasure of a smile turned frown, the upside down of what love should be - my heart in a box wrapped in a bow - such a pretty delivery. - #poetry #vss365

- i rinse my hands clear in river light, leave its mirror unconsulted, pine cones caught in thistly hair. what the day offers, i carry discreetly, like your kiss, ‘til dusk recalls my face, and daffodils adorn me. - #poetry #vss365

- you never much liked surprises, birthdays came and passed - until their inevitable end a headstone made of fieldstone dandelions grown wild a jaundice in the grass i’m alone at the symphony harp and strings sinking deeper into Mahler… - #vss365 #poetry

- i cross the glen at the end of a dying day, deer silhouettes lift their heads, we freeze, equally unsure who startled whom, both of us a little spooked by being seen, here or perhaps at just being at all. - #vss365 #poetry

- mist lifts from the murmuring creek bed i leave the trail and the woods do not correct me the damp stones keep their counsel to themselves the mosses suss in their slow, ancient tongue i wet my feet, an oddball among their patient ranks - #poetry #vss365

- west winds stir the hyacinths bruised violet and blue the crime scene-scented violence of beauty’s cunning hue bones litter the meadow grass blanched whitish shades of gray clueless little nibblers learnt how the nose and eyes betray all that glistens is not gold - #vss365 #poetry

- my grandma had an Irish phrase for life’s bullshit - navacancha. instead of cussing, she would often say, that’s a buncha navacancha. turns out, it was a completely made-up word and delicious example of irony when her word for BS was, in fact, balderdash itself. - #vss365 #poetry

- words fade into birdsong; my heart succumbs to their lyric, i have found my locus, here, where love is no longer an abstraction, but instead, a meadow of wildflowers, thick with pollen and color unbounded. - #poetry #vss365

- another year passes, not much new, but always the promise of change. the light likes to seem it presides, but we shadows bide free from skin cancer and love’s feckless maladies, sipping coffee, taking delight in watching how desperate we are to be seen. - #poetry #vss365

- the orange messiah grins over a manicured fairway his blood-soaked grips tended by doe-eyed caddies commoners who dared dream of prouder days now all is flesh, tax and transaction, prouder days, when they strove to be something more than servants of belief - #vss365 #poetry

- marooned on an alien shoreline, ammonia waves lap midst hydrochloric rains, diamond palisades rise like altars toward the black sun; i have lost you to its gravity. my travels have ended, alone, without a mission. - #vss365 #poetry

- snowfall Friday fish fry at the Masonic temple crowd out the door breath plumes from the eager masses the freemasons switched from haddock to sole Father McGilty thought the irony a welcome distraction - #vss365 #poetry

- telescope nights empty house all the lights extinguished cobwebs grow inside the corridors inside the mind pretending there is life on Mars little green men abduct me - #vss365 #poetry

- pinned down in linen touch slides slow static dominion euphony sidles in the ache of a sigh in the moan that follows in the shivers of passion’s eclectic finishes coming up for air finding you and your wanton eyes - #poetry #vss365

blizzard at night plates rattled pines scraping walls wind tearing at shingles morning light blood darkening snow fur and feathers tangled struggle pressed in clawed paw prints snowblind white tracks vanish in the still that follows - #poetry #vss365

#poetry first Christmas without my dad; writing helps me survive the day's sorrow... until tomorrow, when my heart might heal again. 🎄 - #vss365

- covered with the clinging detritus of cardboard boxes treelight tinsel twinkles like silvery silvan tears eyes smiling absent light don’t you like my gifts? bloated with all of this too muchness alone with things wondering how you will ever survive me... - #poetry #vss365 #Christmas 🎄

- have you ever pondered deep in a christmas midnight how snow gathers remnants of light? we gather by the fireplace, hands warmed, hearts whole. while a star shoots across a pitch black sky, drawn by love’s gravity, faithful to its path. - #poetry #vss365 #read

- seeking grace at the edge of the sea thoughts drowned in the relentless pound below a throne of sunlight feathers on the breeze a horizon of daydreams where you wait like a song the jump is far less scary than the fall. - #poetry #vss365 #read

- the night sky casts ebon tides pale eyes watch pale eyes guide i sway to the song of Saturn’s turning she beckons me deep begs me to fly pale eyes watch pale eyes guide you furl my wings tether my rise - #poetry #vss365 #read

- the wasteland rages, white & gray, a snowblown case of entropy. winds intone their agony, snowdevils contort in shadowed pagan rites. against the seething scrim, a yellowed tuft of grass fights the desecration. seeks a moment of peace - apricity upon its blades. - #poetry #vss365 #read

- seeking absolution beneath your watching eyes i tore myself from the cross so much blood & pain holes in my flesh shall never heal again the grass ‘round Golgotha is red & i lie prostrate the laughter of crows teaches me to be humble beneath your watching eyes - #poetry #vss365 #read

- why am i so sad when i have all that i want? alone in Christmas quiet the dog watches me weep i never know what i need yet pray for relief that someday i might find the gratitude in a sunrise a meadow full of thrush song - #poetry #vss365 #read

- after the fall, indistinct among the masses, one snowflake separates against a slate sky. it alights gentle upon my finger, smiles in gratitude, lingers then fades. and i know i must become a snowflake: live singularly, die beautifully, depart with no regrets. - #poetry #vss365 #read

- mists draw thick ‘round riversedge; i shiver in the kneedeep of its currents. memory grows graceless with age; blueskin mottles in decay as though i am become a bruise. but those nettling pains all succumb; there is only mist and current and what recalls me. - #poetry #vss365 #read

- the angel in black steps from the shadows tell me of death, i implore she smiles, there is no death only the absence of memory her hand cold and soft leads me through the doorway there is light and awe and nothing. - #poetry #vss365 #read

- i want to paint you still, beneath the stars your golden hair crowned in a circlet of oleander fireflies dancing wild in your boho eyes beside the hawthorn upon the ivy & moss that we once called our altar to love a place of sacrifice before we knew surrender - #vss365 #poetry #read

- you promised me safety high in this aerie, an heir to the air and all its promises of flight. far away, a monotonous line of mountains keeps the monsters at bay, i want to see them. but you say not today, for wings require feathers, and no feather can be found. - #vss365 #poetry #read

- harvest skies beckon us from our slumber, eyes full of sleep, hearts full of wonder. a full moon nearing its apogee, subtle in its demise, sighs… for it knows tomorrow’s reprise, much like love, will be a bit less grand, less gentle in its light. - #vss365 #poetry #read

- a shattered throne casts no shadow beneath the stars of heaven. stars are cold and dying things, gathering their final heat for succor. there shall be no successor to the king. bells ring at midnight. nightingales fall from the steeple. long may he reign. - #poetry #vss365 #read

- you're a burglar a thief a fleet-footed felon illicit & sweet. you slide inside my feeble defenses my in-securities consent undetected. when alarms at last sound, it's too late – you’ve purloined my heart. and i, the willing recidivist, refuse to file charges. - #poetry #vss365 #read

Book 3 A counterfeiting plot is foiled, but the leaders manage to escape. To capture them, they are lured into an elaborate trap with the promise of a portion of a hidden treasure. KOBO: www.kobo.com/ebook/counte... Amazon: mybook.to/Counterfeit-... #WritingCommunity #HistoricalFiction

- you always liked to prophesy, gather your weird sisters out on the moor. speak in riddles whose cleverness belie their own inanity. the insanity of listening slack-jawed to a fate not yet lived. i am truly sorry, my love, but i’ll be bewitched no more. - #poetry #vss365 #read

- his hand in yours scarf tight about your neck a mistletoe kiss your gift left on the front porch a wet paper bag taped around my heart wrapped in false bravado torn at the edges of worth merry Christmas. with love, your consolation prize - #poetry #vss365 #read

- as life’s lights fade to black and our final act is played, we depart the stage, absent the sound and the fury, absent fanfare or applause, just a performer alone in the darkness, echoes of a last soliloquy, swallowed by the silence that eagerly listens. - #vss365 #poetry

- she could never quite contain her pastel-stained compulsions: the tangerine sting of a sunrise, the magenta infatuations in birdsong, each captured her heart, excited her passions, filled her barren white canvas with such verdant wonder. - #poetry #vss365 #read

- your eyes are taking the auspices, a murmuration of starlings occludes the sunset, feathers fall reminders all the gods must bow to the will of gravity, and neither augury nor the depravity of birds can foretell what chaos awaits us. - #poetry #vss365 #read

- i am a hot mess today, hair like a bedhead garden eclectically unkempt. sweatpants stained with some mystery gravy i cannot recall consuming. watching daytime TV, alone, blinds drawn, best not to be seen… stylish in my depression-chic, ready for another nap. - #vss365

- the sometimes savagery in daytime words, as though light reveals our most unbearable flaws we bicker like birds debating the mind of god. but god speaks back in whispers, in places sunlight fears, alone with vespertine shadows. - #vss365 #poetry #read

- posies at sunset, i smell the nosegays you carried so clearly now carnage and flame, slaying dragons, a chivalrous thing, but there is blood… always blood to die for love feels more ignoble, a disemboweled sacrament it was for your honor always for you for me - #poetry #vss365 #read

- here in the depths we drowned things hover unable to recover our missing moments of clarity. here in this aphotic place we drowned things dream of a song we once called love here in absentia we drowned things cling to currents that flow between our needs. - #poetry #vss365 #read

- always wiping the steam from the mirror, a vision of myself made clearer after i bathe away the remnants of you. the air turns cloying, gravity holding me back, the phantom leering from this mist seeks ascension to a gilded heaven where all suave beings belong. - #vss365 #poetry #read

- gray skies the first snowfall this year clinging to the pane. holding tight to a life full of firsts with you, my heart searches for your laughter, for the warmth of your hand in mine. trying to forget snowflakes falling soft outside, our last kiss goodbye. - #poetry #vss365 #read