Gathering my energy
Histories frames illustrate that I need ritual at my table
A feast to stop the lingering and rotting
To inhibit the dying and halt the death
Strange doesn’t indicate insane, but I’m not sure where I am
I thought my definitions were crystal fireflies and amethyst dragonflies
Tilling the soil in my soul
But an ill wind has pelted me with an acrid desert and I admit that I’ve damned my own river at times
With my mortal, deceptive, checkmate sentiments, etching sharp cornered boxes that I cut myself climbing in to…
I’ve tried to scoop the stars into my blessing bowl –
Stir their soft, unwavering vitality into my emptiness
Harness the moon, bathe in its crisp, generous, purifying beams
But the tide has ebbed and hope has settled into twilights camouflage
Shadows and dust, grime and rust, present and past, and thus
Beneath frozen ground, crocus and memory feel like velvet crushed
Timeline unravels like twine; Fraying lengths of lethargy and apathy…
We slide through eons like glowworms, interpret and invent ourselves, our epitomes, between our highs and lows
We hunt and gather a montage of whispers, hums, thoughts, beliefs, voicings –
We become
But this biting, frostburn winter has come among my travels, and among the debris I have lost my pith, my flame –
My scorch
Laudanum dreams might inject some warmth into the spirit of this place –
This institution of empty puppets, their layered, paper mache strips of faded letters, extolling yesterdays presence –
Extolling yesterdays presents… those dusty, pasted pieces shape bone, and limb, and holes; Vacant eyes of the dead
Chew up the ruby fire which exists in all lifetimes of clockwork dimensions, gnash and pulverize its shimmer…

As we rush from one time to another, chasing our breath and the sanity in our minds –
Smoldering embers can be stirred into fire
Over infinite rehearsals, we create vast valleys, to traverse whenever we reach into the echoes of ourselves
Where the sacred speaks –
Stones, blaze, smoke, haze; Symbols that weep, that rise or seep; Uncover and steep…
This crust, with a gentle boot nudge, cracks open a channel
Where have I gone?
I’ve caused my own slow death
Distance has not impressed the ghosts of my tender age
Yet held close to my heart a safer place –
I wish that scars could be strung on silken thread
To wear like pretty things, but take off and lay aside when tender spots ache
Fling into a corner or set upon the sill of an open window –
For the crows to carry away and churn into shiny totems
To make, for just one moment, shattering tragedies into things with enough purpose
That the pain, shame, isolation would melt into the ground…
I’ve walked where normal made you strange
Which haunted all of my ghosts nefariously
The pieces may never fit exactly again
But I refuse to have a love affair with regret
I am my indifference against incompetence
I am my psychology, philosophies and treasons –
A whirlwind charging into the seasons
I ask myself “What conclusion did you expect from your course of action?”
As I attempt to solicit the juice from immeasurable reasons
Staying one step ahead of myself seems a potent intrusion –
It extracts the softness from falters and hindsight
Renovates the myths of this breakdown
Into the mystical of a breakthrough
I am a compass
I am a bridge
I am my own thoughtful measures

Sunshine through the window dapples the walls with flower shadows
Fall is unfolding into winter, and wistful arms wrap me in a contemplative cabaret
To cavort, in a mad feast of affection for the miseries and the revelries
Lick the bitter from the wounds
Savor the sweet teasing my lips
Like grapes left late on winter vines become ice sugared wine to sip
And I can feel the lulling weight of anticipation, a divine opus sprouting in this desert in my soul
Beneath a frosted rubenesque moon
I smile