Where is the
Great Gray Owl
hiding
from north winds
and winter
snows?

In his home
above Earth
abiding -
only the
wise, full moon
knows.

Where are the
stellar lights
shining
when self-willed
clouds do not
appease?

In his home
above Earth
pining -
only the
wise, full moon
sees.

Who are the
lonely souls
crying
when night falls
over lands
below?

Only fourteen and I live
in a haunted house of stone.
Just my mother, ghost and me
Yes, we live there quite alone.

Mom works nights at a nursing home
a couple of blocks from here.
Don't call me unless it's urgent
her message, intent, quite clear.

One night I awakened, finding to
my great distress and lost breath,
fingers tightly around my neck
squeezing to render me unto death!

I've always been loyal
Might be my fatal flaw
Even when it hurt me
I just call things a draw

You never cared for me
I would've died for you
You'd flirt like a player
I did because I loved you

I put up with so much pain
So many things I shouldn't
Now, looking in the rearview
If I could go back, I wouldn't

Because you never cared
You never shed a single tear
I was only your backup plan
You were music to my ear

The moonbeams of my whispered dreams,
deliver beautiful melodies.
Pursuing perfection, I hear Clair de Lune.
Debussy, I submit to your divine tranquillity,
A murmur of beauty carried on my final tide.

The brightest colours just like the sun.
Filled my life when I was young.
Yellows and oranges shimmered and spun.
Golden days when I was young.
The colours changed as older I grew.
With blue and sea green with a darker hue.
Without a care and no chains to bond.
A whole new world in colour I found.
In love the colours made greater sense.
Reds and purples became more intense.
Warm nights we tumbled in our cloud like bed.
In sheet of white on love we fed.
Darker days were yet to come .

As knights of old,
we meet life's ocean,
mysterious and temperamental.
Her mountainous waves
assault our boats...
with leviathan-like force.
we meet her battering,
resolutely unswerving,
holding tight to our course.
fighting for each small gain,
battle by battle...
Old soldiers are we;
in the end,
falling one by one.
Living hard,
rising to each cause
the call of duty, of honor, stirs our blood!

It’s December and you ask me about love;
And it’s funny because this time last year we were both necks deep in it.
I tell you I dabble, here and there,
a touch, a glance, a fling.
a rendezvous with a dark man in a dark blue truck.

I tell you that I’m scared I won’t be treated right again.

“Again?” you ask

“Yes.” I say.

you beg me to elaborate and I do,
I could never say no to you.

Try sleep.
Wake up,
Shaking,
Shaking,
Shaking.

Finally, sleep.
Wake up,
with a bloody mouth,
spikes attacking my temples,
and a bitten tongue.
The tremors must have come
to visit in my sleep,again.
Such dear, friends,
they are always close.

Try sleep.
Pills bring on the fog.
Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!
Wake up! Wake up! Just stay awake.
Don't let them see.
Don't give the fog Power.

Although the following poetic/prosaic material written January eighteenth two thousand and eighteen, I came across these encapsulated, enclosed, encoded, and encrusted with barnacle clad body electric of my trademark crafted gobbledygook today January third two thousand and twenty three.

She was saying goodbye
in so many muted ways.
But I was somewhere else
in my redoubt of indecision.

Indifference that couldn’t mask
her blue and walk-away eyes,
should have made It clear
she was already gone.

It took me a while to get here.
To get you to fade away.
It was just that my timing was bad.