the first time this summer,
when martyrdom got chucked aside for cold comfort.

How heavenly the climate controlled apartment
unit b44 felt and damn the torpedoes
(originated from a quote
attributed to Admiral David Farragut
during the Battle of Mobile Bay
in the American Civil War)
about being the poster child for Peco.

Night pulse wakes
fireflies ignite
bright flickers dance in darkness
the beauty fades, still.

“still bleeding”

They found him hunched in the steaming bath,
ink staining the surface like blood’s rehearsal,
his voice still echoing down stone corridors—
a voice not for song, but flint.
Even his pulse wrote pamphlets.

He died not once, but
in verses draped across salon walls,
in paintings that turned martyr into marble,
into myth—but he lived as a nerve unshut.

Long and steady
I’ve been walking this road
My soles have worn down
And my muscles ache

I’ve seen many sights,
I’ve loved and lost
Along the way

Seemingly endless and beautiful
This journey has been

For the first time,
I see a door
And I know my time has come

I take my next steps carefully
Remembering to enjoy every one

I pause for a moment
As I reach for the handle

I look behind me
At the road I’ve traveled so far
And say my last
Good-bye

Everything felt normal
last night.
This morning I awoke
to the scent of cinnamon
you are preparing to
teach me to bake jam cakes.
The smell of cinnamon
makes me feel sad.
I don’t know why.

We are having fun baking
and dancing
to the new Beach Boys song,
Surfer Girl.
The news comes across the TV
with word of the assassination
of President John F. Kennedy.

Greener fields
lie in the distance.
If it weren't so
we'd cease to be.

Without hope
you cannot continue.
To express who
you want to be.

The multiverse
lies in the distance.
And angels are
guiding us there.

Maybe one day
we'll find our true meaning.
Fulfillment lies
at it's door.

If you think upon
all that you've been through.
Then you'll know
it's a matter of time.

Tara it is goodbye now
And move on
To better things in life
I will get used living
without you
I will find somebody else
To replace
I know that I can't be trusted
I took my frustration on you
I smack you in the head
Living you with a head injury
That is a wrong thing to do
If you don't want to forgive
Me
That is ok
There are nicer people out there
Than me
That needs you more
Than me
You tell me that
I hurt you feelings
I hear you very well

We relax in the open,
lying on the hillside
like so many lazy lizards
basking in the summer sun.

Peering at the blue above,
shading our eyes from the
lemonade sun, we look
at the illustrations in the sky.

The fluffy puffs on high
create a pulsing heart that
expands with the breeze
until an elephant emerges.

Our youthful minds are
astonished like the first
time we went to the zoo
and saw a running giraffe,

Mercator

He drew the world not as it is—
but as it might be travelled.
Lines stretched taut like tendons
across the muscle of oceans;

longitudes obedient,
latitudes arranged in tempered rows.

The poles swelled with false importance,
the equator shrank to a whisper.
Yet in distortion, there was clarity—
a map not of truth, but of purpose.

In fierce flowing water
The cherished fish scent
Is lost

She dreams alone
Butterflies tasting
Honey flowers

Would Lady Wu
Change us back
Into flowers

Twining in
The moonlight
That no one should guess

We are lovers