may the start of a finishline

you finally got there


distant
quick
so too my joy for it


be well
then be gone

in between

blessedly strange, the in-between
a half smile behind the scenes
glowing blue minutes before night
a salve to cool warm tones
bright enough to blacken me into a silhouette
almost opaque but certainly not solid
not these translucent surfaces stretched across my bones
more likely a hole in the changing sky

still blind
but with eyes that wait
to settle then stir with the blue of night
in hopes an adjustment will come

and shapes become truths

driver

If it's the dead of night
and everyone reasonable is asleep

i'm probably driving

one hand on the wheel and the other spinning spirals into my hair

the sleeves are probably pulled over my knuckles until the car heats up
and someone lonelier than i is probably singing into the small confines of the car from the cd player that keeps my wandering thoughts at bay


the moon will blaze a luminescent shape that isn't quite a circle into the corner of my eye
brilliant with some strange wisdom of ages that have come and gone underneath the dark beauty above


and on this drive, i will probably think to myself how unlike the moon i am
"not I, not I," I will think and not say

but,
like the moon,
i will be satisfied to be a circle
not yet whole

i cannot swim
i dive
with solid black iron shackled round my wrists
and latticed into my skeleton

black on marrow-ed white

carving life into
the deepest blues as i sink and thrash

as though i could ever swim

or ever glide...

the surface, smooth perhaps is far above
and threatened, too with stormy figures
that peak like shattered glass
and thrust like rage into my watery roof

my lungs are somehow fit to hold
forever on some un-remembered gasp of air...

so i can dive and sink
on and on

poker face

i have empty empty hands
so i'll fill them
with pens and books and things to paint

and the ears no one whispers in,
i'll fill with songs
or silence
or the sound of my own endless stories

and in my cold and straight-faced pride
I will show those who walk away how
emotionless
i can be

how happy my hands can be to settle for pens
and how well my ears adjust to
silence

and how beautiful the mirror and the window may find
the patterns and fabrics i hide in

goodnight to the mirror and window
the song and the pen

i brush my own hair aside from my eyes

and i sing my own lullabies

i know it's all part of the pride, but in my mind behind closed lids,
I am the one walking away

another post to say the same

ever onward
ever forward
kicking up the dust
i will leave a trail of tears
and then i will adjust

ever onward
ever forward
watching dust now settle
i will let home and away
act as knife on metal

ever onward
ever forward
opened up to all
i don't care anymore
if i fly or fall
either way i'll feel the air
in a place wiped clean of walls

I, on my own
am never
on my own

the reckless thinker/feeler
she is never
on her own

i break the bonds
that others make
to jump inside
and selfishly take

i, accidental destroyer
am never
on my own

but no one around
this entire place
can see the storm
behind this face

so

i, the joiner
am somewhere
on my own

no one can break
the rubble i make

reckless i
am on my own

find her (Annie)

she is music when she halts
and still music when she dances
it shivers in her curls
and her blue, distracted glances

come and see the singer in the speaking of her day
in the walking and the waiting and quiet, sleeping, sway
come and hear the music she wordlessly exhale
in her smiling and her staring and even how she fails

she is music when she sings
even more so when she halts
to dream or share the thoughts she has
when forgetting petty faults

vagabond

these are not my red walls; warm
not my narrow halled haven to think or draw in
and observe the activity of a town i feel part of.

this town has my fingerprints all over it, yes
but from hands i used a long time ago
and closeted away with a mas i used to wear
or a face i grew out of...

but maybe i can re-wear new paths
or just hold lightly any concept i may have had of
home

become the vagabond others have seen in my side-ward glances