Shared atmosphere vapor trails in blank stares across a room so crowdedly desolate.
Always there, always filthy. Slideshows flicker like the magnavox eyes shuffle lid to lid, moment to moment as time fleets like dust shimmering in my heart. Always filthy.
Brought out of the infectiously swollen cardiac arrest, through the waters, so thick drowning with due care. Peeled back potential baking like hot glue amongst the weight of glory that was never there.
Love against the glass ceiling swimming above while the sharks swim below. Sinking into the black and blue that ensues carbonated lungs scream alone in the waves below a somber rock a bye into the phonetics, into the pride less afternoons wasted in silence.
Alone in the drink as all the hands let go awaiting always filthy waiting to sink out of mind and out of sight.
Daytime ghosts
Windows bring light that exhales a dead-end world
Softest intentions drown to sleep at the bottom of shallow wells
Neon memories bubble to life the static scores that bodies hide
Mouthed confessions of loveless intimacy that knows no swirls of radiance
Soft embrace of the life above from the cold souls that swim below
Hugless lovers reclining in the bleak blue edges of summer lights hung on horizons
That never knew the scores composed from names that never met
Fainted in pleasures unknown to sender as the tape decks click B-sides search for depth
Tears for two at an empty diner booth that is abandoned along travels to far off destinations
Reservations for taped confessions of vows never thought, as the food comes shared aloud
Relief by numbers in collections of good vibes, better company and lives well lived
High tides come and go as wells stagnate the fishtank below
IN THAT SMALL PLACE
I find her there
In that small space
Between wax and flame
In storms
That strike the night
A flash of light
Between drops of rain
On my own breath
When sleep is far
And mornings near
I find her there
In that small space
And breathe her name
And breathe her name
AUTUMN SLEEP
Call the wind
Tell her please
To make my bed
In Autumn leaves
A blanket, gold
Red and deep
Forever Fall
In Autumn sleep
Left me so behind,
Should you still be one of mine,
You weren't just one of mine, but the only one,
And I was only someone.
Guess I chased a cloud
That disappeared without a sound,
You weren't there to catch my fall,
You just rained on me, that's all.
No use shouting in a vacuum where no sound can go,
Or explaining to those who never cared to know.
So I'll grow into the new me, the one who's coming through,
For this time, I'm done being blue.
The day you left this world
I held you tightly….begged you not to leave
Begged you to come back
Living life without you became a blur
I remember driving my car sobbing ,banging the passenger seat
Screaming “Where are you , over and over”
You always sat there
Pain and sorrow consumed me
It took me seven years before l could look at a photo of you
Talk about you without crying or having to walk away
As the years past l eventually could laugh about the funny times
Your quirky cheeky nature and your hilarious antics
I finally could celebrate the uniqueness, joy and entirety of you
My beloved, extraordinary, sweet mum
I miss you …
At dusk, I hear that ghostly call
beneath the pale face of the moon;
I wander, wishing you were not gone.
A curlew’s cry says you’re not gone;
yet I am summoned by that call,
which spills its silver sorrow on the moon.
All reflects the mournful moon;
I wait for footsteps, but you’re gone;
the curlew keeps its vigil, call by call.
Its call beneath the moon names what is gone.
In a world of billions, full of rebellion,
But I'm ready to be the villain
Of your story, All for your glory.
Oh, that you were a kind of saint —
One that'd make even the devil faint.
So let me be the one to blame,
I'll gladly wear the villain's name.
They still want us to suffer as if we have left
The residue at the bottom
Maybe doubting we finished that cup yet
The drink wasn’t supposed to taste awesome
They keep treating us rather sternly
Even though we are still miles apart
Maybe happier than it was meant to be
Taking suffering as the high art
Of those who remember better than us
The garden with apple tree
But living each day as if it were our last
We’ve done all the drinks, haven’t we?
I miss you enough to be warm today, my salt- stained pillows would tell you the truth
But the walls around my heartstrings may be made of rocks
So that no one may enter the fortress, you made for me
The fortune you left for me, of your ambitions, your radiance
I drown in melancholy, once in a while, secretly
But I keep finding my way, just like you'd taught me
I keep writing in hopes that you may read, or answer
Maybe talk? Send something from the clouds somehow
I keep writing the same things, I look at the sky
I know you and I, now cross down different paths
Me of life, you of land that never lets you make it back
Land of- I'd give it up in a second to see you smile
I know, i know- I'm foolish, I realize
I lost you to the worst part of time
So when I close my eyes, I see your face
I feel your warmth, your joy, your grace
And I see the light that'd would lead me down
To the roads you said would lead me home
All my what-ifs down the same way, to you
Always towards you.
No one is home.
The address is returned to sender.
The user you desire to speak is no longer available.
To send a numeric page please press five now.
Ferment in the waiting room of life.
The catacombs of the mind are empty.
From the grave they will not rise.
The life you once knew is now fleeted.
You're out of time.
Exhale. Inhale. Exhale again.
False memory is not gospel.
Queue the piano, and bring in some coffee to go.
Crack a smile.
Adjust your tie.
Goodbye.
I wondered if all these stars;
would ever fall to the ground;
walking away, wandering around;
painfully hoping for magic to be found;
my curiosity was blissfully piqued;
when I heard that melancholic sound;
pitter patter pitter patter;
my heart was served on a platter;
out for the mindless demons to devour;
the ones who roamed on droplets left to scatter;
I looked up and saw the sign;
the absence of light;
and the gray cloudy skies;
it was my cue to leave I thought;
my brain walked but body stopped;
oh, it falls so cool, so calm;
the bead of water on my palm;
my dark orbs match the floating mystery;
letting the tears out of misery;
I look at my torn sleeve;
wounds so deep, I never had seen;
my soul cries for the time lost;
regret finds it’s solace in anger;
it overflows in me and slips away;
the stars stayed in place and didn't fall down;
but my sorrows did;
down with the rain and into the ground.
-v.s
They told me love was gravity.
Something gentle with a terrible pull.
So I fell-
into your hands, your warmth,
the little red universe of your heartbeat.
And for a while
I thought this was it.
The house.
The ring.
The photograph
where we are both still smiling.
All those beautiful things we are taught to want.
I held them like petals,
careful not to bruise what I loved.
But petals fall.
And red fades.
And somewhere between reaching and holding too tight,
I became the moon—
always turning, always returning,
giving you
the light side of me while something darker grew behind my back.
It’s cruel really, how something so profound can be so gentle
I still love the life I imagined.
I still love the person
I imagined beside me.
I just don't know how to keep the dream
without losing
the girl
who dreamed it.
The Rebel
Evening flames falter and die
Suffocated in the night’s cool embrace
A bed of sleepy orange embers
Gradually give way to blue ash
Beneath the hush of silky starlight
A solitary glow persists
Holding against the encroaching dark
Refusing surrender
In daybreak’s velvet breath
Veils of ash, like petals, drift aimlessly away
While the ember defies obliteration
With subtle inner-warmth
In the gall of yesterday’s ruin
It burns for promises never spoken
What remains, quietly transformed
Exhales and ignites something new.
9/17/2026 - For The Rebel Poetry Contest hosted by Unseeking Seeker
Lover, Lover
The nighttime sings our names
Ballads of the figurative Juliet
Radios hiss hearts spilled the shadows hide naked ambition stilled
Neglected emotional hills wafts through valleys of past lives
Karmic backlogs review their closing percentages
Futures flood the floors hold the line between fate and tears
Shadow people alone in the twilight
Illuminated letters, walls woed to sleep
Dreams from the shoreline as phantom vessels waltz on the silver linings
Postures of stable footing, top of the line, kings and queens of value
Thumbs circle the knuckles, bone kisses bone, the familiar taste of home
Haunted hems lines explored in tribal pursuits
Please keep me waiting
The specter of tender frames evaporates
Morning ghosts caress the memory in travel
Neckties versus deadlines
Power brokered, breath that betrays the dream
Folded napkins
Cocktail napkin epitaphs
Check please
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