We Could All Be...

Anything we want. All of us. It's about perspective.

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And your eyes are just like Hydrangeas And you smile like ripples shine, Cutting the surface And your hands are just like Summer breezes And you sleep like mountains shine Still in the morning.

I am the wanderer Past garden walls, I will row when winds have failed Dipping deep the oars, I am the new green leaf Ruffled by you And I will know the sunrise Hiking all morning.

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Watermelon

When I'm half asleep the dreams seep Like watermelon, drips to the corner of my lips Splashed over my wrist, where reaching in forgetful fits I wish for hands to catch and understand The spilling taste, my wasted dreams.

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Then fog blew in over San Francisco The bridges like spectres rising into the cloud And waves panting hard in their rave below, With breathing like ours As our tired feet Grow wings on the wild ocean wind. Carry us over the cable car hills Along the architecture's trail Flower pots in brick lined windows Views creaking holes through the soles of my shoes Stop me stop me let me Get my bearings straight: We're in the blush on the face of the bay, From summer to fall in the blink of a street sign; The wind is a single minded tour guide And I am a flighty eyed tourist.

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The summer morning air: A sip of cloud champagne A silken drag of freedom The satisfaction found, Anxieties all drowned The quick intoxication Cool breezes down your throat And swirling in your lungs, The morning sun exhaled.

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365. Mountaintop

The petals bloomed, withered, and grew once more – I'd near forgotten how the lilacs glow As springtime colours all the world in, slow, Her paintbrush touch a muse we've reached out for.

Each day has trained my pen to speak to you In voices I'd ne'er guessed to be my own, Like mountains at a distance we have grown: Unchanged yet taller as the fog withdrew.

With snow that sometimes weighs upon our peak The path is treacherous to lonely eyes But we, a pair, have hiked to harsher skies And though the air is thin our hearts will speak.

So here we are, with lungs and wrists worn far Beyond the mountains of the words we are.

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364.5

My heart begins with open doors; And what a fitting metaphor For all I am, and how I wish I could have been much more than this: An empty space that draws a line Of shadow on a kitchen floor, On summer evenings When the air is cooler than your blood. An empty light inviting curling hands To hold the dust motes, or to pass right through – Pass through me, But remember what I open to. I am swinging hinges built to show you There's a place that's warm inside With beds and blankets; you can hide And I will never turn you out, I will only show you what could be I am possibility.

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364. Mom

The stars may shatter, burst, and earthward fly Like raindrops grown too heavy for the sky; Someday the sea may shed its crystal blue But age could never fell my love for you. The days may darken and the sun grow cold When dawn is dim and Summer days are old In time when Time has frozen all we knew, The seasons could not chill my love for you. No hand, nor wind, nor seething ocean tide Has strength enough to pull me from your side; When first my heart beat, I was one with you, So will I love you, 'til my days are through.

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363. Stay

By my side will you walk with me When youth has crumbled to the sea Long after an eternity Of promises, walk on with me? Will you wait up to hear my tales Though wind has all but left my sails When hopes run dry and age prevails In stillness listen to my tales? At end of this life's drawn out day In hand with shadow will you say That beauty has survived, and stay To watch the setting of this day?

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362. Season of Toil

On wild and stormy Autumn nights A sighing hearth, a dying flame Are all it takes to win the game 'Tween drowsiness and loneliness. A lock of red-lit loosened hair Falls free as by the fireside The heavy head nods to the chest, Half black in flickering darkness And shadows round the corners' edge Wrap blankets round one's solitude To lull the melancholy dreams A well-aged season's warmth exudes.

But on these wild Spring-time nights The greedy whip of flame cracks on Insatiable in hunger, loud And spurring pangs that had withdrawn. The yellow gleam in sleep starved eyes, Reflected bright and hypnotized, Still cannot shed a warmer light Into the depth of stormy thought. The flame and darkness leap in dance And burn the melancholy oil Late in the night, no rest shall come To calm this new season of toil.

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361. Drink

We cannot hold the past as water cupped in hands – Just vapours and shadows, the mist we cannot drink. We cannot twist and mould the earth we've walked upon; It's trodden down on paths in forests left behind And we must ever look ahead and tread new ground, Cement to grass to sand at roaring ocean's side, The scenery blurs on in ways you can't predict, But form your hands to catch the falling rain and feel Them filled; drink long and deep the waters of today.

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360. Books are shut

Where do monsters go when day returns? In the dark corners of night, so much more is real Like pages unfolded that rustle with news, The dusk brings back demons in inky hues Congregated, arranged: words in open books Guiding the thread of your unconscious thought, Sweeping under the rug of fears you'd forgot – Clouds of dust and memories in your lungs. Words, in shadow gowns, dance through you, Monsters placed and poised to pierce you. And when the shine of dawn returns? Spines are snapped back into shape; books are shut. Docile words line the shelves in the halls And wait for the moonlight to read them again.

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359. I am happy like this.

I want to wear my skin like it's silk on the shoulders of royalty, Not a ragged cloak to be torn off – why should it itch? To run for the heat of the fire in my lungs, to be full of light I want to ignite the sinew of my soul, stretching into life. I'm not looking to set fire to the form that holds me in It can't be melted down to shape again – It's not broken. No, it doesn't need to be fixed. I cannot be measured, or defined by numbers; I want to exceed the limitations of the space my body fills. I want to paint my mouth with smiles and not lipstick Because beauty is the little girl outside the store full of magazines With chocolate ice-cream on her cheeks and crooked braided hair Like a vibrant, flashing neon sign that tells the world: I am happy like this. And that is what I want to look like. 

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358. Ce qui me compose

Je ne suis pas si compliqué, Les coins de ma coeur sont bien arrangés – Des fenêtres ouvertes à la pluie de la nuit, De la farine sur les comptoirs froids Et les fleurs de hier qui tournoient dans leurs vases. La danse de la soif et la beauté ébouriffée: C'est de cela que je suis fait.

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357. midnight rainstorms

Pounding on the black, Slick summer cement, broken By midnight rainstorms

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356. "I Don't Have a Green Thumb"

Two neighbours chatting from their balconies; Second floor to first, leaning on railings Bare legs and bare feet in the bathrobes of ease; We will not hide our morning faces. We woke up this way, with voices, Lazy dangling cigarettes, coffee cradles, Bed-head half-coaxed into submission. The birds are singing their 9am song, The sunlight smooths the shadows of the earth: Idle breezes yawn, recline with us: We woke up this way, with stretching bones And a couple minutes to share together.

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355. A Taste of Summer

Summer will come crashing like a clap of thunder, Shaking the earth and heavens together With the waving hands of rising heat. Today was just the feeble tremble of a touch. The hunter in the baked cement burns, hot on your heels, Swiftly sliding through the soles of your shoes Ensnaring you in a net of sweat. A stranger breathes hot on the back of your neck, As beams of white slap red into your cheekbones Leaving freckles like memories of blush behind. This is Summer: toying with the creases in your skin, Where your knees bend, where your lips curve; He is tracing and tugging with feverish fingers The drops of you that gather and fall like condensation down a glass – Bleaching and burning the depth of you with his eyes, Watching from a distance, but dancing ever closer.

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354. So much more

Evening light cascades over your face All bathed in heady lilac scent; You speak the green into the trees, Send ripples through their budding leaf  To sprinkle the sky over me – You are ethereal, so much So much more than what I’d dreamed of, Too lovely for the earth to bend.