God's Hands

(A Sestina based on an abandoned amusement park in New Orleans)

God’s hands make me sway

Perhaps you could call it the wind,

But I’m sure it’s your savior above.

His presence keeps me from truly being alone

When no child or man comes here.

When all I hear is silence.

Silence.

Silence.

It’s the suffering you get in silence

That sustains the body’s sway

When no one else can come here.

My home is locked courtesy of the Devil’s wind,

Which leaves all of us children of mirth alone

With nothing but the sun and God above.

Above.

Above our poor souls.

I reach my arms out to the sky above

And the chain ever so slightly breaks the silence

Which has me believing we will always be alone.

I remember how the children would sit and sway

Anticipating the soon-to-be rushing wind

And they would scream, “I love being here!”

Here.

Here with me.

But that idea of wanting to be here

Is gone like so many of the clouds above

That were moved that day thanks to His wind.

I am left with their gazes and their silence.

I am left watching their hips move and sway

Toward their destroyed homes that also left them alone.

Alone.

Alone with or without him.

I once heard a man say he knew the horror of being alone.

He told another man that was the reason he came here

And watched those flags and boards in the wind sway.

Because he knew when he was with others up above…

When he was with them on the roller coaster just before losing silence,

He knew he and the others were not alone in the wind.

Wind.

Wind rushing through us.

But he doesn’t come here anymore to talk about the wind.

None of them come to help us not be alone.

No, they leave us to our silence.

They think, “Who would come here?”

And they think about when the water was above

And the winds made their solid houses sway.

Sway.

Sway with the Devil’s scream.

So my chairs sway in the wind

As those people who are above being alone
Leave me here in my silence.

Silence.

Silence.

And wind.

And Him.

J.D.

And there I am...

With this bottle in my hand, and I keep thinking,

"It's only a small sip. Why fight?"

So the bottle tips slowly,

And the liquid fire that has for so long been tantamount to my death

Roars down my throat.

With that burn comes the self-hatred and pity from 15 years ago

Leaving me to wonder what I do with....

all the loving in my heart as Heaven's door is shut in my face.

451°

A stuffed animal.

A photo.

A letter of some forgotten love one summer when her hair smelled of fresh strawberries

And you were still young and vibrant.

Why do we turn our memories into solid forms

Thereby plucking them from our hearts or our minds 

And removing them from the matter where they lay?

Turn to look at the memory 

Of the pain turned from feeling into solid form.

His perfect smile.

Her eyes that sparkle like stars at the edge of Jupiter's moons.

That moment when the wind was at your command and the universe clicked

How often have you returned to look? To feel? 

A small voice deep in the walled recesses of your heart tells you, "No more."

So that smile and those eyes are placed down and warmed by the orange glow

Until the 451st degree takes over and the man, 

Or the woman, 

Or the moment

Slowly ceases to exist thanks to Prometheus's gift. 

One by one,

Little by little, 

The pieces break.

The man falls away.

The woman returns to the stars.

The wind breaks the shackles you placed and returns to its glory,

But not before doing you one last favor and taking the small pieces of your 

Faded moments and scattering them for you. 

And the degrees that freed you await you to feed it more in a misguided attempt to survive.           

Split

What does the body do when the heart is taken?

Does it collapse and cease to feel the sunshine

Hanging well above it?

Does it fold and drop into the cracks of remorse

That litter the house where it sits?

Or does it keep moving without purpose?

A husk that masquerades as a human being

Moving at the beat of its former heart.

The hole where the hand reached in is still fresh

Like the memories of the hand who held it.

Yet she too is now an empty vessel as she holds my heart,

And I now stare at my hand and find a heart not my own.

I have hers; she has mine,

But neither one of us can reach each other.

What does the body do when the heart is taken?

It yearns for its loss to be returned.

Gleaned

The sun dips down on the violent water

And creates a serene darkness that plunges

Its fingers into my soul

Yet a single blue light on the edge of the horizon

Glints and warms my heart against

The understanding of my mind.

That blue glint takes the warmth of my hand

And walks with me in deep wooded conversations.

It is warmth that slides up my arm and settles itself

As though a moon has found its planet.

While gravity can be turbulent, the rotation continues

to allow the seas to sway the boats and create that blue glint.

No moon, no stars, and no lighthouse can remove that glint

From its affixed position on the edge of the horizon.

Hanging

The boy stands still in the swirling wind

Looking for the voices he has become accustomed to hearing

Only to find himself strangely alone.

Countless times he has plunged his hands into the fire, the water, the wind

And pulled out each person before the pink moon rose in the east.

Only now the rose-hued Selene rises for him and no one is to be found.

A look in his eyes finds not tears of rage, but solemn understanding

Because the movement of light around him occurs

From his placement of the stars.

Every moment from here to the approaching entropy of his breath

Happens due to his ignorance, his choices, and his heart.

The wind begins to push him harder and harder

Toward a definitive but he resists the scythe and asks for one last word.

One last missive to those he misses and needs.

With his strength ebbing from him and light overcoming the wind,

He conjures their faces and merely says, "Sorry," then fades out

To become part of petals floating on a pond.

8,765.8

It slowly rolls by like a still river.

(It flashes by in a second.)

It brings with it souls not before seen or felt.

(It takes with it people who stood the line and are no more.)

It creates memories that will stand the test of time.

(It destroys moments that felt like stone but were built of sand.)

It is constantly welcome.

(It is always dreaded.)

We lift our heads high to feel the warmth and joy it brings.

(We hang our heads under the weight it drops on us.)

We constantly count it to build toward the inevitable joy we expect.

(We always watch it build toward the end we may not want.)

It saves the day and crushes the soul... or is it saves the soul and crushes the day?

And that timer starts again at zero and climbs once more

Until we can no longer remember why we truly cared in the first place.

Worry

Push it down and bury it.

Somewhere deep in your heart where no one,

Not even those who read you

With the clarity of Spring morning,

Can find it.

Let it sink into your veins

And become part of your blood

So that it is masked by the very movements of your mind.

Never show that it hides deep in your being

For the monster that dwells there will surely destroy them all.

Growth

"You have to open your fist," he whispered to me quietly,

And I did,

And when I did, her hand slipped out.

Like the animals discovering the returning landscape in Spring

She stepped forward into the world without my hand to guide her.

My only vision now is of her back as she took the sun with her

And left me here to figure out what happens next

With nothing more than a matchstick of reasoning.

The cold bite of the wind sinks into my now empty hand

As I push hope around me like a blanket and wait

For the darkness to part around the saving grace of a hand to pull me

Back from the ironic fall from grace I have created.

Te desidero, and go forth into the welcoming world.

Let Orpheus be your guide to a point and make no mistakes.

No man calls me Eurydice.

The hand that returns the warmth should not be yours.

Neighbor

He never puts on a shirt
As he stands in the fading sun
Quietly rocking back and forth
With the beer in his hand.

It's distracting to man and beast
As the jogger can't help but stare
And her Beagle pulls on the leash
Toward his lawn.

Fifteen years he's sat on that porch
Looking over the changing landscape
Of young couples gaining their first child
And losing their minds.

Like a Sphinx. Like a watchman of time
He holds the answers to random moments
Of his neighborhood. Who owns this lot?
Where is the fence line? Why should we care?

So he stands on his holy ground
In his too tight shorts and too narrow mind
Explaining to no one in particular what should be
And what will be.

A moving statue of a bygone era that no one wants back.
And when asked to put on a shirt
He merely remarks:
"Do I tell you how to live?"

And we live under the names of neighbors...
Even though we have no idea who we are.

Generation

Your hand fits mine with room to spare
Not unlike the lost moments in my brain.
I'm jealous of your lack of understanding despair.
You are blissfully ignorant to the world's pain.

But my fears are beginning to build anew
As you let go of my hand and awkwardly walk
towards the sun, back turned as time flew.
Pretty soon you'll move faster and leave my flock.

Have I prepared you? Have I made you see
that life is not a race or struggle or fight?
No, life is not a test, but a journey of coming to be.
It's about understanding, not about brains or might.

The distance between us will grow and grow.
You will one day stand above me.
But I will never ever stop loving you, you know,
Because I'm grateful you came to be.

Partners

In the silence of water

All is forgiven.

In the burning light of truth

Fallacies are denied.

In the corners of long dead hearts

Sparks cannot kindle.

In the corners of your eyes

Loneliness is defeated.

And in my arms

We exist as each others' lungs, hearts, and minds.

Let the murky depths destroy the morning

And let us stay among our silent skin

Until the songs of the sky call no more.

Mercy

Subdued buzzing returns my hand from the wall

Lights flare and incremental inches become hard to count

As the gnats and daisies of lovelorn locks search for keys.

Was there ever a definition?

Was there ever a meaning?

Questions are born and die in the span of furtive glances

Toward her melancholy strings.

A final thought drifts toward the surface:

"Her wings cannot hold my weight,"

And an eleven year battle may finally be lost.

The lack of arms and legs does not phase my foe.

He merely sits waiting for me to no longer fight...

Just ask for mercy.

Ego eram nefas.

Wallflower

Quietly sitting.

Never once anything more than unassuming.

Pithy comments and bouquets of promises

Cannot capture the sparkling oceans within her eyes.

A wallflower of divine intervention and beauty,

She treads softly to leave tracks

In the four chambers of my core.

Yet her mystique, compelling as that of damask rose,

Is palpable.

It thrives on the very solemn essence that holds

My strings together.

And I no longer understand the world without it.

Why would I want to?

Strings

Solemn vows are often subdued in the darkness of Heaven and Earth.

Quiet longings become voiced in desperation and dilapidation.

And the solid groundwork built upon love and tenderness begins to crumble

As the harsh light of reality peels back the velvet sky to show what has occurred.

Persephone knew

As did Orpheus, but his was of lamentation, not of contemplation.

The blind boy pulls his arrows back to those already removed from the board.

And the solid music of Artemis forces us to put on blinders....

To what is right...to what is wrong.

And the pillars of Earth, Heaven, and Hell shake as we commit to

Four words of ferocity.

Four words of terror.

"I don't love you," said in the whispers of Ouroboros.

And our answers are not, "Why not?"

No, we instead say, "And why should you?"

Asleep (With NI)

I meet you in a dream

somewhere in the land of nod

we forget introductions and focus on possibilities

swirling brush strokes of time's children follow

and the indigo moon weeps her joy

surrounded by stars that spell out our future

we stare at our pasts in the embers of cold fires

lip singed scars on our necks the only remaining heat

and long lost touches our only memories

and when we chase the flames again we find them frozen

dead in the four chambers of existence

nothing left but this tiny second of rem

an eternity in my thoughts

as the golden dawn destroys Selene,

my search ends

our eyes open filled with stars and the fresh sunlight

and we step on fresh sand and dew

toward infinite potential

Astronomy (Written with NI)

Slipshot down a nubile curve toward grateful fog

where I lose my mind between her and reality.

Fingers and lips blend into ethereal ecstasy

and in her heartbeat and breath,

I can see the end of the galaxy.

Stars blaze in her eyes asking...begging me

to search brave new worlds.

I navigate by the constellations

now forming along her curves

and lose myself in uncharted moments.

Without a map or guide,

she whispers new directions.

Her words pulling me away toward darkened stars.

Nightblind, I fully succumb to her seductions

and am filled with the secrets of the universe

as the planets succumb to death.

Falling from Grace (Written with NI)

The white shadows form frozen ghosts.

They quietly flit about in static light

and in the darkness of negative space,

I find long forgotten vigils to those not yet imagined

scattered across the abyss like cryogenic dreams

and dancing with an angel on the tip of a needle

until their balance sways and heads toward

points of nullification.

A deep void made of ten thousand shadows.

I become the angel on the tip of a needle

pulling off my own wings

and hoping for a soft landing.

The reasons too many to recollect.

The consequences too hard to fathom.

So, I close my eyes.

The rushing wind becomes my bride.

The air whispers truths and vindications

and the blurring world fades past.

No earth will slow my descent.

No touch will deny my destiny.

No names to fog my clarity, only this...

a silent soliloquy to love's loss.

Memories of ghosts drowning,

in rivers of my own longing,

cannot help to douse the fire of green hope.

As the moments push me further,

they won't let me forget.

I plunge through the mirror.

The surface merely ripples,

reflections dilute and then disappear.

The fall gives way to a sickening rise.

When I open my eyes, everything

and nothing has changed

except for the eyes of March

staring down into my soul.

Seeing more than I am able

and pushing the stars away.

I relinquish my ideals

and give in.

Set down among the dewdrops and nettles

a razor takes form across my heart.

Quiet slashes remove malignant memories

of lost love...lost truth...lost moments

and before the sins appear,

I am bathed in the light

of her innocence long forgotten

redeeming the monster within

to almost child-like savagery.

Faith

Because you have a songbird in your soul

That sings a song of what the universe is, was, and shall be

Because a compass buried in your heart

Points you toward a light beyond the darkened horizon

Because we have to act on faith at times

Or all is lost

Because you have faith

I may not be the monster but the man.

Sinner Man

Standing alone in the cacophony of life

Sitting alone in the stillness of breath

Moments pass as hearts and wings beat to war drums

Your words drip down my neck and sink into my shoulder

While soft tears are lost among the buses and blurring feet

Solomon stands above fingers pointed at me in disdain...in disgust

Second lives intersect in strewn glass

And absent daughters take a chamber to darkened floors

Because we shield

Because we hide

Because we deny

Because we idealize

Because we are broken as a whole

And like the clarity of reality awaking a dream's death

It burns