Verity

For discussion, dignity,
and the graining of grace
less is always
infinitely more
Practice restraint to find
purpose in peace;
only wings of sincerity
can spread
and then soar.

Untitled

From an inky sort of blackness
comes a rainbow's sacred sound
where eyes beaming as portals
well their wisdom from the ground

Untold stories hiding endings
that we aren't yet meant to know
walled by egos (not by bridges)
mute our movement, dam our flow

It's a frightening kind of cavern
with familiar shadows long
yet only absence of all light
allows emergence, free and strong

If love contains our knowledge,
all these stories in our skin,
our beings will only widen
as knowing works within

A gentle inner landscape
awakens slowly to its task;
Pleasure applauds purpose
that surrenders present,
honors past




"Knowing grows and love expands to contain it. Love is just the skin of knowing."
- William Paul Young, from "The Shack"

Just Me

It is for
tender mornings
I blink to see
new chance dawning
to rise as we
In the youngest light
too faint to hear
my muscles murmur
I'm still here
New day air
eager and fresh
peels dreams away in
ribboned flesh
In later hours
real tones reveal
sun exposure,
cracks unsealed
And despite that fighting
biting fear
I'll rise again
just me,
still here

Vacillate Virtue

Does it bite? Does it burn?
Does it chew? Does it churn?

Does it buzz? Does it crawl?
Does it push? Does it maul?

Is it red? Is it fast?
When it comes, does it last?

When the eyes of those near
wince in hurt, close in tears
Do you stop?

Do you see?

Do you know
you're not free?

Thirst

Waves of intermittent glee
crest and crash away
from me. A silver sunset,
a bare shoreline, the languid,
liquid arch of time. Love wets
my life in seasoned forms;
iced hard in cold and freed
in warmth. Much like to earth
it sinks its knees,
rushes roots and sprinkles
trees, boasts blue mountains,
sings in springs, swells in clouds
and sleets in wings; the wish for
love to stay
one way, captured, cupped,
for countless days,
flows with dreams
of being drenched
in one final, fluid,
exquisite quench.

Some Ways

There was no unfettered whole for
him; a bootstrap without an ankle.
It was only in inebriated ecstasy
that clarity revealed itself to
his jagged consciousness. Among the
seasonal mercies, his tepid attempts
resulted in only unmarked segments
of time, underutilized.

Given her generous inclination towards
amnesty, she willingly remained a silent
servant, humble in her purpose and ruined
of romantic apparitions. In some
ways, you could call them the
perfect match.

Edge

With ginger determination she allowed one splendid
glance at that pure, pristine slab of water, so calm
and deceptive. You almost drowned once, she reminded
her mind, and the inner landscape
has just dried from that flood. Natural disasters
have all license to annihilate absolutely, she thought,
yet somehow amongst the wretched rubble there always remains
some sustained life, called to re-root where everything
is suddenly different.
A slippery periphery of sparkling affection steeped up
sharply from the water’s edge. She still wanted to surrender
to that exquisite tumble; in the water splash each inch
of herself into rippling circles, feel her flesh lapped and licked
by liquid love, drenched in the depths of tender
trust and satiated shared experience.
But no, no! Remember the near drowning? The flailing
gasps, the stolen oxygen, the sudden stunting of all senses
save icy numbness and paralyzing pain?
Are we meant to return
to such challenges? Would he?