Pressing Forward

You’re lying if you say
You know where you are
Where you are going

All you can claim
Is where you’ve been

I am here
I guess you are with me
In this moment
Welcome
I like your company

This path is laid out
I am pressing forward

I am tired

My legs have traveled
And want rest

My load is heavy
I see yours is too

Let’s set them down
Shall we?

There’s no rush
Unless you have somewhere to be

I could stay right here
I’m done with the rocks
Under my feet
This weight on my shoulders
This relentless sun burning down

Do you know what I mean?
I think you do

I came here for solitude
But I like you

You don’t ask anything of me
You just listen

How ’bout we simply stay
Look around
Take in the beauty around us

You can leave any time you want to
Thank you for your
Company

The Lone Wolf Howled

The trees marked midnight
The moon had a dull ache
The wolf wandered
The pack never noticed

On a path to hidden woods
The wolf slowly travelled
Free and afraid
The smell of blood
Dangled before its nose

Sorrow in the air
Drew a soulful howl from him
He’d been here before

His bones ached with loss
His hunger grew strong
From his gut emerged a shapely, pale ghost

It morphed into a man
A siren
A long-haired banshee
A monster

He sprung forward with an instinctual rush
And swallowed the phantom whole

With a beast in his belly,
The wolf continued
To the darker corners of the forest
His only company,
The spirits he kept within

The Love I Know

The thirst for cool water after indulging in salt
Drenching desire with the quench
Salve

The love I know is a sharp blade
Pointed to my neck
Cupid’s arrow at my jugular
A surge
A threat

It would let me bleed
Bloodlet

My heart swelling
Contracting
A sponge

Like that offered to Christ before death

The love I know leaves me weightless
Before gravity takes me down
My heels offer no cushion of wonder
Yet I wonder

Answers are scant

I know nothing

The love I know
Is a nap on the sofa in the afternoon

It expects nothing of me

But I am a greedy lover
And want it all

The love I know is an open road
Stretched out before me

I have been
I am propelled forward
I am here

Eternal sunshine
She wants the
Nevermind

Spots removed
From the grey matter
A calm for the brainwaves
That are crashing onto the shore

Gentleness
Untouching the
Shipwreck

The mermaid has a choice to make

To wade in the deep
Or surface on the sand

Where Monsters Hide

A nightmare made love to me
Tossed and turned me
In my sheets
His nails dug into me
Leaving marks on my skin

My body was open
My eyes, wide shut
Somehow, I loved this monster

I knew exactly what he was

He bit me with the truth
Revealed the honesty of darkness
And lay beside me when the light
Came

I wasn’t fearful of him
Instead, I was afraid
He would fear
Me

A Rose With No Name

I leave Romeos bleeding
A sleeping beauty is no match for fools

My promises are offerings
Buds before blooms
Roses by any other name
Shoot from the soiled earth

Let loose their petals
To the winds of change
Before the wilting
With the
Stem

Lost

Spreading their grace
Across the world
Like blushing pilgrims

WHEN

Traffic is stopped
Blood pours from the red of the street light
No green light to reach out to

The street rises
Under the car
Cracking open
Its asphalt mouth
The broken white lines
Teeth
Gnaw in the deep dark
Undertow

A guttural rhapsody
Rises through the sewers
A spirit from the sewage
A Siren of the city

She takes transit to the country
Transpierces the roots of a tree
Dresses herself in its
Bark
A scruffy paperback princess

Whose crisp colourless leaves
Undangle themselves
Zigzagging with the wind
In a gentle descent
Resting on terra firma

Leaving her
A charcoal sketch
Branching outward

In the dormant
Silent

Chill

Sweet Deluge

The bubbles in my bath
Fizzle tranquilly
Surrounding me with
Soft
White
Whispers

I am

Surfacing

Soaking

The water mothers me
Queen of the suds
Of this ceramic womb

Floating
Still

My hazel hair rests
Gleaming on my shoulders

An aureate flame
Sways on a single candle

Serenity glows

I am
Steeped