The Poetry Marathon

Black Knight orbits my heart.
My breath quickens
with tidal acceleration.
Momentum builds, but
only briefly.
My heart beats
in perfect counterpoint
to his silence,
but he remains distant
unwilling to hear me
through the static
of nothing.

Tethered to the command pod
at the time of advent
a brilliant flash of Knowing
and I sleep.
As it was before, so it shall ever be.

At second light I awaken
and return to the ship.
A new world awaits
and we go.
As it was before, so it shall ever be.

We arrive, plans in hand
for great transformation,
eradication as business plan.
So it begins.
As it was before, so it shall ever be.

I disembark with my crew
the forest calls out.
I can hear it, feel each one.
I go to them.
As it was before, so it shall ever be.

They speak. I listen
and already Know.
It is time.
It is my destiny, as is all
to Know and love.

We can change this
all of us.
As it was before, shall never be again.

white oak in redwood
stippled heart in mixed media
touch of realism
spot of whimsy
strong limbs reach out
from canvas, acrylic
branches with watercolor
leaves touch my face
I lean into the strong trunk
oil pastel stains
the nape of my neck
I become one
with the art of you

I stray from thought to thought
before birdsong fills the humid air
in the blue dawn of summer
as the feeling of you slips away.

I don’t know where you are, where
you were, or even if you were. Are
you a vague memory, or have I
dreamed you into existence?

I saw us heart to heart
felt us resonate in a stillness
of quiet presence, neither
here nor there, then or now
but for always, everywhere.

(Photo credit: Matthew Emmett, cover of Forgotten Heritage)

A tunnel of lives appears before me

my lives, lived and some not yet.

Delicate encroachments of growth

remake the annals of time

the incarnations of my being

all in one vision of me

all at one time, now,

then and forever.

Sleepless from a dream of
Scotch-Irish eyes meeting mine
as he closes in for a kiss,
I linger at the open window
let humidity stifle my desires.
It takes a while.
I lay back down, pretending
I can feel his heat
against me, but know he is
oblivious to my heart.
In his sound slumber he
dreams instead of World Cup
finals – Slainte! and that
long ago girl he can’t forget.

My heart crawled and circled, banging against the caged walls of your heart. It did this for years, not knowing why, beyond some “should” of commitment. Then it was time to release your heart and fall away. In the lull, I turned inward, digested myself, hanged myself from a tall oak. I spun my heart away, locked myself in a shiny chrysalis and as an amorphous mass of imaginal cells, I was over. Until I wasn’t, until I grew wings, a new body, a new everything defined no longer by you, but by sunlight and self, power and love. I emerged anew, whole and complete, reborn into sky.

At the end of days
as twilight dims hope
we will rise into love
infused with authenticity
and the knowing of infinite
possibilities as twilight
becomes the dawn.

The dream fades
into a crimson fog
of faces without
hearts, smiles
of lost intention.

The dreamer drifts
into another mirage,
a wisteria tunnel
folds into itself.

A heart awakens
to a surrender of tears,
forgiveness placed on
the quiet side of
a locked door.

what you had been
who you were
gone from me for
so long
the old you
dead forever like
you were never here
but you were
and you are
you still are. You are
in every corner of moving on
like a beast from the abyss
latched to my ankles, not
drowning me
just holding me back
from landfall, from docking
from being able to dry out
in the sun
get up
and walk away