I trust
Even when you do not believe in yourself

Leaf on a breeze
The quake cannot harm us if we never land
Deep water calm

I am not your rock
You are my tether
The more you roil
The more we are brought back to each other

I love
Even when you do not love yourself
#vss365 #calm #quake

I'm told my birth was hard
For my mother who had to give me up
My father who was trapped away
My sister whose place had changed
I remember not

The nurse sang a #siren song
To lure me forth
I smiled at her but for no one else
I gave all my love that day
No other would ever touch my heart
#vss365

I am thrilled to be holding the 25th Anniversary issue of the Bellevue Literary Review and am looking forward to diving into its mix of poetry, fiction, non-fiction and art. And of course I'm tickled pink to have one of my #poems included in this illustrious journal. #poetry #writingcommunity

How to create
Without feelings
Imagined words
All faked
An exhibition never staged
Pretending and pretension
Blood I've never bled
Fills the only lake
On the only #island
No tides
To wash me away
Can't give
Never had emotion
Ghost of intention
Original #sin
Even this truth
A series of lies
#vss365

The cats tore through the room paying no heed
Dust bunnies swirled with the force of a #hurricane
On shelves goth dolls sang
Calling to children that no longer came
The dog with a whimper pressed closer to my thigh
I assured it all would be fine
Once the one who was summoned had arrived
#vss365

No matter how often you return
Full power into #harbour
Drifting aimlessly to shore
It always may be the last time
The tides carry you back to me
The ocean is eternity
It’s smell that of both freedom and death
They are the same after all
Waves of love and anguish
In tiny bits eroding me away
#vss365

Free range child
Not that I had your trust
But there were #mountains
To rebuff my advances
At their base a library
Home of lore forgotten
What stood upon their rocky caps
What was beyond the peaks
Dusty pages showed me
Not just what I would find
But how to cross
And still be home by dinner
#vss365

You are both sun and #cloud
Stars and eclipse of the moon
Rays turning to showers
Midnight illumination hidden
Wolves in the distance
Some days you grip strong
Some nights hands dangle at your side
Your gaze toward the masked dawn
Wil you light the world?
Will you shadow your end of times?
#vss365

How do you believe in God
But not in me
I stand before you in flesh that bleeds
You offer no #reprieve
I share your prayers
I wash my face in your church waters
#Purify my soul in the Chalice Well
You wash your hands of me
I will honor you and walk away
Mortal until and beyond the day I die
#vss365

I am the moon drift
Leading the wanderers
Who sleep during the day
I renounce your bitterness
As the sun denies the darkness
More than it is due
I reckon with lies
Dry tears and kiss smiles
I am the wolf howling
Just before dawn
Calling to its children
To sleep again
#vss365 #reckon #renounce

Quick fix
Push the pain forward
Kick the deity down the road
They don’t like it
But it only leaves a slight bruise
They asked me once
“For what do you hunger?
With salvation it might be granted”
I said it didn’t matter
Whatever I consume today
Will just get crapped out tomorrow
#vss365 #hunger

Lost my intensity
Perhaps at the hardware store
Traded in for refuse bags
Or maybe it sloughed off
In grocery stoor aisles
I'm now as bland
As frozen foods in my cart
No more #passion
No songs to sing
Did it rain today
I'm reflected in a puddle
I'm reflected in the grey
Of a broken tv screen
#vss365

When should children be told
They've embarked on a journey
That is an adventure
But also a trauma
A web of intentions
A mad man’s vision
Sometimes we bleed
How young is too young
To teach them to love
But also tell them
There will be stormy times
That force them toward hate
#vss365 #embark #stormy

Conflict
Between my skin and your touch
Taste and the sweetness of life
Emotions and the will to be
Conflict
Feeds the root of being
Keeps the eyes from seeing
Brought you near
Drove us on the journey
Conflict
We nursed it as a baby
Gave it our strength
Embraced it in all its glory
#vss365 #conflict

You move slowly down the aisle
Your desk has not changed
We watered the plant
Leaves spill across dusty papers
Work that kept another day
How important is it anyway
We #marvel that you've returned
I think I understand
There's the quiet of death at home
Nothing that won’t keep another day
#vss365

In visions you look happy
Dressed up fine
For a Pan Am flight to New York City
Shiny shoes
Dress of pink with blue
Chauffeur wearing gloves
Black cap close cropped hair
In this world you weren't poor
A world in which I was never born
It brings me joy even if
You'll never know my name
#vss365 #glove