Releasing, letting go

Releasing, letting go

Our two paper sailboats

And coins tossed and like them

Our wishes didn't float

Crayons, coloring books

We both ignored the lines

You were in the fringes

I was outside the bind

The sixth of January

The sixth of January

The counting protested

Q population, the

Ignorant molested

Rabbit holes now fox holes

A civil war pending

The south will rise again

Racists never ending

The danger of being

The danger of being

Definition of man

Harm of gender bias

Starts in names, Stan or Anne

Feminine masculine

The fourth position rad

Or an upper hook, the

Same movement just a tad

Pages after pages

Pages after pages

In a Ulysses day

Seeing the blank margins

With no typeset display

Is it in nothingness

That we dream without text

How do we explain the

Empty paragraph next

Nomadic narcissist

Nomadic narcissist

Empty lobster cages

Nets without a starfish

The internal rages

A shepherd seeking sheep

They travel to the bleat 

But sooner or later

They will shit where they eat

In the bleak of abstract

In the bleak of abstract

A broadside accident

A collision of thoughts

Untimely evident

Like two grave stones bumping

Two matches lit and burn

All in the openness

An illegal left turn

It's coming to a close

It's coming to a close

I'm reading the road sign

Halted Icarus, the

Horizon a clothesline

No radio signals

Echoes less than half-full

Fireworks falling or clay

Pigeons after the pull

In the end it's my fault

In the end it's my fault

Boundaries were not set

The permission given

For leeches to blood let

Forgiving myself and

Forgiving all others

My failures and their faults

Mother, sisters, brothers

The years in a desert

The years in a desert

All dry mouthed and tongue-tied

What was a worn path that

Sand storms would always hide

In this oasis void

Chasing the mirages

My heart on my sleeves but

Hand-cuffed with corsages

In long shadows longing

In long shadows longing

For a winter cocoon

The softness of snowfall

And clouds veiling the moon

Reflection and planning

The ago and the when

Reaching the conclusions

Of we will and have been

My mother refusing

My mother refusing

Cast out from her Eden

Love a bad apple not

Live forever sedum

So unapproachable

Both tortured and feral

I'm here in the future

Surviving the peril

Abundant Overwhelm

Abundant Overwhelm

Drowning without struggle

Not buoyant and bouncing

An ocean wave juggle

Accepting the stained glass

Broken surface pieces

Light hitting water on

One of Earth's timepieces  

The choices of mundane

The choices of mundane

From lifestyles to clothing

Wanting to look the same

Eyeballing and noting

Find the inner self and

The points of no return

Choose these lessons in Life

To know thyself and learn

Enjoying the balance

Enjoying the balance

Proportions are in scale

The right amount of clouds

In the perfect detail

And the blue dome of sky

With a sun at its peak

With both of us below

Expressing without speak

The dreams we traded in

The dreams we traded in

Used and worn, shot with holes

We slowly outgrew them

With our wandering souls

Becoming a friend who

Can only reminisce

Of times long ago now

A suburban abyss

Are we re-writing days

Are we re-writing days

To make useful and serve

The past cannot be changed

That we hold in reserve

Days are like wooden plaques

Writ with moments we felt

And not for mold casting

Because wood doesn't melt

Answers in the abstract

Answers in the abstract

Fishing in the abyss

Beyond our wild senses

To live and not remiss

Discarding references

Verberating the noun

Neighboring the notes to

Resolve discords of sound

Shangri-La's dark alley

Shangri-La's dark alley

Where the narcissist shacks

Used grandiose needles 

Marking both arms with tracks

Where magical thinking

Is a daily prayer

When they hear a calling

It's them calling, beware

In this October light

In this October light

With fallen shawls of leaves

Beneath the locust tree

These days of winter eves

A storm is closing in

The temperature dropping

With the loss of shadows

And fields of corn cropping

Chiseled names last longer

Chiseled names last longer

Than the conversation

In these mortal stories

No self-preservation

Grandmother, grandfather

There's nothing of you here

But aging DNA

Dead-ending, that is clear

Reluctant memory

Reluctant memory 

The same static sentence

The person who said it

Did not show repentance 

They passed away but were

Forgiven long ago

And without an utter

Yet in my heart I know

Allow this tree to walk

Allow this tree to walk

Without fuss or applause

Or chorus or cheering

Just the quiet of pause

No longer having strength 

The energy of crowds

Longing for open fields 

With my own set of clouds

A sky unfitting of

A sky unfitting of

Time of season or day

Clouds close enough to touch

A moon not far away

Seeing faces of friends

On strangers passing by

Basking in the beauty

Of an uncommon sky

Growing laurel branches

Growing laurel branches

I can't succumb to this

Your strong sense of wanting

The doorstep of a kiss

The portraits you've painted

Colorful impasto

Fresh until disrupted 

A muddy fiasco

Beyond derivative

Beyond derivative

Beyond the fingerprint

An artist extinction

The snuffing of a glint

The infinite monkey

Would be our only chance

Replacing their keyboard

With their bare feet and dance

Be brave on this new day

Be brave on this new day

Steps from a raw frontier

Old worlds are vanishing

Languages disappear

Change beyond change of light

It is I who is new

The mistakes and success

Are mine for me to do

Your love was a burden

Your love was a burden

Built with broken doorframes

Insecurity glue

On a marsh of false claims

Heavy as a shipyard

Constructing cargo ships

Unwilling to unload

And grounded in boat slips

The watercolors of

The watercolors of

Empathy are bleeding

My yellow and your blue

A green landscape seeding

The softness of the edge

The blurring of the lines

Blend for understanding

Beyond our own confines

Sad when something simple

Sad when something simple

Becomes far too complex

A walking path became

A tightrope and perplex

My reality and

Your delusional dreams

Embedding me with hooks

And not the kinder seams

Our world wider than wide

Our world wider than wide

In the smallest detail

The moments we share are

Halftones on a grand scale

Just fly from our perch and

The above will reveal 

The image of our crest

Our badge, our stamp, our seal

Lazy astronomer

Lazy astronomer

Looking at the light post

The insect satellites

Pecking the cobra host

Are we as bug-eyed when

Seeking an evening sky

Past the moon, into stars

Asking the heavens why

Loose threads like coral reefs

Loose threads like coral reefs

In a toss and turn sea

Rapid murmurations

Stormy tropical tree

Raising all our hands up

Dancing to jazz rhythms

In the daily traffic

Grand opening ribbons

Birth and death and unknowns

Birth and death and unknowns

Our lives between bookends

Held in by mysteries

Of which no one transcends

What are the from and to

Darkness without a light

Living is the answer

The one thing in plain sight

Empathy, compassion

Empathy, compassion

Roots of a Shepherd Tree

Even in the desert

A depth of Nth degree

The Banyan canopy

Offering merchants shade

Being there for others

Without jury or grade