Overtaxed, over-vexed,
Over-thinking the smallest steps
Everything that’s left
Feels over.
Like a child who believes
In things inconceivable,
We were full and naïve,
Eager to gamble.
We pound hard at the levee
With fist smooth and steady
Finally ready to see
If it can hold strong.
Cracks in the core
Threaten hemorrhage once more
I breathlessly implore
God and the wall.
Only do not make goodbyes,
But look for me in sleep,
In dream, in tides
Of slumber, sweet and deep.
To make two rivers meet,
Where no diverting is forbidden.
Water’s clumsy feet
Leaves that frost unbitten.
I will wait for you, if time
Grays my eyes and breath.
Fling down this dam, this crime,
That diverts this stream to death.
I knew the tumble was rough,
One long and constant rodeo
Of the too much and not enough.
I knew the coast was never clear,
One strandline of sea debris
In winter wind, in air austere.
I know tomorrow warmth will come,
Some rays breaking over foreign clay,
Rocks giving way to the rising Sun.
Your mercy, new every day.
I wail against the howling winds.
I know none can hear, not myself,
But I flail anyway, now and then.
I bury today like it didn’t exist.
I throw all my chips on red, on the hope
Your Hand will ever persist.
I know tomorrow the day wakes warm,
Another chance to redeem the time,
Another chance to weather the storm
That takes Your grace and makes it mine.
A simple word, but all these years
Whispered in passing, or none at all.
A coward with a duffel bag of fears,
I learned the run before the crawl.
A simple word I thought meant death,
Marinated in the lost and aching wish,
Better constrained beneath the breath,
But every divorce means relationship.
A simple word for change of seasons.
How many new colors graced my plumes?
Each shade a stranger hue of treason
I painted on the ever paler moon.
A simple word, but cursed the same.
Memories are caricatures- flat and bland.
Colorless photographs of flame
Can’t burn, or hiss, or spew hot brands.
A simple word, but for the downpour.
Will the world ever cease to gray?
Rainy days were mine before,
Now you occupy my dismay.
A simple word… so hard to say.
I try to follow the rules,
Somewhere under the rubble.
I make no waves, waste no tools,
Keep my nose out of trouble.
I try to parse all my words.
In step with syntax and scene,
Weaving tiny bits and blurbs
To reveal the wondrous dream,
But some levees are overwhelmed;
Small breaches opening rivulets into rivers.
Words burst forward like sharp laughter, pour like tears,
Heal like salt in the gaping wound,
Sit in awkward silence.
All these years, these thousand verses,
Can’t reverse the flow of time, can’t divert
Its fearsome force- rolling on remorselessly.
Throwing myself in the sea, it carries me- flowing free.
Words don’t dry the bed, but try treading alone.
I’m grown, but each syllable sown blooms-
It blooms before it dies.
I try to give these words their room,
Sometimes even a nudge or two,
What they may say, I don’t assume
Until the tide rises again,
Until the lyric breaks through.
I know that You’re here, awake and aware.
I stifle myself when the fight sets in,
But I know You are strong, You care,
And I can’t be lost in the cracks again.
Why do I bow where there is no king?
It was never in their authority, nor ability,
Watching from outside everything,
To assumptively appraise the inmost of me.
No more taxes, no more dues,
Where I am no citizen.
You alone, and only You,
Speak informed criticism,
And You speak it in love.
You heard this moment pass.
I shed my story as dead skin,
A fragile, empty shell
Hidden away again
Finished.
You brought change.
Friendship forged in delicate fire,
Cauterizing, purifying,
The union inspired
Hope.
If I was meant to speak,
It would be here, with you.
Solitary steps cannot compare
With a waltz for two,
Or more.
I return to silence full,
Your love a dancing flame.
In the cool of your haven,
My tattered wings became
Whole,
and wholly unnecessary.
Words smash together,
Collide and contradict,
Affection, perhaps forever,
And also affliction,
And affirmation again.
Phonetic explosions,
My last dime,
Erudite and erosive,
Evolve in time
Lessen and expand.
All my books have empty pages
All those answers stowed away
Fade into an impotent gray
Fancy bars on fancy cages.
Years of words, acquired wealth
Yearned for once, now despised
And useless whether truths or lies;
A tower of babel lined with shelves.
No words to heal the wounded pride
Nor lift the life of humility.
Two words can seal eternally
Until two words divide.
Did you hear the echo?
Reverberations in the air.
Water carries sound, you know,
Maybe it made it there, where
You are treading.
I’ve got a life now.
Remember when I didn’t,
Couldn’t live? Somehow
Some hidden splint
Reset the breaks.
I ran away alone,
God pursued, overtook,
But I never did get home-
Found some nice nook,
Some cleft in the rock.
The summer days, breath anew,
Burned too quickly I suppose.
What’s to return to, if not you?
These memories don’t decompose
Under time and earth.
Another day to put back on
The years that fell between,
Until eyelids, like curtains drawn,
Play ancient, aching dreams
Scenes to be.
viewingcamelot 