The Poet

Apologies unknown and broken bones,

grieving ghosts giving up on their own,

and my mind is a skeleton,

of ivory and puzzles.

Cream spilling into hot black coffee,

swirling like curls of dragon smoke.

Some say let go softly.

 I say never, never, let go of hope.

I try to lose the heavy hanging thoughts

in my banged and stained coffee cup,

diving deep into that fathomless void 

until I'm gasping and come up.

So I'm here in the bitter end.

I've got a smoke and a grin.

 I'm pacing like a tiger,

but at least I can say that I'm writing again.

Ghost Ship

Ghost ship sailing

in the middle of the night.

Sailing like the devil 

before high tide

surrenders to the light.

I try not to wonder,

a derelict.

There comes a time 

to pack it all in.

Everything’s more temporary

than the tattoos on my skin.

Leave no trace.

We’re all destined for dust,

train station love and carousel rides

we can never feel too much. 

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

Namaste

Change is everything.

It is science, unyielding

and a benefit to the device of time.

The universe will settle the score

as I become more aquatinted

with this fumbling clumsy world.

I promised you to my regret

our love I would never forget

because you have been driving around corners

alleyways and curves

advancing upon my house.

Winter's heavy in her retreat

and scrapes her shapely fingers

across the rippling city limit lights

flashing bleary rainbows

in front of my parade

down the rioting avenues of reclamation.

I chose freedom from the start

living with yourself

is half soul and half smarts.

Like the stealthy midnight phantom

I float as I enter midnight pews,

all the prayers and all the songs

but it's blasphemy I ensue.

Let me dance in the incoming tide

because I'm blood and water and ink inside.

So here comes the part

where I want to believe.

Your mind is a landscape

and I don't want to leave.

My ivory angel promises nothing

remember we are tigers in the fall.

We are nothing but dust on old books

and the self consuming fuel of stars.  

Star Catcher

Don’t Read the Past

I should read your last letter again

to unlock the gates and comprehend.

It’s been hell to know letting go

is the only way to save my soul.

I couldn’t ignore you if I tried.

Memories are weight that can mean too much

as we fall victim to faces we touch.

This love is scorned like a woman,

and hell hath no fury 

like the insidious nature

of violin sweet memories

that became the paradigm

of fire lilies and treachery. 

My good intentions were poisoned,

caught in the tendrils of temptation

deep in the clutches of a mastermind.

The trees have been changing,

hues of my life again rearranging...

It’s all I can do to keep moving on,

I pray like hell to the statue of capture.

Wanderlust and drinking with strangers

can not distract me from your rapture.

Rough Draft

A wander-lusting peace
beseeches sea glass collected on shores of solace.
I find myself soaring
on the backs of these silver winged doves.
Shake me like a freight train
and break my plate glass skin.
I brush off the dust of an alternate reality,
where’s love’s tumescent course can be promised
not just meaninglessly predicted.

It’s a lost place that never should have existed.
It’s a message in a bottle,
glass contained and lost at sea.
The iron eye in my mind
it sees the glaring truth
and ruthlessly calculates
as it becomes undone and unravelled.
The sky flinches not at the stones we throw.

Look back with the hindsight of your eyes
and not the tender of your spirit.
Life here and now is the rough draft;
be the beauty and the savage beast.
The sweetest air’s outside ourselves
and forgiveness starts in the blood;
don’t rip your own heart.
Brechen Sie nicht Ihr eigenes Inneres.