As Children

Beaches

Rugged and rocky,
Surf spray misting,
Ghosting
Along the mountain cliff.

We trotted,
Goats,
Sure of our footing,
Never doubting the placement of our steps,
Laughing, chasing the sunlight
Across the sky.

We sang the birdsong as
Cool water embraced us.

We became ocean creatures then,
Languid and graceful.

Sunlight and salt-smell,
The wet sand soaped us,
Scraped us raw and dirty.
But we emerged

Refreshed,
Scattering among the tide pools,
Climbing water logged,
Petrified,
Trunks

Of what once were trees,
Now rock worn smooth,
Preserved by one hundred years of
Changing waters.

Sometimes we found shards
Of china,

Edges softly rounded,
Milky exterior cleverly revealing
The fine lines of kiln fire,
Dainty spiderwebs.

There on that shore
We transformed,
Became Kings and Queen,

Built our lands, drawing
Lines into the sand, negotiating
Peace treaties that ended when
My mother called us for lunch.

Primordial Crucible

Your blood no longer flows in my veins.

It has long since been dried up,
Been emptied from me,
Taken from my flesh and used,
Becoming ink and tears splattered upon
Blank canvas, and left there for years,
Seeping down into time's weave,
Crusting away until it cannot be removed.
It cannot be washed away.

But there is a difference in me now.

My drained flesh is now formed of earth,
My spirit clearer than fresh mountain air,
My will, a blazing, consuming fire,
And water is my new blood,
The dreaming tides that sweep the sleepers
Along the banks of the river's shore,
Past the weeping willows that reach out,
Tangling their arms together,
Waiting breathlessly for the end of time's beginning.

There I will dance amid the mountaintops,
Snow glistening beneath me,
My spirit flying high and free,
My will reflected in every campfire that burns
In the forests below.

It Comes in Stages

When we were children
We would lay out on the grass,
The sky wheeling far above us,
Feeling the motion of the earth,
Imagining
We would be launched into the stars.

We sat in your backyard as teenagers,
Listening to the wind howl through the broken trees.
I heard the mournful call of ghosts,
While you attempted to draw out their silhouettes
From the branches stenciled into the sky.

We stand now, adults, feet firmly planted,
Our faces turned towards the ground,
Measuring distances, time and relationships,
Calling it all vanity,
Vanity.

Universe Creation

Stars are gone
As the gods,
Pale shades of
What once was,
The has-beens
Of the cosmos,
Their legacies etched
Forever into the
Fabric of space,
But struck from
The tapestries of
Time and sky,
Burned into ash
From the morning
Sun's light upon
Break of dawn,
Blind eyes strain
Past the veil
Hanging, lying there
Upon our faces,
Hands too small,
Grasping at its
Mysteries, to feel
The icy chill
Of its touch.
The mind, however
Is more powerful
Than any god,
Wilder than any
Space or universe.
For within, we
Create our own.

Better to Be

Born of a vacuum
Encapsulated by sound,
Coiled springs ready
To bolt, to run, to fight.
Lightest touch able to
Devastate with its fragility.
Too numb to care,
Lay the soul bare.
Countless sightless stares
Pile up, a cacophany of
Mounting horror and fear
As Death draws near,
Pulling all into her
Inevitable embrace.
But the mortal coil
Shivers and quakes,
Unable to comprehend
Silence's truths,
The beauty of nothing
And peace found in
Emptiness.

For to be blank
Is unusual.
Most consider it better
To be filled, fat with
Heavy weighted words,
Ideals and beliefs able
To drown those who carry them.

But it is better to be the blank page.
It has so many possibilities.

Minus the Self

Fill these cracked glass bottles.
Pour there earth and blood,
Water them with tears and sweat,
Watching city civilizations
Bloom into stone and gold,
Iron, steel, smoke, and ash.
Feed them famine, pain and pleasure.

For there lie the bones of mortals past,
Their lives too fast for us to follow,
The individual, forgotten.
Swept into the sky and air
Torn by winds that twist,
Shredding all in their path.

The flesh, the temple stripped bare of its lies,
The disguise worn by the immortal soul
Wastes away, shriveled. Rots, decomposing.
Futility of vanity while yet still alive
Reconciles old age to wisdom
Where there is sometimes none to be found.

So I'll carve my name into the sand,
Scream it to the raging winds,
Fill the oceans with my ink, my blood,
And the forests with my songs,
Though none will recall them
Save the birds.

Gears of Society

So many reels of time,
Spinning, sandy, nursery rhymes,
Evading every line
And stroke of
Fate as it is written,
Words of hate
And happenstance,
Lack of clarity and
Conceited concern
Cause careful
Calculations,
Placing each person
With persuasions
And power. Empty
Words ringing hollow
Among those who
Follow blindly their
Leaders, masters of
Deception, silver tongued,
Honeyed words dripping
With their beliefs,
Planting seeds of
Destruction in ideas
Of peace and love,
Chaotic consumption
Induced by neruotic
Reproduction of
Falsehoods and lies
Perpetuated by
Propaganda.

Awful constructions of
Society, time, place,
Parental influence
(Or the lack thereof),
So many variables
Are involve in the
Creation of monsters,
Of those so broken
They feel they cannot
Exist on their own,
Depending on the
System that warped
Them, shaped them,
Subsumed their souls
Into it's vast engines,
The machinery that
Grinds and toils,
Tilling the fertile
Soil of young minds,
Better to pour them
Into the molds laid
Out upon the worlds
Printing press.

But there are those
Who see these wrongs,
Fight to set them right,
To banish the creators
Of chaos and disorder
From sight, Enabling
Others to see the
Light that shines
Within them, to let
Them take flight,
Give their souls
Wings, teach them
How to sing so
Beautifully, to bring
Others into their own
Might so that they
May open their eyes
And see the damage
Wrought by the
Instructions and
Presumptions
Of society.