young winter

I see a ghost- such pale gold sun-

through a shroud of maudlin gray

when winter yet so very young

and hung like shadows over day

and I followed into the west

on chariot of misinvention

the flat face glow above attests

a captive of  brave intentions

the journey to a home not home

and a restless pause in the night

when life is a rust covered poem

and I drown in the urge to write

a tale of hearts and flowered seeds
of spirit sown in hungered needs 

wrapt...

Counting stars in Moonless night

bright nebulae afloat, flow

like prayer candles on the Ganges

when lives of love make a stream sacred 

and like the time of remembering

I look into the empty places of my spirit

once filled by so many loves

and though I have lost them,

they are with me still, felt as now

when silent stars make thoughts known, 

spoken in low tones, my blessings glow

to resonate in fine strings…

time has wrapt around my heart

a sudden season

Winds lift bamboo

like brushes painting air

peach blossoms flurry

to fill a moment with pink and white,

like snow and butterflies

a sudden season at odds with itself

strikes a note of beauty.

Words tumble, I lean to hear

then you are silence behind a closed door,

a mystery in hiding, yet wonder- could we

sharing words, salt grains of love and pain, be

in more discord than a rain of petals

Perhaps lost amidst moon and shadow

or found in an eclipse of fluttered eyes

graze like some soft wings of summer

I would speak softly in breaths of calm

recall heart memories, to invite  

the healing powers of touch.

Friday night lights

Crowned in softness, a found

delight  simply in the sight, soft

half moons for eyes, starlight

in warm smiles; she orbits a dance floor.

Later, when rushed by chilled air,

my upward glance through a milk of cloud

as half Moon filled the center of night.

Drove in a silence, moments of

vivid thought, fresh memory

‘neath silver and sepia tinge in the west

then changed route to see her better

‘til she fell into next morning’s rain.

I searched seeking west

and thought her gone, lost again;

on one plane – a disappointment,

on another- an ore of a deeper vein:

when I lost my Moon... Drove-on

as music blurs man-made stars, lights

in commerce, glow of foods and bars

and then as if the wish I would not speak

released from theft by red clay sky

she came back to me, radiant and ever new

beauty I have seen, yet never quite this way

when journeys of the heart find nowhere to turn

and the moment rises when the will

becomes faith, and the soul whispers

its prayers.

in wonder

Sun low in the west

bright flame in clear sky

fills green treetops and sets aglow

all within squint pinched apertures.

Warm skin, cheeks reflect

like the sandy face of the Moon;

a lesser satellite to be sure,

I spin with a wide world.

Held inside, a universe

churns to the energy of a life:

as great or little as a thing can be.

Today within a moment lost, I watch me

as if a bubble on the sea-- its lightest hold

on water, air, and time--

and wonder  if it knows

the perils and beauty of its existence.

Private Link

I talked to Google about you

checked a box, to love someone.

Friend or Muse simply would not do,

I talked to Google about you

among online oaths, truth came through  

megabytes could outlive the Sun.

I talked to Google about you

checked a box… to love someone.

a ghost of August

in drifted snow

a small flower seemed to shiver

cast by wind and white

[I think it felt the grip of cold

and yet it reached for sun]

through the too short day

into evening as I passed a window

then it was in a near-full moon

and night winds that brushed petals.

One fell-a droplet of summer-

a ghost of August,

shed rain drop, red upon white cotton.

It did not shiver more

but leaned close to falling too

as if it knew, was time to rest in an easy bed

[as a seed speaks of winter]

as when

I lay my head on your breasts

and kissed your skin, once for passions

again for remembrance; to glow

in flowered nights and warm shivers, as winter

lay soft upon fallen petals of love

keep a nearby Moon

hear me

as you hear a distant storm

a thought that rises like heavy cloud

to bring the sea back to the seas

know me

as you understand the skin of the waters

in depths beyond sight, by hints of mystery

 find me in the place hopes go to die

fast in struggle- against all- to live

for I am ever near you

in thought and desire, like fires

of a distant sun that keep a nearby Moon

in warmth that reveals a timeless gift

love that will forever bear

my wish… to touch you

filtered...

 from the rich world
the sounds of high misery
overwhelming weight of the pursuits of pleasures
from the poor world
where roars of empty stomachs fill nights,
in numbers like a wall of stars
where the sounds of children
in laughter or tears might fill the ears,
aspirations of life flicker
a candle in a storm

yet as we pierce the wall of wailing
filter the agony of unfulfilled greed
to listen to the dear breath of need; we find...
an awesome silence

silent

I left a smile in a yesterday
a piece of happiness sown in time;
a seed sprung in fertile heart.
I was dragged away by ceaseless waves
into a wait for tomorrow
that makes an ache in darkness.
Deep night when moonbeams begin
an endless journey from sky to eye,
remembered touch to wished-for touch;
silent because they too know
the deep glow of beauty
and the emptiness of lost lights.

canção das estrelas ( song of the stars)

(ouvir as estrelas)

listen to the stars
they sing in a windy voice
like sideways rain,
like blown sand  on window
listen
to the light of the moon
for in stillness near you
it tingles my lips 
and whispers -ever slightly-
upon the softness of your skin 

Ouvi…

I have listened…

in the chill of night

when warmth seemed distant

like love made in the afternoon

and the long way home

seemed yet longer, until I could

 listen to the sounds within you

beautiful like star song, warm

even in depths of night

as the Moon, that shares

love of loving, as I do

when I held you  then

as I wish to now, deeply

as the endless skies, tenderly 

as the sound like a sideways rain

that drifts from the soul of the Sun

a found feather

Above the sand

wind and gull cackles blend

sea spray rainbows, prisms in sunbeam glints

I squint into horizon, where sky blue melts

cloudy bands at the edge of the world.

In a taste of salt, memory of sand upon skin

mind lifts my spirit to hover, cupped wings

tilted to catch the solid seams of moving air-

a weightless metapoise: man into bird, wishes

dissolve bird into wind song.

Upon a current stream, a flow of deep desires

carried to a place near your lips,

to make a soft moist rush of air

touch your smile, just while

a feather falls near your feet

to catch your eye, and find … a memory.

rise...

 Even when I might become weary
yield to difficulty  a too steep climb
there is no rest, no pause to consider,
the place behind me...disappears.

Even when I might wish for yesterday
a time without challenge, conquered ground
there is none, only a next step- nothing granted-
in hourglass life every grain of sand
falls into contest, into a great divide
between what might be and what becomes.

Within a heart in search, a vision was found
on the face of a slow flowing stream, the Moon
made a flame upon water...and I keep it
as the glow of a distant face of love;
as I rise.

after a kiss

sometimes
i wonder what is the meaning of touch -
lips to lips, face to fingertips
I sense as a mirror,
giving all of one dimension,
but in completeness there is absence
sometimes i wonder...after a kiss

how might i see myself when loving you?
what do i feel when seeing you?

Sometimes when we love
when i sense your wetness in a pool of sounds-
i want to be outside too- and when
we rise together in a crescendo
i would stop, hold a penultimate edge.

It is both strange and wonderful,
such layers and veiled complexities--
as if a universe of thought, flowed like a river
and I am caught in currents --in these moments,
being with a woman.

Connecting...

My restless spirit speaks low

connecting yesterday and tomorrow

like  mortar between layers of brick

resting atop the past in wait for my hands

to place evidence of the present

We live within a miracle of thought and matter,

by avenues of insight and reason

to fathom endless depths of existence--

of possibility, seamless and boundless.

We create within things

seemingly created for us-

custom fit to vast possibilities of pulse and breath.

The ends of mystery slip away as we reach;

life teaches and we learn

by bitter tastes and honey drops.

And then there are simply moments

in which I can rest, in the endless sea of stars;

or when moon dazzles tides-in a million moments of truth-

or in the last time…I saw your eyes

summer dance...

Moon eyes,  so they seemed,

gentle like the rise of night

when dusk gives way to dreamy ways

when rest means more than effort

when we seek solace of our wishes

and wonder if in this night’s heat

passions find us again…

In a slow dance like the way we reach-

joined in time and place to another-

to make a bridge of warm wet air;

I watch her dance, and moon eyes speak

as in the silence of soft silver beams

of mysteries sought and found in her face

as if beauty answered each question—for now

Moon eyes float above a seductive dance

and a hot summer night, begins to steam…

seven fifteen...

Across sky

time gives birth to day

flow of morning light and cloud -

strands and filaments, roses into violets;

on breath-brush of wind,

a moment simply felt

from eyes to dry lips

I am humbled by beauty…

my thoughts float to you-

a moment in your eyes,

a soft word in the air between us;

and I am there on a city street

dry lips and…so humble

there, you are

 

A pale blue afternoon moon

tilted half afloat in God’s own blue sea

I wonder of you - half this world away-

if  this were what you’d see?

Perhaps, clothed in darker shades of evening

embraced by glows of distant stars

Moon listens to you- sister soul, ever

eager for warm breath of thoughts.

When you are in ebony, I in blue; reach

beyond the tides of this day

beneath the skin of all we touch

inside the tremored roar of busy life,

there is the voice that speaks all one knows.

There…you are

remembered from moment to moment,

whispered soft, sung aloud—you are

the poetry that lives within my words.

slow...

I found a slow kiss

in a verse she left, an idle thought

in a distant moment, another

in a word used to imitate my laugh

I found one the day before

in a kind moment when I whined

about this or that, some busy day spat

when she listened, in her beauty

like the ever glowing face of the moon

in her grace, as if a gift to my life

and she glows in my thoughts each day

which is the slow kiss, I truly remember

the one…in a universe of miracles,

only found in her eyes

in equipoise...

If I were not afraid to fall into a dream
love would last as long as time
and past the edge over which
everything must fall;
when there is great accounting or simply
the end of all that ever was,
I want love that I've created
made with my life and will to endure;
to linger still like light
above horizon, an eternal midsummer night.

When a bridge between day and night
is never crossed, held in equipoise;
when sunset fills my lover's hair
and my eyes make worship upon her skin.

When she holds my face
like found treasure might not be real...
and she asks again and again
with fingertips and her soft, soft lips.

If not afraid
to wake so sadly and sudden,
I would fall into a dream.

On Sundays...

...she gives herself
sweetness of love and touch
from tedium of passing days, a pause
from shadows that came and stayed a while;

she loves

for its blinding beauty, in waters
that must flow--for the haunting urge
skin upon skin, she tastes lips and feels
lost in giving and taking, to moan her song
at one with walls that seem to tremble too;

in twined limbs and words that linger
so long as racing pulses throb; and as deeply
for it is Sunday,

she is an altar

to knees...

It has the feeling of falling through the floor,
a descent from obvious to subliminal,
by dreams that rise in smoke
cling to ceiling into an invisible fall
soaking into us, through skin into marrow,

where we breathe them within;
blend them into physical essence
perfecting thought into tissue--
to live as we live, die when we die--

and what of sorrows so deep as marrow
so intrinsic as blood and breath;
what of the sadness that descends
covers us as night: in endless boundless depths
where spirit flickers like last candle,
where only the love we have created
covers the raw state of existence.

When we are alone with empty hands,
hands that once held a child... what of life
when it becomes an empty space, airless
useless even to carry an echo...
What of the storm that never leaves us dry
whips us with painful hard rain

Once in childhood dreams, through a window
I saw Grandmother alone and cold
driven to knees by hard rain--Now

the dreamer-child
brought awake by rains, to knees;
lips move to wordless prayers,
knelt in hard rain
looking into an empty window.

captured...

art credit hohli @ www.hohli.com


Evening Sun was stuck in a tree
gleamed with all of its might
piercing every leafless space
curled upon limbs great and small

From across slowly swaying barley,
above stalking corn in sensuous beards
between the vining tomatoes, as I pinch
ripe succulence yet to be

through thicker glass of kitchen windows
painted cinnamon apple and cobbler memories
where the evening flowers have begun to ooze
an exchange of honeys with this busy hive;
it is stuck there, a stained glass bundle of life.

The old crown upon grassy rise, sky wand
above a gentle swale, a prison of a golden glow
I would not see so quickly go, not until
the Moon is ready for her stage, and I have

taken my place with the throng of hungry stars
each in our own ways needy, in thirst
for the kiss of a moonbeam, to be held
silent caress of night air and the heart
tries to capture its silver lover.

warm spring...

Warmth of ancient waters
risen from heart of earth
pulsed from arteries
beneath the skin of the world;

in a balm of peaceful thoughts-
as if returned to first awakening,
cocooned as a womb of birth-
reborn into a moment of our choosing.

Touched by air, wet skin sheds
wetness leaves to cooling kiss,
touches of winds, delight to skin;
heat blends in movement

as the moment passed becomes
expectation... I see you.
First in mind's eyes, wish-like
then full before me, wet and dry
risen from immersion; ready,
for the amazement --
of a lover's touch.

Carlos' dream...

I spoke to Carlos in a dream
as the first feather-in heaven fell-
upon the calling of a mother's tear...
welled in her soul, a sadness
unto the heart of God;

one Mother's heart
made sadness in His eyes.
While cries of all humanity dulled
like whispered waves, this
yet-fallen tear reached within
the limitless love, pieced an unending patience
deeper than boundless wells of forgiveness.

So it was there, in a moment held
in His eyes, yet to be past; within
a curled filament of her pain--there it fell,
feather weight to crush pillars of time
the first feather...

fell upon the call;
and His great sadness rose
like a hand in kindness,
to softly touch one cheek.


Inspired by- Carlos Drummond de Andrade
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9jH1cXBryA

in spring

We make a curtain of your hair,
all calm and still,
breath becomes the wind
to caress our lashes

eyes find delight of closeness,
yet your lips seem so far away from
the piercing shrill of the too noisy world,
from the pull of all we'd need to do;
time makes a fall
into a moment as deep as a wish,
as full as a springtime moon at dusk
when your eyes find only me,
and you...are all I will see...

how much...

I missed you and the Moon
at the end of a world-soaked day

drenched in wasting minutiae
of other folk's woes, tired; then
I paused when the journey home
seemed unending, and fate
was a giant's hand swatting me fly-like,
pushing away a twig in a stream.

I missed you and the Moon

as afternoon curled inside evening
even as I pushed the wall of time
begged it to stop the closing vise
and something shoulder-tapped my turn
to upward eyes to squint into
pale blue and wispy cotton, wind shredded
canopy that held...a soft golden shoulder
in silhouette upon a bed of blue,
as if to whisper entre nous she'd glanced

and then, just you were missed.

So I stood above the noise and crowd
spoke softly, aloud...and told how much.

and we speak...

We speak to God
in frailty of our means
to see and hold life; lost in the midst-
existence most powerful, reality-
life is a fragile nail grip on a glass slope-
time is gravity, we leap into laughter
but ever descend, holding the momentary -
like sands blown in the east wind; simply taken
to empty our palms--- we see memories
happiness, bitters that makes sweetness

and we speak to God.

From an endless stream of hope
despite all obstacles in a rational mind,
when reason dams the stream, reason
that damns the sense of the spirit---yet
it is in sense of spirit that we know the self
it is in the self that we cannot hide the wish

to extend beyond the pull of tides further
than sight of sun at bendings of the world;
deeper than the swimming swirls of light
from a past we cannot measure, flowing
into a future we cannot see,
bound firmly in a moment we cannot hold--

and we speak to God.

To consecrate a power of creation-
the power of love; to converse
with the part of us we would keep,
that which we wish to endure--
and so, we speak...

In the sands...

...cold in my thoughts bleeds
cold onto my words,
the air reaps me
absorbed , this hard-won warmth of body
elusive contentment of spirit

life is a desert night, rolled
between burn and blight- I settle
like sands in the east wind, a wait
until dawn to set ice afire.

In stillness, in fall of frigid air
count emptiness upon my shivered frame
give life to the fingertips of the moon
make a pearl upon the bosom of night
find her heat in my heart, search sky-
legends birthed of distant, wiser men-

in traces of fire, the glowing flower Moon
by petals silent fall, gaze through love
to distant furies that give birth to worlds;
and I yet immersed in fluid flows
cloud and wind,
night's cold envelope of life

I am the serpent in the sands,
coiled to leap into the flame of dawn

momentary...

I watch the dancer
brown skinned man, distilled
rhythms from Africa, trials of black sails,
as he begins... to spider;

weaves a web I cannot see, resolves
a night long mystery then twists
the turn of a lovers name, mimics
ever gentle lick, flame upon wisp of wind
the bent filament of fire.

I am left to imagine what he has said
with limber arms, so many wishes
pour from his handsome face, rise
from his wistful bed...and so many
eagerly vie for a place
to dance the dance of day
in the long and weary-less night

The story ends, hands curve
arms extend into a perfect arc, lures
to catch a stray angel, lingered too long
lost in the siren songs of passions, fallen
to wonder of the flesh,
this puny and transient flesh,
for the flash of momentary pleasure--exquisite
for the flickered point of experience--so do spirits
travel the agonized length of existence to be
a spark, a candle flame in the deepest black.

filled in...

A shadow on the wall kept my eye
a focus on shade and sunlight; how
bright coronas edged your lips, and words
in pleasing tones of pleasant things:
our strength, our weakness for pleasure.

Within shadow, a mirror born gleam
as if the Sun also wished to touch you
my hands felt suddenly silent, as pen strokes
in mind's eye brought feelings to fill in
a penumbra when you were the Moon,
soft scents when you were a rose in my morning;

a welcomed rush of wind upon my needful skin
when you are not here, not in my arms
not in shade nor shadow---yet always
close, in my treasured thoughts.

o noite...[the night]

...a curtain of light,
someday there will be no darkness,
just the light of stars,
filling the sky like grains of sand can fill hands...
then they will miss the night,
wonder about people like us,
who only saw so far...but saw far more beauty

Moon...

your golden skin so near
at the edge of my wishes...when
I listen to a voice as the wind,
gaze at the light you send, to fill
pale night, blends stars and night birds

As you dance upon the mirror of the sea...
I open my hand, to ask--
dance with me, upon petals over ground
to heart sounds, whispers in new leaves.

I plant a seed in spring, it is a night flower...
like you.

an inner silence...

There is no wonder why
I compare you to sea and sky, feel
fulfilled by rich deep rivers
of your eyes; by cause found

in darkest hour
in fullness of power
midst of laughter or
when will and spirit cannot stir,
I see the dawn in you.

The rise of hope and new day
the way well known to an inner silence
assured; warming light that comes
without my hands, despite my fears
I see, and feel the possibilities
of life...and love.

night of fire

we should have met
in a night of fire
when lightning tears the summer sky
and we dance close
bodies rise to drums and thunders;

in a night of fire,
when the heat of my hands ignites
heat of your skin
lips touch sudden, dwell deep
in passion, when feelings rule us.

Fire fills searching fingertips
to brush memories upon soft sounds
and night has burned us before
glorious like sun in our eyes
soaked into us, defining
the shape and substance of us
now the heat of this night
burns like flames in the wind--
tongues hungry for air.

We, like petals of the moon
creatures of fire, connected
by the wick and candle of time
glowing to fill the blackness with warmth
consuming all that we can...

I breathe you in like air into flame,
drink you like water in the desert...
as if you were the precious last




(c)2011 all rights reserved