Weird Interactions

 You approach me like an alien

in a movie where it is unclear

if the strangers come in peace,

but communication of some kind

is certainly necessary

to find out--

and I talk to you like

we shared past lives, over and over

together,

and for the life of me

I can't recall a single one,

but it must have been a powerful

soul contract to

have gone on so long,

without a doubt.

Maybe we could 

awkwardly learn

one another's tongues

after patient study,

until we become fluent

and discover a shared language

suprisingly

congruent?

Astray

 Knowing what I want now is knowing

the things I have and do not want,

with a homesickness that makes

it impossible to be home.

I'm longing for a place

that feels like me

that is anywhere else I could

happen to be.

Restless in my exhaustion,

I yearn to find

energy in the idols

I burn

with the glee of an arsonist

on Bonfire Night

where my wrong longing

suddenly seems

right. 

Little Rituals

 The greatest work is made

of many small steps,

like a pyramid or a ladder;

hone knives,

tend fires,

set plates,

carry rods,

lay down your burden at night,

and pick it up again.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Wear out shoe leather

and bend the knee. 

Every thing you act on

will also act on you

with or without intention--

therefore be intentional,

but do not be afraid

to step into the unknown

because you have made a life 

of all the little steps.

Knives, fires, plates, rods.

The tools fit your hand

like you were born with them

and will be reborn with them.

Make of that what you will.

The Snow Maiden

 She asks herself if it was cold--

it was. She was.

She was cold to him,

but was it so wrong?

The frost in the air

from her words 

was all she had

to numb the pain

of her saying them,

and with anything else,

she might melt.

Sometimes it looks like a wave

 Sometimes hope looks like a wave

beginning slowly, far from shore,

but swelling as it comes--

impossible to ignore.

Sometimes it looks like the Tower card,

lighting flashing and 

falsehood crashing.

Sometimes it looks like the only way

for hands that work

and feet that pray.

Sometimes it starts with dissatisfaction

that turns into a tide

of powerful action. 

Sometimes hope is what must carry you--

but it will take more

to see things through. 

That change will start

with a wave.

Seeing the Rabbit

 The instinct is in there,

still,

like muscle memory,

no tension,

just moving like

an arrow in flight.

A flick of a switch,

and I'm in gear,

chasing the movement

of something I did not need

to be taught 

to run after;

just as simple as a greyhound

responding to something

in my blood. 

You smile,

and I have seen

the rabbit.

I need to stretch my legs.

Atalanta

 When the flash of gold

rolled into her path

she flashed back to the

way her feet moved

slower on the rolling timbers

above a wide dark sea

and stopped despite

her former resolve,

the taste of a quest

associated in her mind

with that shiny aura

and her known examples of men

that were not so bad,

after all.

Consolation

 I won't try words

where only time

can only barely

mend the ache

or throw a silver lining

under the tarnished

sky, but I am here

to listen if

only to your silences

and sit with the 

part of you that

needs someone

when the rest of

you wants to be

alone and

chase the storm

that has found you.

Protective

 The loyal hound of my thought follows you,

(though you never called for it). 

Not to spy,

not too close, just curious where you might go,

wondering if you wanted company--

that sort of thing. 

It isn't much.

My heart wants to protect you

like the glass of a lantern

that lets in air but shuts out

an extinguishing breeze--

I think these things but freeze

before I could say them aloud.

It's both not a lot

and seems like too much.

I can't protect you

from time, 

or care,

or loss

but trust you are safe

from me.

Familiar Stranger

 Every grief becomes its own creature,

a familiar stranger, 

individual as a fingerprint,

independent as it comes and goes.

It cries in the morning

like a baby

and aches and groans at night

like an old wound.

It wanders in unexpected

with the face you know,

but sometimes it just sits

unseen and

you sit with it, 

sharing the memories of what was

and the future things that will not

be.

It's nothing to fear.

Fleeting

 You wouldn't know

because I couldn't say

the feeling I had

when I held you for 

one minute

and wished it were

for life--

that minute was life to me.

A Caution

 Warming my hands at this fire

while wearing kerosene gloves;

I've never known how to be

really cautious around love.

My deepest thoughts left unspoken

and never given a name

will persist in silence unbroken

even as I burst into flame.

It's Ok Not to Want the Things You Don't Want

When you hear the squeaking hinge 

of the door of opportunity and feel

office walls are too close

to a cage for comfort--

Listen!

It's ok to push away 

another plate

when you've enjoyed a meal, 

read the fine print and 

walk (or run!)

away from the deal. 

You can have enough.

It isn't only fear of the unknown 

that gets you--

it's the known stuff.

And you can just say "no."

You can just not want things.

You can just know

what you know. 

And your mind can't take you

where your heart

won't go.

Poltergeist

You glide through my mind

like a ghost, passing through 

my walls

and rearranging my

mental furniture. 

Orbs of light disturb the corners

of my thought 

and my dreams seem

to run strangely

hot and cold,

but there's nothing

tangible to hold.

I don't run from this haunting

in my brain--no.

I like to be in whatever place

I find you.

Secret Identity

 I learned no one would save me from myself

but me and decided

there was something I had to be,

and this would not be my

supervillain origin story--

but I still have a secret identity.

The feats of strength like

lifting the weight of my dreams

changed me. 

No cape, just a torch

the Statue of Liberty could not rep.

And dropping it feels like arson.

With great power comes great--

etc.

But no one else has to know that.

My greatest enemy does, though,

and she has been 

burned.

Brown

 The hue of my second sunrise

is brown

like the coffee I try to drown

the last of night's 

half-remembered dreams in,

or the rich soil I plant

the seeds of my 

half-baked schemes in.

Like the darkest amber my

gadfly wings could

be trapped in?

No! Like the softest fur

my trembling soul

could be wrapped in.

If I could only start all my days

in the warm glowing dawn

of his gentle brown gaze.

Absence

 I have been stealing looks at you

but you have stolen my breath

every time--

let's call it even.

Flashes of your radience burn

bright against my shadows

leaving images

so real they stay with me

even in your absence.

I feel you on my shoulder like a bird;

your absence takes up space

with me.

It nearly speaks.

But all I hear is something

like a distant song,

and feel longing.

Smithing

 The key to my heart was lost--

so much had happened before.

It once was left in the door.

It once was kicked onto the floor.

It sat there for days;

no one bothered to pick it up.

it was jammed one time 

the wrong way

and twisted.

The last few times

the key seemed bent,

and my heart resisted.

At long last I went 

and changed the lock. 

It might be a nasty shock--

but next time--

I have learned,

the right to hold this key

will be earned.

The Pious Pilates

 Was his blood even cool

before you dipped in one accusing finger

to paint his character

assassin-red?

And did his self-sacrifice

say nothing to you

of anyone else

that ever bled?

You find the cross

convenient to wear

but watch a fallen man

saying it is

not yours to bear.

You have found your feet

to stand for a lie--

it is the same as

condemning a man to die,

not once,

 but twice.

frozen in death,

destroyed by ice.

You carry nails in your pockets

seeking candidates for Calvary

and wash your hands so publicly. 

Anathema. 

Anathema.

You never-whitened sepulchers,

let the blood stain you

forever.