We sometimes seem to stay in stasis
- Where
Our advance or retreat is naked to the well-dressed eye.
Today’s ennui is indistinguishable from
Yesterday’s fog.

This trench warfare of the spirit
- Like
The real deal – puts us face-to-face with the already dead.
Our war of attrition malingers here
In empty pockets.

The mercy of inertia isn’t lost
- On
Fretful fingers worrying the beads of those most devout
And closely linked in faith with physics –
For the path to Valhalla is overgrown
With ground cover.

In quiet corners of our shared retreat,
We trace the cracks upon our fragile hearts.
The embers glow, a warmth we both still seek.

The leap we took, once wild and incomplete,
Now echoes in the chambers where love starts.
In quiet corners of our shared retreat.

The rain outside, a soft and rhythmic beat,
We listen, as our souls begin to chart.
The embers glow, a warmth we both still seek.

Our words, like fragile glass, we gently treat,
For fear of shattering what’s left to impart.
In quiet corners of our shared retreat.

Yet hope persists, a stubborn, quiet feat,
As hands entwine, and healing love imparts.
The embers glow, a warmth we both still seek.

So let us mend, with patience and repeat,
The frayed threads of our once-torn, fragile arts.
In quiet corners of our shared retreat,
The embers glow, a warmth we both still seek.

Retrace the line a little to the left.
Deep breath, the stretch of rubbery debris.
You see the new creation taking shape.
Now wave your hands and brush the past away.

You never need an artist for the art.
The part is played by those who wrote the lines.
Sometimes the little ditty in your head
Is tune instead to bring the hope to life.

Stand tall. Breath free.
No one but you can tell
If this is all there is -
And heaven’s door.
Or if some window
Lets you jump toward Hell.

The water rushed faster
than I was comfortable taking your brother out. he couldn’t walk yet.
Yet, my two Tarzan women
ignored me.
Barefoot, strong and loud
you both stomped to the
newly dubbed “jumpin’ rock”
as tree frogs and cicadas cheered
you on.
Your happy sounds screamed and echoed
in the gully
when with wet feet you both taught us
water lessons within
the chaos of is
the splash of how
the rushing of love
And the leap of now.

I watched you, three days,
Three, full, keep keep the
Whites of your eyes on me
To say I do not have my doubts,
But I have yours. And laid beside
Me while I melted into every afternoon
With frameless liquidity, and froze, a broken
Regulator.

I spent a soaking Saturday it’s true, and
To assuage your fears, they may seem
Flammable enough to blow, but there
Is nothing spectral about my tears.