Carpe Diem

There are a very few things left on earth that compare to a good cup of coffee in the morning. 

The rich woody aroma of those magical brown beans releasing all their secrets when crushed.

The time to contemplate during their slow steep in hot water. 

The anticipation of that heady brew coursing through your bloodstream while you slowly stir the precious dark liquid. 

The pep in your step after. 

It really kick starts the day and gets you ready for your upcoming fight or flight. 

Although, since the great 'event', one must consider oneself most fortuitous to find whole beans. 

Mostly, a jar of good old freeze dried chicory laden factory produced is what reveals itself after a short rummage through what used to be a pantry. 

But today we are lucky. 

And so I write this to you, dear former owner of burnt out rubble. 

In gratitude.

For you, like myself, were a person of discerning taste with a penchant for the finer things in life. 

Life, as precious as your beans, must be preserved and to this endeavor I must be on my way.

I hope this letter finds you in better times and intact. 

Regards, 

a survivor

Redacted

When we first met, I slept on a mattress on the floor. Perfectly picked out for its balance between hard and soft. New. 

The same set up would not be good enough for us. For her. She deserves better I thought. 

I bought us a bed. Hard wood, dark stained and expensive. 

Worthy of her warm resting body. Of our innumerable unions in the early hours of those cold mornings. 

We each chose our sides. To sleep on. To reveal to each other. 

Sometimes as I lay in the darkness I look over to the emptiness that was her side and I remember the emptiness that lay in her eyes. Misconstrued for love. 

And the heavy heart I carried all those years after she left. 

It's weight indented on that once new mattress like gravity in time-space. 

And her side, still new. 

Like she was never there. 

Parchment

Suspended in all its wonder 

         The heavy dot

Spun out from the universe 

And willed itself into being 

Into time-bound reality 

Into primitive carbon vessel 

      Flawed and perfect 

The ink remembers the pen 

       The invisible hand 

That shoots comets and opens petals 

May it's stories be worth writing

Close

I became addicted to the smell of your neck.
Your tea.
The sliver of truth in the stories you told.
But you have sharp edges, 
And I cut myself.
Over and over,
Trying to handle you differently.

I could not know that you coveted the light in my eyes.
That you stole and hid away.
In one of your many dark boxes.
All is black in your weaponized absence.
Still I wait.
Needlessly,
Counterintuitively,
For us to be how we once were,
Close.

Lush

From the primordial soup 
Molten love flowed through my veins
Forming an island
To be mined and exploited

Turbid

As we both sink to the silt below
Let's us reminisce how
You skimmed your heart
Against the still waters that was I

Don't sleep where you lay

I keep awake for hours
On even days
I spend my time
Waiting and wondering what if

The big ones coming

Been a slave to many masters
i can't
Seem
To
Shake my leash

Its not real anyway

Don't sleep where you lay.
No don't sleep where you lay.

Today

I hear shots ringing out
But they are far away
I heard people were being killed
But they were not my kin
I heard ideologies were being persecuted
But they were not my ways of thinking
I heard rights were being given up
But these were not mine
Mine were safe
As was I

I hear shots in the distance
And they are getting closer
I see people dying in the streets
Of another town
Another country
They almost look like me
Almost

Twice shy

The circus continues
Chemical and bioluminescent
Monetary foreplay counts for most
Credentials and famous last names
All glittering under the neon awesome

Floating Jackpot

Onward through
sunlit grass
shake the reptiles out
and make for the waters edge
where all will be revealed
through the delicate play of skimming birds
before she moulds granite
at your feet
Take it like a man.

Trinkets

In a perfect world,
You'd fall asleep on my shoulder
On a train,
On a tuesday afternoon
Even though you fought for the window seat.

Saline

In exile
The parched earth that offers only salt
Where rivers once
Fed and nourished all
This is home
Bleak and dry
but full of promise
That the heavens may once again open
When enough time has passed
When past regressions have been paid for twice over
For this life and the next

Garden

Maybe its now
Time that isn't yours
Freedom hard won but never tasted
Summer citrus lost to the worm within
Poured out like water on concrete
For the burning sun
For bare feet

Scales for the troubadour

Stir crazy sipped sane
Southern gothic
Penny lane
Snakeskin
Sink
Swim
Its all the same

I'm the warm jagged edge
When your spine shimmers
Carnal
When your blue blood simmers
Glow
When you fan your flame

Haiku #2

Spit venom on white
Dissolve archaic mindsets
Make your own Rorschach

Sunburst

Plug in
Play it out
Distort it
Kiss it and save it for later

Play Cold

I feel you
Leaving
Like sustain from a slow strum
Like the shifting cloud that shadows my spot of sunlight
Like the swirling river of smoke
I place at my windowsill
And watch

Shock Strut

It appears we're going crazy
They said
In one voice
Composed of bits of mine and others
Collectively,they are quite convincing
I thought
As I pretended to have no clue

Re:verse

Equal weight
For equal measure
Fingertips on flame
Or hands on water

Just a jester
Mister sequestered
Lost on the inside
Let the outside fester

Scraps for kings
Kisses for the runt
The hummingbird sings
For the rabbits that hunt

Isthmus

A beautiful waterfall at the end of the earth
To die at each night
A new hell to emerge from the next day
Breathless and gasping with cumulative naivety

If every journey has a thousand beginnings
May my hell and your waters meet
To form new land
That I may walk for the first time