Hopeless (The Wolf)

I want for nothing save
the safe construction of our home.
I want for nothing save
the painstaking effort in building
something to call our own.

But

What is the point
when I know I will lose hope?
I will give up,
I will let the darkness overtake.

That is the point.
I know I will lose hope.
I will give up,
I will let the darkness overtake.

I am always all I am.
Am I all I could be?

One day that wolf will come down
from the mountain.
The mountain that is so far away.

My faith like a flashlight
paling to the black.
Catching the tracks and serrated breath
lingering in the cold air
as the wolf bounds just ahead.
Just beyond.

Exhaling curses under my breath,
our whispering traces mingle.
Whipping the light through the trees,
pounding the casing and regretting
never changing those batteries.

A threat dissolving with the night.
Absorbing my resolve.
And I will have nothing.

Nothing but

That which we built.
Descending sword will meet our hilt.
Let us not allow our humanity
to stain our consciences with guilt.

While both mountain and wolf are far away,
let us build something to hold onto
come that trying day.

Hope

The tyranny of deterioration
The suffering that I see all around
I gaze upon ongoing assassination
Our desecration of He who rose from the ground

I notice this all only
If I am lucky enough to look beyond my own skin
And I know Jesus instructed us to look within
But how can I stomach myself if I know my own sin?

Still I replace the back of my eyelids with mirrors
Close my eyes and face my fears
Face all the times I’ve reveled in and revered
Waters from which I should have steered my vessel clear

To carry on living in such a state
Wars within and without
End in sight
It can breed apathy
To continue to watch the world go by
And our lives, turning pages without reading
The words because previous grammatical lessons
Have rendered us nothing but pain, and
Suffering makes the end that much harder to gain and…

I mean to say that I’m crushed.

The combined weight of the world, my heart and my mind
Has proven too much.

Yet still I crawl. Still I hope.
Still I bite and scratch to feel
And to know what I don’t have the strength to know.

For it is a task bigger than I can take
To fully recognize the Goodness in all
To fully surrender to the fact that
God has already broken our fall…

I think it takes a courage to Hope
I think it takes a courage to exist
Outside the scope of our reasoning
And wait for His plan to persist
Throughout the ages as it always has

And always will.

Though I still can’t shake from
My mind’s eye the first time He
Took me in dream up with Him in
The sky and despite the joyous Company
Present all I could do was cry because I
Could not recognize anything at all.

And though He pried and pried
And longed to by my Guide my
Pride pushed that aside as part
Of me never wanted to give up the
Hell I knew I deserved.

I remember He held me close
As I wanted to separate
Since I knew I hadn’t the strength
To wait for what I considered my
Absolution. An impossibility.

And then He whispered, “I am the Solution.”
As I dreamt us over starry bends.
And then pushing back against God’s will
I cried out, “I’ve failed you once, what if it happens again?”

“What if it happens again?”

He responded by opening my eyes,
And I felt the Sun come in.

—–

To hope through the darkness in our hearts
And the darkness in these lands
Is not something I claim to understand
But it is something I have resolved to stake
My being on as firmly as I can.

Because I’ve seen His tears through the holes in His hands.
He sees a different everything, and I’ve heard His command.

So He has wished, so I shall stand.

Ash Risen

you tree limb bent out from the others,
you collapsing of the chest as everyone laughs,
you mid-july broken ceiling fan

that earthquake mother,
that tectonic plate father,
you poor, caught-in-the-debris, scar on the head survivor

you valley of flowers,
those volcanic eruption grandchildren,
you forgotten beauty

you ash risen lover,
you missing puzzle piece,
you faded photograph

you backseat confession,
you laying on the tile floor sleep,
you moonlit slow dance

you home,
you paradise,
you safe haven

you tender, divine soul,
you unbroken hope

A Love Poem

There is a shit ton
Of shitty love poems
Out there.

“I never wanted someone
As much as I want you
I’d give damn near anything
To be with you
I’d say anything
To have you in my arms
And I would do everything
To wake up next to you”

Sure, they say them prettier
But strip down the ballgowns and
Elegance, everyone’s body is still
The same. True beauty can come
From confidence, sweat or both.
But status? Or money?
Being rich in vocabulary only gets
A poem as far as that currency can nourish.

I suppose today that is good enough for most.

Can anyone say anything
Besides statements that
Merely betray their sensibilities
And aptitude to sacrifice
The very merits that make
Love worth pursuing in
The first place?

What of the notion that
Doing anything for someone
Isn’t love at all. But rather an excuse
To not try. To fall in love with
The fall.

Tragic love, forbidden romance,
Truly beautiful at first glance,
Though nothing more than a corrupted
Dance.

Love is a choice to act
With a voice and listen
To facts. And I’m not
Taking the soul out of
Relationships, but rather
Putting more soul into it.

Say yes AND no, question
Claw and pursue growth.

Say
I love you, and that is why I must go.

Say
I love you, and that is why I demand a cease
To this floundering in each other’s inability
To see beyond a feeling. Our thirst for each
Other’s seas does not justify the hole we have
Cracked in the damn. Ruptures always precede
Disaster with sweet, sweet relief.

Say
I love you, no.

A Long Suddenness

I think I’ve been warming up to this
For months
Enough months to equal years but I
Don’t want to mislead you.

I’m young, I haven’t lost much
Nor much have I won. Months gives the
More accurate impression, though I
Suppose that is one of the points
Of poetry; you draw from it what
You will. But honestly I never
Thought of these as poems, every
One is more like a pill. I ingest more
Than most; I’m probably my biggest
Reader. Surely my biggest
Critic. No truer or more confusing
Path is laid than by each of
These bricks; a path forged
And wandered all the same.
Hours spent re-reading what
I write, searching for an answer between
The lines to the question of my
Self-spite.

I’m closer than ever to
Realizing that I’ll never be
Close, and accepting the fact
That acceptance is the one
True shield I have. And the click
Won’t be sharp, but more a
Drawn out tone, much as a
Wolf’s call when the pack has
Lost one of its own.

A paradox. A destination embodying
Everlasting motion and growth.
Ever casting a net; true they taught
Me to fish but I never learned how
To properly prepare the dish-
The lack of forks coupled with
Raw flesh makes for quite the
Scene.

I’m realizing the pinnacle of this
Existence is merely the mean.

Greatest becomes average,
Gentleman turns savage
In the shadows of All.

How fitting a season
For this beautiful Fall.

Fierce (As She Set In)

Unfamiliar weight pressing
Familiar action
No regressing

Resilient fire
Burning deep within
Her chest, visible
In her eyes,
Smoldering atop
This naked of cold.

Tattered plains windswept
With circumstance
Stretched onward,
Those same winds wept
When trying to drown out
Her one word.

One she cried with every
Pull, one unknown to any
Language save her Native
Tongue, engrained since
Before her life had begun.

The veins of history
Each unique
She draws from hers
More often than she
Thinks. A long line
Of never-give-ups,
think-till-your-head-hurts,
just-pick-up-the-damn-weights,
She stands tall and fills her place.

Sound waves bending
Around incarnate will, audible
Taking its place behind
Sense

You will never hear
Only nature knows to fear
Thinking leaves room to be misunderstood
Elements know what eyes never could

Stand back.

Justice

Throw This Poem In Your Lake Of Melted Weapons

For every idiom written, there is another
To contradict it.

Wipe your tears away with the same
Finger you point and spit with.

I fear we all figuratively bathe
In emotional abuse far more often
Than we’d like to admit.

This is an area of exploration
That we shouldn’t restrict!

Self inflicted, most.
Though mental and spiritual
Victims we all play,
Truly grievous cases leave
Accusations hollow at best.

We can’t respect the dead who are trying to rest?

A solid grip on reality
Is impossible for most.
We all have very real problems
We mistake for our nature,
Very unimportant matters
That we doctor up and suture.

Yes, pain is different for all
And la-dee-la-dee-da.
Push to that point of failure
And break through the wall! There
Is a direct correlation between
Sweat seared patches and those who
Triumph over themselves.

How deep are you willing to delve?

Take your time, its fine
Sift through the catalogs, the
Brine. Let me know who
Your next appointed jesus is.

I’ll be busy bashing my head
Against the same damn things
Trying to tear down the same
Damn walls with what refreshed
Passion I can bring.

But at least I’m correctly
Self-identifying,
I’m trying to read the lyrics
Of a song I know I can’t sing.

I’m tried, and unfit.
You’re tired, and can’t handle it.

Free

This night is colder than I remember. I have walked these woods for months now. I know the trails. The trees. The bite of the cold.

I have grown, though lost some pleasures. My physical discomfort, my shaking hands, the price of entry for becoming a better man.

I’ve learned to set up camp beneath the types of trees that would give the younger me nightmares. And while their branches do well to catch the snow, catching dreams is not their strong suit.

So I stave off sleep, and again gather wood. Though its been so long since a fire has caught, I know this time will not be for naught. And I sit down to build a fire, trying to work faster than the the thoughts my mind gathers. But I’m too late.

I always pray the spark will catch.

The excitement, the anticipation, is always.
Experienced.
Looking forward. Longing. Imagining.

I never look to let the spark go.

The true power in flame
Lies in the darkness
From which it sprang

Have you tasted the black?
Have you had the sun stolen
With no promise of it coming back?

It will drive you wild
You will grovel and cry
Scrape anything together
For promise of
Better weather
Though strategies won’t make anything
Better, whether
Or not you feel you deserve
These pages have all been written
Long before your nerves
Down to the last letter

Their Purpose was never concerned about making you feel better

A fire imagined only keeps warm
Those who live a life as fabricated
As the flames that were supposed to lick
These frosted fingers

A spark put out was never meant to burn
It obviously did not take the lessons learned
In spark school and put them to good use
It was too busy acting cool and being a douche

So why the crying? Why the self-abuse?
Don’t we all really long for truth?

And I know the cold is more real
Than the warmth an imagined douche fire
Could ever make me feel.

I can’t wait
I can’t stand
To see imagined criteria
Unmet by time’s sand

The fire will come
The flames will set me free
It will be meant, heaven sent
Warming the cold and straightening the bent

Sparks adept at being sparks
Will have more bite and less bark
Will put an end to this cold and death to this dark

Unless smothered in our frustrations
If it doesn’t just perfectly hit our mark

I grasp for the plannable
Without realizing that everything is flammable!

My breath, it slows
As I see a spark catch
Through the snow
If I let it, it could end all
The worry of death, the great fall

Then my focus, my writing
The thoughts for which I’ve been fighting
Slip out the door
My cry of delight drowned out by my sorrow
As I curse and forget what burned out sparks are for

To keep us cold

That notion though
It grows so old
But one thought again makes me bold

The fire will come

Not to thaw my cold fingers
Nor for my visions and hope
But perhaps for my willingness to sit in silence
After you spoke

Maybe to do what fire does best
To burn, and forget the rest

Don’t Worry

Lightning can’t strike
the same place twice
I came back, both times greeted
with the same empty feeling, a hollow nice
to meet you, I’m not from here though
I can show you around. And just so you’re
aware I don’t mean my soul, I’ve
learned not to bring others
out over such thin ice
melts in your drink, the sun
working on what your appetite
can’t finish, conversation
and laughter filling your stomach
instead, using up as much of the
term ‘literally’ as they can.

An empty echo is all
I hear of the storm once near
me is where you have chosen
to be, and the proximity is
refreshing, genuine. I know
because I can’t identify the source
of my affection, buried too
deep beneath hope and fear
is still present. Though I look
at it as a gift, reassurance that
I’m still aware of your ability
to snap my neck, a vulnerability
that has made everything so clear
everything out of this god
damn house! I saw the way he slid
off your blouse, our memories
and moments followed both of your
sweat and stink down the drain

my brain of all of these thoughts.
You were not the calm but
a continuation of the sleet and rain
is all I hear now each night,
soft breath and hair replaced
by an acute understanding of
the weather outside my window,
with no heartbeat to fall asleep
to, no vessel to my attention contain
my rage! This is a new page!

Lightning did strike twice.
Though the next storm
I’m sure I can persuade.

And These Are the Promises

To gather the peace
That swirls through the
Cedars in the yard

To put it in
With where I would
Store my record collection
If I were to have one

If the world still turned slow

To combine that bark stained whisper
With the notes that find my ears
When I can’t find my mind

To give you the music
That animates my thoughts
And the stillness that animates their origin

To acknowledge my weakness
For your smile and its sweetness
To gather and gift my secrets
To hope that it pleases
To sort through the meaningless
To make you laugh till your chest wheezes.

To walk further along if these blessings don’t meet us.

To keep pushing forward
With all I have left
To keep my soul’s doors unlocked
With no fear of theft
To accept you may listen to my music
And wish you were deaf
To prepare to gather up the chunks of silence
After you break it over my chest

To trust that chaos
Is not the rebellion
Of the cedars’ breath