His shoulders are square;

But they are not shoulders.

They are the sharp corners

Of heavily bound volumes

Whose covers are pristine.



His hair is voluminous;

But it is not hair.

It is simply a volume

I was age twelve when I first drew her.

It was a scorchingly hot summer day in June when I walked up toward the house from the barn, heading toward the old cedar tree near the house. The tree had bird feeders hanging on it, and probably I was going to check the feeders to see how much seed they had in them.

There are only three rules for survival: no contact with meat, dairy, or humans. He’s already broken two of them.

Breathing in. The lungs expand, chest tight. The air catches in my throat. Breathing out. The air slithers out, my eyes going, facing the paper. It is blank, void of anything but a red line and blue lines. My mind is already at work. What is it going to be?

A girl sits at a table in front of a coffee shop, eyeing the charming boy lounging next to her. They observe one another as if their friends don’t exist, his eyes catching hers like a blue wave crashing on the beach. “Well, I’m not ordinary.”

Allez means go, and I go. Allez is his title but he has no name. We work well together, he and I. Born of trying times, our relationship is as strong as the aluminum forged in it. Flying across stretches of hard-packed cement is what we do.

The girl with the sunset eyes and the boy with hands like glass.

He fell in love with her because she was so beautiful when she cried.

He hated to see her in tears, but when she cried, streaks of blue and orange and yellow and pink fell down her cheeks.

On sad days,

his eyes tell me stories –

stories of pain,

of struggle,

of truth.

They hold within them soft, grey clouds after April afternoon storms.

But the sky is bright without the sun,

because it is never truly gone.

My record player- The warm sound of “Ultraviolence” circling through my room like nothing I’ve ever heard before. Connected with the music. 

Quite a lot to say but such little time,

We are all stuck in the crime of rhythm and rhyme.

Forgive my silence, my pen is running dry.

Don't know if I'll make it but I can promise to try.

right now, I am a rough draft.

I am left here to be

looked back on and revised

Standing alone, solo

In the darkest shadows

She would pour her forte emotion into piano whispers

Although she is afraid now, her goal never blurs

A old man beyond salvation

slumps on the ground

and prepares for his end.

He starts listing what he doesn’t have

“These violent delights have violent ends

And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,

Which, as they kiss, consume.”

-William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet 

One star, a single shining star,

Made us today, who we are.

When rocks both smooth and coarse,

Came together with force.

When the galaxy was new,

Something in space was a brew!

Some of my hobbies include:

writing

and baking

and looking into your brown eyes until I fear that I just might lose myself inside of them.

A few of my favorite activities are:

drawing

and sewing

Red and burning

Heart jumping

Pumping

A whisper of excitement

Concealed behind hesitant lips

Waiting to slip

Forget.

It burns

It burns deep inside

every drop that runs down

your back as you ignore the pain

correction after correction

being told you aren’t good enough for it

I'm not sure if the glass is half empty or half full. 

Coffee shops leave me homesick for 8 minute drives to your cul-de-sac, to your arms; you're always busy. 

I am a strong young man exhausted from my ways

I’ve been in eleven facilities but nothing ever seemed to change

Until one day I felt his grace and heard it say

Come to me my child and I will take it all away…

Twirling

Twirling-Twirling

Along with the shhing of the pointe shoe on the stage

The smooth, sweet music playing to her sharp moves.

From his lips

To the paper,

To the teacher,

To the air,

To my mind that will not recall.

A thought may amble a bit ‘till it trips to a halt,

            ‘till it ticks up a halt and a half.

Slams to a door and whatever blue-black residue flirts with the hinges,

This curving,
cynical back behind me, it’s:
A warm bench,
A warm chestnut bench,
A warm chestnut.  A cold foreboding pew.
Luster here has now turned bland:
contaminated with waltzing dust and
a reek of pages
not turned for a decade.
Maybe more.

The sky was an abyss of gloom,

As the trees billowed in the breath of the wind.

The stars sang secrets to the moon,

Above a castle holding lovers within.

An age-old monarch was outraged by his daughter’s betrayal,

It is a wall.

It is stiff, blank. Unmoving. 

It guards the paradise 

That she knows belongs there.

It is a stone

Waiting for her, the sculptor, 

To make it mean something.

The form of letters slop and curve on a page

like a human body. 

White paper, bare skin,

The line of a belt below a belly button:

the line of a notebook just below a sentence. 

The insistent decision that

The world is beyond repair because

No longer will

Human nature fix these things.

Negativity and pessimism

Invade the land of

Enthusiasm and assurance.

The problems remain

Because

Hello? 

I am looking,

Through windows and doors,

Looking at trees and between the shores 

For that spark.

The little thing that ignites souls ablaze

Propels emotion to heights unknown