Reaching Joy

To live in a lie is to what exactly?

Is it that much different than what you are

doing now, in this moment? Are you lying,

bare skinned, on your couch, lounging away

this day in hopelessness until the sun sets

and rises its yellow head, punches you back

up again?  Or are you, perhaps, shot right out

of a cannon by night fall?  Did those stars envy

you, at least in your eyes; did they call out one

name that you thought was yours until it felt

harsh even on your own tongue?

Perhaps we are all too unknowing.

Perhaps we are all but one, afraid of the fell

of darkness in night, the sound of peace in day,

the feel of truth in light.

September 26, 2013

That smile,

boy, it brings me home…

to a cobblestone street I once knew;

to a field of grass, blind, twinkling with dew;

to a view from a tower high up above;

to a quaint yellow sidewalk now we both can love;

to a seashell once painted and primed;

to a bell rung once that hummed and chimed

for me to go home,

go home, go home…

So I follow the bell, then pick up the shell,

walk the path with pride, to the tower I glide,

fall on the grass of green and walk into your arms,

in this dream, never seen.

April 24, 2012

Remember the day you stopped saying

“remember”?

Remember when your friend sped down the hill,

willing you to follow?

Remember when that kiss became a date,

when the date became two years

of stories and tales and lines until we remembered

who we were and where we wanted to be –

because we didn’t know where we were going.

So we just remembered,

and remembered, until memories soaked up our souls

like a wet sponge and doused dirty drops

onto each dimple of skin.

Remember how you held me there?

You took my hand along the shore for the first time

and we ran, laughed like children, knowing some day

we’d remember.

September 13, 2013

My favorite date is the day when I left

my old definition of trust behind:

the way we trust a movie and its action on screen,

like a hobbit claiming his hero role;

the words we speak to a friend or two to let them in,

to break down a passage of time and prove

that forgiveness is now in its place;

or simply to trust in the self.

For to let go used to mean so much in language–

now it is little more than letting my own breath give way.

December 23 , 2012

You’re back –

back in the game without a rooftop on the hill,

so all you can do is keeping climbing,

climbing.

Your voice

has carried over centuries to long lost poets

and scribes of the West who craved fresh water

and sweet air just as my lungs call out now.

Your hope

will always be here, especially at the moments

you make it.  You stride. The path leads up

to a perfect glow of light and you can perch

your pride on the line and call out, “I’m free.”

August 28, 2013