Ebb and Flow

My mind wanders and trips over itself with uneven matter and loose notions at the source. Now that the box is unlocked, complication and resignation take a new stronghold. A smaller amount over which to reign, but a reign nonetheless. My ideas carried out to sea on tiny pieces of draft wood, then dumped moments later on my shores, joining all my others washed up before them. Rank with self pity and murky waters.

Rather than look for a buoyant object, I riffle through the debris for fragments to occupy my time, weigh me down, and complicate me yet again. Natures natural selection no match for the strength of my mind on a rampage of self sabotage.

I pick up what's left over, over and over again, even when the sharp bits pearce me and the world gets dark. For the moon stays up with me and I play her. An accomplice that I know will be back for more tomorrow. When I first notice that the moon has swapped shifts with the sun, I'm yet to determine if I'm still dreaming or never shut my eyes.

Totem Poles and Telling Tales

I let ten years flow through me while I danced blindly around the totem pole. The ancient traditions that made me twirl, were made up of the same pasts as my reoccurring choreography. Until I looked up, and saw the totem pole for the first time, as my own.

Ornate carvings intertwined with graffiti, scratches and chunks missing, sometimes from clawing my way or holding on by the tips of my flawed fingernails. Turning my face up to the sky, I noticed the sun cast a shadow from the thick wood and illuminated the sun dial of my time. Surrounding me in orbit, dwarfing my fraction of existence, my kernel of time on this planet. Watching the shadow as though a time lapse photography expressed some urgency with my realization. Here and now.

Rain

Raindrops suspend on the railing,

like suckerfish under the belly of a whale

My imperfect reflection takes shape in their perfect form. One hundred eyes looking back at me. Their glassy top coat catching the overcast glow of the puddle pools nearby.

Their dangling defiance holds me in as another minute passes. Each pod preserving the remains of last nights storm and the beauty of our morning after.

An Artists Hands

My hands look like an artists hands.

Like they've been marinating in a draw full of old pencil shavings and dried paint.

Filled with surprise colour spectrums and dimly lit crannies of lead.

Used, dirty, fingernails and rough splotches,

stain the tops of my hands.

I'm growing fond of my body's masterpiece.

Yet if I was to wash the canvas clean,

I can pretend that the setbacks, knockbacks and drawbacks

of an artist will not become me.

And still

the draw beckons

and elicits a response far stronger,

than the clean backs of my hands and fingernails

could ever satisfy.

Legacy

If you set this flame alight

Set it to burn so bright

As if it does not know how much quik remains

or when the next gust of wind will hit

or when will be its last breath

Until its waxy remains,

have all but used up

its legacy

The Dreamer

(Inspired by Martin Luther King Day)

I can dream in colour,

if you want me to she said.

Her eyes

wider at the thought,

more welcoming than the biggest grin,

intrigued by a concept too big for her breath to hold.

If I can dream in colour she thought,

then can't they all dream in color too?

her breath

slower, with precision

conscious, of the growing consciousness

waking her from years of the deepest slumber.

Buoyancy

Buoyancy I

Take a ticket

Pass it on

Watch it

Try it on

Feel its to's and fro's

See into its futures

And forget its pasts

Sail on its weightlessness

and be guided by the breath that carries

but never hide under its decks

For fear of the limits of its surfaces

Buoyancy II

Draw on it

And make conclusions

Channel its detours

and say yes to its offers

Know that its not a free pass

but it will guide you to freedom

And rest,

assured,

with reckless abandon

that its contents are abundant

and expiry; certain.

The Invisible Breath

I forget to breath.

Throughout the day I forget to breath,

I resist to breath,

and yet, it could save me from myself.

This one simple act of letting go

The idea of breathing is not foreign to me.

It visits me at times during the day.

Reminding me from within,

building a response from outside

Recreating ever cell.

With or without my presence

What Your Soul on Fire Feels Like

you strip me down

inch by inch. and leave me raw....

my sides burning from the inside out.

you creep down and get settled

then strike when you know i'm not

you push me, and try me, and make me try you on

and i wanted it, and i got it, and i asked for it.

its like back burning in the deepest summer months

when it heals, i'll have new skin - thicker, alive, renewed

my back burned

now my souls on fire

and so its starts again

The Pulling Thread

The hierarchy
not reality

for no one knows who pulls the first string
and where unravelling creates the hole

No one knows, the power, the force
of one, of you, of me
but it will run with the unravelling string
and it will run its course

Its course will go where you couldn't see
until the lesson is learned
and you're being who you've always meant to be.

Letters to the Universe

The beauty, sadness, joy and awe that this world brings,

joins together the pieces of love, compassion and generosity

that binds the soul, and binds souls together.

Your mysteries have me in awe of the marvels to come in my life and through my life, through me, the only me on the planet.

You and me are one in the same. I move through you without time and space, and you move through me with your grace.

We dance, our movements are so as one, that it appears we both take the lead.

Eternally on your dance card.

Something Big to Hold Onto

Last night i asked the Universe for a gift, some direction, a light, something big to hold and grasp onto. And it gave me a letter to the universe. I don't know from where its words came, but it flowed through me as quickly as a storm hits. It flowed from The Universe, through me and back to the universe. Like it was having conversations with itself. I was the messenger, the delivery man. And when it was gone, it was gone. But it came back the next day and took hold of me again. Wanting me to take pen to paper and join the dots. The dots to my life...and without thinking to much about it, I let the words float onto the page, from one to another without perfection. Perfect in its imperfection. Too complete to be toyed with. To whole, to worry about what was missing. Enjoying themselves as they are.