Dreams like this

Black sky on white fantasies
of a tranquil heavens
And peace that reigns forever

It is truth that speaks
With a voice that calms
Through all the daylights and darkness to come

Resounding in souls of submission
Rolling like the waves of a sea
That carries out my heart
In deep reverberation

through questions and all uncertainty
Into a cove deep with still waters
And warmed from the bracing chill

There is something far above
Keeps our minds in harmony
with each other
With the constant that is His Name

Like raindrops falling through still skies
Like eyes that glisten
With sure promises
Made when the world was designed
For our hearts to meditate

And think on Thee

I know no answers
I know no secret paths
I know only you
Have all the future of my desires
My wishes unspoken
My dreams unplayed

Deep within your unseen purpose
Wherefrom all good
and all mercy
Wins the day
For love

I have no dreams
But these

touch with you

I lost touch with you so many years behind
Found I'd been wandering long
though I never had a place to be
Found I been painting fantasies
That were just fingerprints
Smeared on a canvas
With only colors of longing

I had lost touch with you
So many years ago
But talked the while with the wind as if you were there beside me
My walk was haunted by that apparition I held onto
Your ghost was painted with the colors of desire
Then washed with saltwater
Till the lines were just gray embellishment floating on white space
and tears

Listen carefully

Morning's scent in the mists of the careless breeze
is your laughter at the gleam of life's razor-edge

The voice of the leaves a hundred feet overhead
in the forest of ancient Sages
Is your certain declaration that I can do anything
because you love me

The lesson of the dream remembered, like advice never fully faded,
waiting and waiting..
Is your embrace against the chill air, the warmth of your lips pressed to my neck,
comforted and comforting..

The taste of the rain on my tongue, the droplets of life playing about my very being
is your smile when we are alone
for a moment

in the raging din

and above all
the magnificence of the sky
with it's looming clouds, untameable lightning - the depth that finds no end

anywhere

this all combined
is your eyes when they light upon me
anywhere
at any time

they are crystalline chambers that encompass the world
and then promise it to me
because I have loved you



Listen carefully now.

I

Love

You

where were you
when the sun went down this evening
into a great abyss that has no eyes

where were you
when tears went welling up around the world
like the dew on a billion

tender

shoots

where were you when I wished for them

God's mercy and light

when my face was crushed to the ground

when I ached for Justice

where were you when I embraced you in my mind
that you and I at least were one tiny

island

against an endless hostile sea

I suppose you were waiting
perhaps wishing for me
even wondering

where I might be swimming

so inconspicuously

but I didn't have the courage to surface
and see

Like blistering sunshine

Like winter rain pelting my eyes
when I have asked for spring
like the hill I am forced to climb
like the smile I must wear when I move about life

Are memories

broken here or there like cobblestones
filled with rains
stagnant little pools now
that teem with bacteria-culture

my dreams upon reflection

how such is lost
how does anything die
but it takes a new visage
like the man I knew wearing this mask for a ball

not sure who he is anymore but he plays in the dance
i am sure
what are his steps though
i do not know
do I look upon confusion
or bold foot-inventions?

strange I don't know this life
once the plasticene wrinkles and black eyeholes obscure him
or have they taken his place?
strange that suddenly I'm wondering where he's headed
when he departs this festive prancing
will he leave at all?
will he stay?

But I thought I once knew him
I thought I once knew him

I remember him being there in the biting rain
I remember him walking the cracked cobbles too

WHO ARE YOU?

who are you



my curiosity no longer compels me to know somehow


I will walk from this room and leave him behind
and those memories do not fade
but my Name no longer feels darkened by them
only the past
and someone
I think ... Regret
or...
Resigned

I left behind
who still is dancing in a darkened room
far away from me

I did good things today
took out the trash
made the bed and matched up socks
from the heap they were in

all the while thoughts rebounded
in the playroom that is my head

I was dancing I was singing
with you
like we did once on a parking garage
lighted by the stars and lampposts
observing us from a distance

And then with no warning we were reading to each other
some obscure romance
you leaning on my shoulder and smiling
and we chuckled at how great things were
for novelized human beings
and Times New Roman love-affairs

And I leaned back and told you I love you
as I placed my lips to your cheek
and fell silently
madly in love with you again

But what was I thinking then when you and I said goodbye
and I was so self-satisfied
where were my tears to give me pause
where were your echoing memories then?

And, a little after, I was having dinner with a friend
we talked of future plans
involving place and possession
and the meaning of every word
like 'home' like 'want'
like 'life' like 'happiness'
vanished right before my mind's eyes
trailing behind you into perfect darkness

and when I left my throat was dry
thirsting for the voice that once was half of mine
and I stumbled onto a busy street
and cried as I watched you from the corner of my eye


you were having a pristine time
no thought of me twinkled in your mind
as you laughed when you found yourself held as if
by the arms of your first love

Now I lay me down to sleep
and turn my head to where you used to be
and ask you silently
how shall I love you - I will give you everything
that once was mine for the mishandling
but you would make it beautiful I know
now I know
now that I see how beautiful your every breath is
when pressed lightly against my longing

for your tender
embracing eyes
dark as the night I see
when I call out begging God to ask you
One more night to sympathize with your memory of me

and I will sing a song I confess you've never heard before
who's shadows sometimes played upon our kisses
and my arms will be the same

but they will never, never, never leave
would you just smile at me
and say, "Yes"
and let me prove I understand

how precious you are

I'll wait for your answer
I'll be patient
while I set my clocks to wake me
from the dreams I'm holding on to

I am thinking of you

I am thinking of you when Sun just begins to imagine releasing shafts of life itself into our newly birthed fantasies

I am thinking of you as darkness descends slowly
over all our efforts and struggles and deliberations
into dreams of a new world
and impossibilities
taking a form they have never yet known

I am thinking of you when I consider what wakens the senses to longing
for the New Day we've been waiting for ever since the earth began her groaning

I am thinking of you


thinking of you

Softly whispering to me
that no matter the cacophony this bullying world may make into our sensitive ears,
all will be fine
when you can cling to me
and I can cling to you

I am thinking of your embrace
and tender kisses that are songs
painted into blissful mosaics
that have no end and no beginning
but are the evidence that love IS
of itself

and is for me

Nothing speaks to me as you do.
No one
Not the wind and waves
or the shaking earth
not the devil himself
has a voice that penetrates like yours into my very soul and so

I am thinking of you
when I wish for the bustling activity and the running headlong into newness and prosperity and glittering possibilities



and when I wish for the world to be silent



My thoughts turn to you even when the great musician Himself plays those tunes that speak the voice of the universe and of our choices made and gone and of peace with all the world,


But not of your heart in me

And I think of the invisible, immutable songs that you have made for me
that no angel can reproduce and no force ever created can wrest from my delighted soul

I am thinking of the promises that last forever - beyond the time we might have believed that all has ended, whether hope or joy
struggle
or destiny unfolding - your promises

and mine to you

have never ceased carrying me
Through all

None of these thoughts are occurring now
of my own accord
in these empty hours I've been weeping

for I have finally buckled to uncertainty

and tears are all I know


Those tears speak to me
Of you
And I am wishing perhaps you had tears for me too
Though I suppose I may never again know
Since I saw them once
and I walked away into silence that has never since let me hear
But in my own agonized memory