This smoke and mirrors
Is my pain
As I walk in your memory
I fall alone
On unspent words
My hair,
Lifelessly pressed
Against the glass.
I’ve learned about my veins
That run across
My open palms;
For too long have I
Looked into thee
For an answer
I cannot find.
And so my last drip of blood
Drawn from me
For you
Shall stain the soul
From whence I came
And follow me
Into the rain.
What brings the soul of a man
Deep within the palm of his hand?
For I have seen two men astray
Neither I tried to save.
In the grace of our Gods
We stand before each war we fought
Did we strike the hammer strong
Or lose out before our lungs
Belted loud our souls devout.
Have I faced the pain inside?
Did I let my body cry?
Was it I who charged ahead
Though each wind spoke up in dread?
Tell me sweetly in my good ear
Was I faithful to each your dream
Can I be the trusted man
Of your every step?
For I hold my palms open
To feel the warmth of every day
I have spoken out your name
In hopes it leads my heart so true
And if it shall bring my life astray
May I be the man to say
My palms are wet.
Seventeen cuts
Peeled back fingernails
Blisters ‘midst palms
I’ve grown accustomed to leaves turning my memories from fresh to curled, a well understood paradox that changes the tide so romantically it hurts like the small spots beside the bulging veins growing inside.
My smile has grown lines, my heart has extended its beats, my hearing has begun to dance with angels upon the dead leaves blowing along the roughly trampled ground – are these our memories we have yet to experience, or have they been forgotten and left to dissolve into earth?
So I crouch down low and embrace the softly blowing wind that helps me to see my passing time I used to think I loved, I used to want to love, so here I’m hurting from spatial infrequencies that cup my involuntary spasms from underneath the table and remind me to forget to itch the pain.
Does this leaf know it crumbles within my palm so slowly softly? Did it reach for me in a pure moment of thought, expecting my return upon amber wings of a sun soaked day like an emotional Prometheus on a personal mission.
Then, like the ashes of memories crumbling in scaled hands of our Phoenix, so too shall sun rise again over the horizon of a small family farm to bring with it a wet spring full of insight and gratitude that runs the width and depth of a heart shaped leaf settling softly upon a well worn path of insight.
The old spruce and I sat silently
We shared secrets unspoken
We shared ground softly packed
I looked up and counted to one hundred
Each branch I gave a name
Each name remembered its origin
In the world of seven valleys
I heard ravens nesting
Squirrels chasing
And I felt each limb slowly shake
Watching each needle slowly fall
Tumbling to the palm of my hand
Which rebirthed my blessings
In each moment of doubt
Until I stood where the spruce had stood
And I inhaled deeply as the spruce had inhaled
And I listened as the spruce had listened
And I swayed as the spruce had swayed
Until the seven valleys became my valleys
And my story remained so.
Blame not the recharge
Left slowly puddling into a dark corner
Of this uneven hardwood floor,
Nor should holy boats
Hold these oars tightly so.
Thee witness’ callused palm
Scrapes dry a soiled seat,
And a martyr hangs listlessly
As townsfolk carry on.
Mild wind blows a crooked sign
Making rust set within,
Harder then an open wound
Stronger then the sun.
This is the song I’ve never sung,
A lonely tree in the meadow
My faith watching it snow.
Because something isn’t clearing my fog,
And I’ve done up my boots too tight,
And the bridge is falling to it’s knees,
And some will cry as I’m walking on by.
But count out blessings in a well worn palm
With two bluejays resting a while,
Strange mountains silence is broken
And darkness slowly lifts as awareness shifts
Back into what I’ve never left.
Mystically speaking, the proverbs are relating accurately;
Horizontally strengthened with the thinnest of threads
Circled around my baby finger exactly 29 times
In a very tightly strewn pattern, accidentally.
Insomniac. Running at top speeds with wild horses;
That old farmhouse sitting amongst poppies and buttercups
Where I’ve lived once before; a feeling from depths unexplainable
Leveraging it’s way amongst modernities.
So it was a callused palm that broke this frozen spell;
Alone upon a park bench of inner city, inner beauty,
Brook bubbling by with homeless and suits (much quicker)
An eye awoke to stretch it’s glorious wings wide.
To which I had never encountered before;
To who I had never held hands with before;
To where I had never stepped in and amongst before;
To here, to this home of a quietly broken fear.
