Cold

In your arms I am alone
In your bed I am cold
In your eyes I am hidden
Hand in hand I am distant.

Mountains (Haiku)

Her eyes lie in mine
And when she laughs and I trust , my
Mountains laid to dust.

The fading rose
A scarlet dream
Her pale waning face
Naught but time to take,
My wretched fate
A hundred lifetimes to not abate.

I Dream

Are our dreams solely purposed

To sate hunger's bottomless ambitions?
Do we not fantasize 

In midnight shadows

To be as we once were?
Oh, to but live forever
Amid mountain tops 

And oh, to but steal away
From time's pitiless grasp
Just this moment, you and I
Deep into the lidless pitch of night,
There my heart helplessly dwells.
There my traversing dreams are eternally bound.

Summer

My eyes to naught but hurriedly savor
The fruit of spring's rebellion
Ere the misguided prodigal turns to home.

Death

The present turns to memories
As our visions turn to dreams--
The daylight dims to darkness
Breath, now a silenced heart thrum.

Freedom.

It slowly flutters farther

And farther

From my desperately outstretched finger tips--

To hope

I can I only hope

To love

I can only dream

To smile

I can only lust 

To rest

I can only strive.  

My hands reach out

Unable to touch his face

While his eyes stare into mine

Pleading "why?" 

Reasoning to find
Begging of me
A revelation of lies.  

I'm on my knees
Screaming blindly
For the cure
But you withhold it from me
With a wild grin--
Your name is torment
And mine is sorrow.  

Among pale linens
My dreams lay to die
Hoping you'll come to call
One last time,
But one time to last
We know a lie
As warm waning dawns
Fade into the night.      

A sweet southern wind
Brushes my face
Painting playful blues
Between the clouds
And we linger, tenderly
While awaiting a bitter winter relapse
To dash aside
Our small happiness.  

Last Breath (Haiku)

Behind the drawn veil

A waxen flame shutters its'

Last breath, happiness.  

Don't believe your sweat is enough
Don't perceive your strength as the cross
But only on bent knee
Humbly at His feet
Can you, will you be set free.

I will make your suffering my own
And take your hopelessness with me, home,
I will carry your desperation through my dreams
And I will choose to understand your fears
Because I too have wept--
I labor bedside tearfully into the night
Because I too know of death and ashes
And the redemption of Jesus's saving grace
As it washes over all transgressions.    

In your arms
I am alone
In your bed
I am cold
In your eyes
I am hidden
Hand in hand
I am distant.

If I tell myself
"The joy of the lord is my strength"
Enough times will it become true?
If I tell myself
"All I want is your will"
Will my heart change?
When I wake every morning
Spinning out of control
Will you guide me?

I dread the moment 

When I meet myself 

And can't recognize 

Those hollow eyes,

Staring, glazed over with pain

And fear,

I hate mirrors--

The remembrance 

Of what I once was

And the revelation

Of what I've become,

Of the emptiness, 

Of what I've lost.  

Let's lay among the

Fields of wheat

Soaked with midnight starlight

And plunge the depths
Of each other's passions
Til' dawn do us part.  

Is there a word that can describe

Alone?

I'm on my knees

Striving, wishing someone 

Could touch me

Hoping that you

Will see me

But again I'm met

With an empty room

Silently screaming--

My life

My prison.  

 

My eyes, shadow lands lost amid wasted

Days, midnight's lit waning wax
Burns in sweet
Abandon til' life no longer tasted.  

In your arms
I am alone
In your bed
I am cold
In your eyes
I am hidden
Hand in hand
I am distant.

Mother of Nations (Sonnet, Edit #1)

Consecrate your seed, Moloch's tongue is dry,

Mother's cardinal hands fold at his throne,

Does not the dust which God breathed to life cry?

Or do their convulsions speak tongues unknown? 

Silenced voices chorus justice for deeds
As rose trickles down lust's tabernacles,
Unnoticed lamentations my heart heeds,
Womb beneath the knife, babe naught but shackles,
Can you climb to salvation on dry bones?
Will you realize the prince branded you "slave"?  
You whet his lips and tempted him with moans
But no man can slip err's eternal grave,
He who died vengeful fire will descend,
Drunk on blood Babylon wails, at their end.    

Those Who Have Slipped Away (Part Two Edit #1)

Home, it's not what is once was.

But really, what is a "home"?  A semi-coordinated conglomeration of items spreading the counters, floors, walk ways?  A possibly planned array of cushioned comforts outlying and consuming the emptiness called "rooms"?

Or, is home a symbol?  Individuals possessing an area otherwise later known as a "home".  If the air wasn't hung with warm breath, coffee tables unstressed from restful feet and twenty four shoes sleeping on the step, what would it be?

My hand falls through empty air
Missing something it needs,
Another palm to squeeze.
Something to grasp
Another hand to please.   

Lost Among the Many (Edit #2)

She lies upon a smooth careless table, lost amidst the wan cascading linen folds.  My hand wanders among the alabaster locks seeking comfort in her late embrace, but finds naught.  

She whispers in broken rasps, a prisoner strangled from within.

"Who...?"

Again she gasps past her pale waning lips, the sound of sand rushing over skin.

Could I feign disregard and ignorance, restfully acquiescing to the pull of time?

"The pull of time" I thought, such a gentle phrase.

My mind poses innocent thoughts guised as hope, wolves waiting at the door.  I terrify myself, I'm capable of that? 

Every want, every selfish fiber sown and intertwined with who I am, tears against what I know is right.  

But, can I yet again draw up sufficient strength to confess who we are?  Who we were?  Today, in this moment, could I again spit acid truth into her face and allow the toll be taken?

If I survive today, what of tomorrow, and tomorrow's inevitable arrival?               

A faint procession ushers out the warmth from under her tender beige skin, utterances of beauty lingering behind grey curtains, fluttering nearly unnoticeably.

As once one, now disavowed -- despite all my striving, innocence inevitably spites every bead of sweat birthed by hope.

At the hands of my emotions, sweat beads, gather and roll across and down my face. The unsettling silence announces my strain, dripping and puddling onto the laminate tiles.    

Jogged back, my lips thinning, running along them an unnoticeable quiver.      

"Paul?"  

"I--, I'm."

Bruised shadows wrap around her hands, once whole but now reduced, former joys lost.

My palpitating heart wildly rises in my throat, binding fistfuls of knotted muscle, set to burning.  I silently scream, my hands quaking, struggling, chained by futility.  I'm nothing but a witness to her molestation.  

Cure Me

I close my eyes
But you're still there
Touching the edge of my consciousness,
I close my eyes
And begin to pen
How I'm walking away
Never to return,
To forget
But writing emotions
Staining the parchment
With black tears
Will never cure passion.      

Lost Among The Many (Short Story Edit #1)

She whispers, a prisoner strangled from within.  Again she whispers past her pale waning lips,

"You... are."  

 A cold possession ushers out the warmth from under her tender beige skin.  

"Did you -- have you loved me?"  

"You.  You alone."      

I can already see bruised shadows wrapping around her hands.  Once whole but reduced now, suffering tragedy to call her "home".  My palpitating heart wildly rises in my throat, binding fistfuls of knotted muscle, set to burning.  I silently scream, my hands quaking, struggling, chained by futility.

Emptiness violating her flesh, and I, bound by powerlessness, am naught but a witness.

She lies upon a smooth careless table, lost among the wan cascading linen folds.    

"She is my failure."  

As once one, now disavowed -- despite all my striving, innocence inevitably spites every bead of sweat birthed by hope.  

The cold wind setting in, pressing against her chest, evidence of my mistakes.  Jogged back, my lips thinning, running along them an unnoticeable quiver.

Life Alone

"Your life will be a life of loneliness"
And I let my head fall
Willing, sacrificial
But now the call weighs
Heavily upon my shoulders,
But God, if I had but one
To call "love"
To pour out all of my soul
Couldn't I be cured, whole?  

Mountains

She laughs and I trust,
She smiles and ties
Her hands around my heart,
She laughs and lays
Her eyes into mine,
My mountains laid to dust.

Your spirit pierces my soul
Cutting through all my barriers
And my pride--
As is east from west
I divorced my darkness with Your grace,
You permeate and flow through my veins
And my heart pounds and throbs, alive.  

My lust weeps in bereavement,
But the flesh Jesus put to death
I cannot, I refuse to lament.  

Spirit and Carnality

When my body lays asleep--
Drowning in the dark,
An animal thrashes within me
Ravenously seeking to devour my spirit
But my Jesus awakens the gospel
In my heart
To defy the beast its' feast--
To grapple among the deathly slow breaths
Of the barely living,
Hearts,
That one could scarcely hear from a single throb emanate,
Him and I
Wrestle amidst the sleepers
Rattling steel chains and
Bumping the cold limbs of the dreaming,

But none awake

They are slaves,

Slumbering in wait--

Unknowingly approaching a new birth

My Will

Any will to resist evil once possessed
Is now diminished
As a dream
Conceived in the shadows
Stripped bare
Before the sun's everlasting rays.

My flesh and soul
Cannibalize each other--
Turning to my own vomit
In blind desperation.   

A Moment With You

A hand,
Your hand-
It rubs my shoulder
And drops.
A smile
A hint of white
Your medicine
For my heart.
Two eyes
Your eyes
A happy pair
Darting into mine
Out playing past sunset.

Colors draped, blended--

Lovers laying upon a

Canvas, eyes anxious.   

Soul and Flesh Edit #1

My mind oh so bereft,
Spirit and carnality pitted
One another violently vie against.

My Curse (Haiku)

Divide my waters

Soul from flesh, divorce this house   

As is east from west.  

My hands have never worked
For anything but themselves
But my Lord demands them to serve--
But how?
And I scream and tear against my will
That is so intensely demanding
And heavy--
My flesh, exacting upon me
Every ounce of suffering my evil heart allows
And my soul stretching out
To but graze
My jealous Father's faithful grace.    

The past is the past
And not the present
Though your mind
Makes you remember
I will make you forget.

Burning Reds

I'm taken up with your hands
Subtly heating my wind brushed skin
And the whispers your lips slowly mouth
Set under burning reds dripping down dusk's face
And your gaze frozen into mine
By deathly blues choking life from the hour--
What lies beneath your eyes?
And what dreams is your heart possessed by?
I to tell this
Is as I to tell of dimmet's call for passionate cries.  

Every Word Has Been Spoken

The night is old and fading out
And every word
Marking Your footsteps
Is brushed upon a soft canvas
And though every line
Tracing the work of your pierced hands
Has been followed
My heart pulls against my pride
As if I
Could wear out
Your precious name
By letting my lips sing
Of your Grace
Again and again and again.  
  

Eyes

Who are you
In the mirror
Who I can't look
In the eye?
Ashamed of me
Ashamed to be.

Beautiful Loveless

Beautiful loveless
Babes died today, murdered by
Mother's guilty hand.  

My Hope (Edit #1)

My eyes
Veiled against incandescent glow
Rise
But hope runs freely
Between the cracks
Of the old aged wooden slats--