We are the ones,
cast from the warmth and into the cold
where lungs break down
and hearts are left for the wolves.

We bloom in the chill now.
Like a hellebore bursts
from the banks of snow.
We have arrived
where the exiled
were bound to go -
we've packed The Tinguit Inn
and there's no vacancy.

And yes, oh yes,
we remember you,
tugging at our bound wrists.
We can see your eyes- -
your damnable dark eyes,
twist the chains around our necks.

Gendarme, what say you?
Where are your comrades now?
Where are the revolvers
you issued them as you said

"Just in case of an uprising..."

You know, son,
we have a history of
slitting the throats of our cousins
over a handful of stolen grain.

Imagine what we do to a thief
who robbed us from the sails
of our Mediterranean Sea.

Look at the sky!
The plateau and,
beyond,
our land that stretches to
the shorelines!

We are the exiled
from the Tinguit Hotel,
and yes - you will pay.

*Tu paieras.

A nightmare kept you awake
last night.  I can see the
dark recesses in
your eyes where rest
used to be.

You dream of a sinking ship.
Its captain submerged under the waves,
thrashing his arms
toward the water's fleeting surface.
You want to plunge your filthy, filthy, hands
into the water, but you see
the man's face as your own.
And you watch as your lungs fill with liquid,
your eyes closing like curtains pulled
on a cold winter's day.

Oh! you wish for dreams of the shore!
To hear the lark overhead!
showering its song upon you
as a lullaby for your hollow eyes.
But you are drowning.  The lark does not make a sounds.

It's not making a sound.  You are drowning.

I recall the rustic leaves,
and the sound they made when crushed
under skateboard wheels,
as they settled around the half-pipe
and the worn rails of Peter Pan Park.

Youngsters,
with their colorful helmets and their
better-safe-than-sorry knee pads,
kicked and pushed their way across the pavement
and pumped their fists in the air
as their boards reached the other side.  
In this Neverland, the kids wanted adventure first -
the tea could wait at home for a little longer.

But, as dusk settles,
the pirates emerge upon the asphalt shores
in fleets of tinted windows and loud exhausts.
These pirates, still adolescent in their own age,
bicker and fight until a hook pierces skin,
blood spills upon the crisp leaves,
and a boy - with naiveness still glistening in his eyes -
becomes another boy who would not grow up
in the Never Never of Peter Pan Park.

I see a girl
jumping from the Big Dipper
onto the object to which
the action of the sea is directed.

She takes flight,
with the boldness of a Willow Ptarmigan,
and soars high above
Palmer and Seward and the bowl of Anchorage.

She lands atop the snowy slopes
of Denali and carves her way down
into the withered trees of Ghost Forest.

She swims among the Aleutian Islands,
floats on the waves of the Turnagain Arm,
and basks in the waters of the Gastineau Channel.

I see a girl
whose eyes sparkle brighter
than Klondike gold,
and whose voice whispers more beautifully
than the wind that blows
through the great land of Alyeska.

on a 12am bus
downtown San Diego
movershakers and dopplegangers
dash across dimly lit streets
all covered in thick layers of shadow
eyes flicker in alleyways
move like lightning bolts
always making contact with you(r body)
eyes that move to the seat
next to you
and think only about
*** and *** and ***
on a 12am bus
downtown San Diego
where everything looks
better way better
when your mind looks
for a way to escape
prison break its way
out of your skull
beat you ******
and light you on fire
on a 12am bus
downtown San Diego.

we wake up in sun-drenched rooms.
we sleep to faint, nocturnal tunes.
and we roll in glorious as the clouds
with a lullaby of sound -

the sound of the rain.

we wait in hope of brighter days,
as we watch the tree limbs sway,
and we're onto whatever hope we can find
that sleep under these blue-washed skies.

we fall soft like autumn leaves.
we're swept on by a tranquil breeze,
we land upon the puddles and streams,
and drift away to bigger seas

to the sound of the rain.

The leaves
seemed to wither and die
slowly this year,
as if the foliage red
sliced its veins and slowly
bled out.
Autumn glows yellow
like a book gradually develops
jaundice and eventually
collapses into dust.

The possibilities
of Summer are gone
and Winter inches her
ice-cold eyes
over the horizon,
turning her gaze inward
as the skies turn gray
and melancholy falls
like a torrent of freezing rain.

I ponder these things
while birds begin their
southern retreat
and night-time darkness
arrives swifly,
equipped with
Orion's Belt as
a holster and
the Crescent Moon as
a revolver.

My feet seem to be frozen
to dawn's frost as it
wraps it's frigid fingers
around my ankles -
shackles fitting for a
prisoner trapped in
the Season's purgatory.