The spirit's board, a chess of silent grace,
Where goals, like pawns, find their appointed space.
Invest like rooks, in wisdom's sacred lore,
Mindful as bishops, what paths to explore.

Like queen, a heart that counsels, serves, and mends,
A gentle nurture, where true kindness blends.
Control your knights, your senses wild and free,
No overreach, in silent dignity.

Each day a gambit, new and bright unfold,
Accept the check, where patience makes you bold.
Forgive the captures, learn from every snare,
Humility's white king, beyond compare.

Black and white it seems, the boxes we stand
It's good, bad, all moves can't be preplanned
So with time, make the best of it
A soul is its very own mate.

In every flower
There is a poem
In a garland
There's poetry

Pastel similes
Bright metaphors
Sweet allusions
Quaint allegories

In every flower
There is a poem
For every season
And every day

A song of Spring
A verse of winter -
And all that life
Brings your way.

In all the smashed cat in the road days of
hungover afternoons, and empty pocket
mornings, one constant wherever I was
were the trips to the library.

I read most everything back then:
Hamsun
Hemingway
Steinbeck
Fitzgerald
Eugene O’Neil, and Gogol,
and always Bukowski.
They were my lighthouse in the
abysmal fog of street life, and the
abscessed ocean of bent dreams.
The greats could always squeeze juice from
the words and I drank them down in
those lonely city libraries.  
It mixed well with the ***** and whiskey.

Some of the libraries had security guards.
Their job was to yell, “No sleeping”, as they
walked by, like witnesses at a hanging.
I dozed in those comfortable chairs,
noon light bathing me in golden peace.
I was a knight, the hero, Thomas, the great.
I hated those ******* for waking me up.
I’d rise and wander around to stay awake.  

Every time,
everywhere,
there she’d be,
my, clean, quiet, well-read, heavenly librarian.
Brown hair in a bun, large glasses, and usually
a silk blouse and tweed skirt, **** as sin.  

I watched her for hours.  I wrote about her,
the way she moved and talked and smelled of
lilies and jasmine.
I made up scenes of wild *** in the
fiction section on top of
Dostoyevsky and Joyce,
Huckleberry Finn and Tropic of Cancer.
Miller and Nin would have blushed.

I pictured her bent over the banister by the
travel book section on the third floor.
I’ve got her skirt hiked up over her ***,
and I’m in Wonderland, El Dorado, and the
Emerald City all rolled into one.
She guided me through suicidal days and made
the wait to become a writer a worthwhile utopia.

They tell one lie,
They speak one truth.
'It's easy to heal,
But you'll remember all your scars.'

The latter of the two, a truth.
Though that which precedes,
Lies through it's teeth.
Fangs of darkness and deceit,
Designed to forge a man with a black heart.
If not for the comfort of the summer sea,
I too would've succumbed to the gray of this city.
Morphed from a young and happy form,
To a soulless monster,
'****-Malum.'

Lilac hush
earth, half-waking,
baroque birdsong.

Moss curls ,
dew beads on nettle’s tongue
small, glassy prayers.

wind
silk-handed seamstress
stitches light into every leaf,
veiling the world
breath and bloom.

Bones of old trees cradle the sun’s milk,
wildflowers nestle in their ribs
what dies here, lives softer.

river, translucent and slow,
spills silver veins , the skin of the valley
a quiet pulse beneath the green.

Somewhere between sky and soil,
we become the silence
lungs folding into pollen-laden air,
fingertips brushing the hem of forever.

Nothing belongs.
Nothing is apart.

In the meantime,
the world remakes itself
petal by petal, wing by wing
and we, fragile passengers,
are simply learning how to listen.