Splendor of Hills

Past the highway
over the gravel
into the blue.
To the splendors of pensive youth
the fruits of spring have left lain.

Idol love stands still in growing trees
as some soft faced girl stares forward in her car.
She drives nowhere you would like to visit anyways.
For you, onto the green hills
that hold steady with flooded grasses at their feet.

You set down your bike to watch
all the clouds go by over the hills.
The grass feasts upon your eyes,
clouds watch as you are drawn in
onto the point of infinite shut-eyed young dreams.

It is nearing evening but the afternoon
never seems to have peaked.
So the bike falls over while your own body
tumbles onto the grass along with it.
The sunshine feels sweet, there is no reason to move.

Forget your age,
feel it inside your bones instead.
Cars pass by with speechless faces
who all have their own anguishes and joys today.
Biding the time, you spend what sighs you have left
on the passing clouds that are fed into the sun's mouth.

Skin is turning from sallow winter to
the refreshed brown that those by your side
came down to kiss.
You have been lying on the grass for nearly two hours,
not knowing what you are waiting for.
It strikes you then,
there really is not anything to be waiting for.

So under the comfort of the freedom of angst
you throw yourself some questions that you would
never actually ask her.
Nevertheless, you think the feelings will all pass.

It is nearing seven in the evening as the sky
begins to explode with deep blue.
You are wondering if she thought about the way you walked today.

Hopping onto your bike to climb into your room again.
The ride home is hard, you are choking on a breath full of hanging words.

You cannot fool yourself, you know why.

Body and Storm

Passing heat rises from black earth
yet soon the day will die in its own visions;
as night will soon give birth
to all window-sill thinkers' sunlit inhibitions.

Laying softly to shut heavy eyes
the rain still knocks on the front door.
When waking from harmonious sleep, nature truly reveals what it implies.
Though the mind takes place all but once
the wind will still blow after all flesh has dissolved from the core.

All is changing in a constant realm,
even when the eye only can guess what it sees.
Be it not body nor soul that is tonight's pensive helm
for the clouds' wrath will illuminate how they please.

Song from Alongside the River

Beneath ambition lies a bone ridden corpse
tossing around in its cell.

On the tree of empathy there are
the parched roots below it,
reaching further into the soil for its
share of the earth.

And inside the windows of these hundred houses
are faces I may never see.
Comforting like the warm moments called “spring”;
I know that I may never see the whites of their eyes
or know the first letter of their last name.
It is not that we all have forgotten,
rather we have never known.

Tomorrow the sun will rise.
Clouds pass through and go above
the town's rooftops and low lying visages.
Luminous glows and untouchable words
will turn our heads even more the day after.

When footprints are washed away
more will wander on the same path
as it has done for the thousands of human summers.
The prospect of lost steps does not vex me.
I walk now for my own way forward,
knowing that those who walk after will
know their way back.

The Breeze Feels Just Right

The day rose and the skin on my arms
was beginning to boil as the magnolia trees
opened themselves to the gracious morning.
Distances and words are busy
being shoved into my head,
but the burning inside my chest
is screaming with a sown mouth.
Stumbling into the sunlight,
thinking that she is right around the corner.
No,
it is only my shadow that
had caught the side of my eye.
Riverside bike rides are making nests in my bone
as midnight paces in my mind leave vacant space.
Full again with patience,
waiting for a day that will not be seem.
Merely dancing to a song that
nobody can here.
Still riding my bike
trying not to look out of the
corner of my eye.
Walking out the door on the brick patio
means more than a breath of air.
Among warm days is the laughter
that makes me open my window.
Birds fly above
flowers grow below
and the river flows beside me.
My eyes never gaze into vacant space;
there never is truly any to be seen.