I’ve been conversing in poetry since the dawn of time – My words like golden calves, strung together by threads of nebulous, floating in thin air.

And now I stand at the threshold of eternity waiting for you to arrive. Knowing you will come to meet me. You, like the northern lights; like fire in the night, an endless combustible energy, set my imagination aflame. And like all perfect mysteries you envelop me with only questions.

Shrouded in beauty, you speak to me without a word. You are my master and my servant; a quiet and empty church on an abandoned and deserted street. Inside I fall to my knees. Head bowed.

There is nothing without you. You are everything, even these very thoughts. I give you these tears, which are yours. I give you the very breath from my lungs. I’ve borrowed all of it with the hope that I would find you…

And there you were, all along, inside of me. Reciting…

All the thoughts and all the words and all the mystery and all the beauty.

You’ve been conversing in poetry since the dawn of time. The golden calves …the nebulous…the thin threads … Only you.

The order of things –

I follow the crowd to the mess hall and eat whatever they put on my plate. Making a fuss about the food to a few people does nothing, but it makes some people feel better.

We talk about it. Sometimes a lot. What else is there to talk about?

Everyone is going to die.

Some of the locals fill out a complaint; organize a march around the frozen vegetables. They let them. Usually nobody gets hurt, and if they do it’s always someone nobody cares much about. We watch for a minute, because there’s nothing else to do.

I find it funny…

I just eat what they put on my plate. Why be miserable about it?

Besides, I’m so busy being distracted. 

And as the sun faded and night drew upon us,we tried desperately to fuck death away…

Our moans bellowing against the silence. But the loneliness and fear never vanish. It just waits, still, outside the room, watching us through the key hole like a voyeur.

And when we finish it creeps up again, covering us with a film that can never truly be washed away.

Night passes and we try again, clinging to each other wildly: scratching, crawling, undulating.

Many years later I found the note you left me in the pocket of my suitcase, still sitting there waiting to be read. It ended-

“Come back soon. I need you to save me and I’ll save you.”

There’s something beyond our thoughts and feelings that cannot be defined.

An unknowable truth, that vanishes the very moment it arrives. It startles.

Hiding behind a veil, its discovery negates itself.

It’s the thing that always feels like it’s missing, but is waiting, hidden in a shadow in the middle of a sun-filled field.

..and the Sun’s out and Spring’s coming and I’m going to sit in that chair

on top of the hill and watch the flowers bud. Just enough heat from the sun to warm my face and keep the chill out. I’m going to bring that book and read it in between listening to the woodpecker and that man flying his propeller plane over blue skies. His spring chair in the heavens. I imagine being with him flying over the coast and looking down on me, sitting peacefully. The dog’s lying by my side, watching the squirrels scurrying around the yard, celebrating the end of winter. The book sets off my imagination and so does the breeze that hits my chest and face. Everything is being born again and so am I.

I fell in love with the world;

all the beauty and the sorrow. A magnificent shared story, told by every heart that has ever beaten. Its breath is our breath. Its love is our love. Its sorrow is our sorrow. I take the infinite universe by the hand and lead it to a dark and empty field. Its perfume, the smell of misty dew, seduces me. We lie on top of each other, not saying a word, unable to feel any difference between us. I look into its eyes and it returns the passionate stare. I feel it inside of me, and me inside of it. It cradles me in its arms and kisses my whole body. I see there is no beginning and no end. The sky just a mirror of myself. It whispers something in my ear, but I can’t quite make it out. It’s breath warm and loving against my skin.

To be my witness to all the beauty and the sorrow –

Alone, sometimes I wish you could be inside of me to hear my thoughts of you; to feel what I feel; the place where no words can go. To experience everything I experience; like the Moon and Venus shining brilliantly in a clear and crisp autumn sky, between the dark branches of the pine tree, just as dawn is breaking. I wish you could hear the sounds I hear, like the tiny screech owl calling out to loneliness, as a delicate wind blows; my bare feet resting cold against the fallen leaves. They rustle when I move. The way this moment touches my soul, moving me to tears, and making me think of you, this life, and how one day it will all be over.

Nocturnal –

I often sleep in my clothes.

The same clothes I wore that day. I sleep in cycles. An hour or two here and there. And in between I wander around my house like a ghost, while the world sleeps soundly. I’m looking for a clue. I venture outside and smoke a cigarette. Silent and dark. I can see the clouds undressing the stars. We stare at each other in amazement and wonder. Time passes, but only for me.

I saw a dead deer lying in a lonely wood.

I was on a solitary stroll, deep in a thick wood; so thick sunlight fought to penetrate it. I had left the trodden path an hour behind and could no longer hear the sounds of distant cars buzzing on the road, but only my footsteps rustling the fallen leaves and the calls of distant crows.

Every few feet I stopped and listened; sometimes there was nothing but the wind. Time passed and I went so deep I wasn’t sure if I knew how to return. I sat quiet and still for a few minutes, resting against one of the many trees rotting on the ground. That’s when I spotted her.

Like two statues, we stared at each other for what felt like minutes. Both surprised to find the other. When I slowly began to move she became startled; jumping, twisting and turning like a ballerina, until she was out of my sight. I carefully moved in the direction that I had seen her, until I arrived where she had just stood and had been staring back at me.

It was there I saw a dead doe lying cold and stiff against a fallen tree. It’s eyes still open. It’s head resting on a decaying stump covered in moss. It’s body so small and fragile.

I knelt beside it and gazed at it. Studying it, feeling the urge to caress it, but I did not. What had taken this life so soon?

I was struck by an overwhelming sadness. Perhaps this was her baby. Had I interrupted a mother mourning? I felt terrible, like an unwelcome intruder. I got up from my knees and looked for her mother as I moved away. Back to where I came from. Hoping she would return to finish saying goodbye.

To be human and dream –

To be human and dream; to witness the dance of nature, and be in breathtaking awe; to watch any living creature be born; to love and be loved so passionately that you weep . . .

The world is a magnificent and magical place. It’s a story, if not for the fact that we live it, we would probably never believe could be true.