Periapsis

"Hey! She's closer to you tonight than she will be in 20 years!"
So I had heard.

I ran to clasp the door
And pull open the only barrier separating

Her
from
Me.

Little did I know how far my eyes were,
How cold the night air could be,
With the sky between her and me.
The curtains of condensation quitely flowing thorugh

What a sad night it is, no?
Cruel coinsidence, not irony
Behind those clouds you wouldn't flee
No, not this "inconsistent" soul

Because too many nights I've spent
Looking downwards, ignoring, lost
And you've shone down smiling, tossed
Your light my way so I could see
Where I've been, where I'm going,
And you did so without a thought
Stuck through my growth and my rot,
Through rain and dark you have shined
Even when you could not see me.

When I finally do look up
I see what you have done for me.

Believe me when I say that I'd
Tear open the sky for you, just
To see whatever face you have
Be it turned away from me
Or brightly smiling.

And would gladly shine my light
So you too can see a path through.
Whatever path you may take,
Whatever light I have,
I'd toss whatever I have to you.

I haven't exactly been seeing you,
No, not enough.
But sometimes it takes darkness
To truly see how much light you have.

I'll try to look up more often.

But truly, this periapsis...
It's no shame to me. No sadness.
Though the clounds make your image infinitely far,
We're still closer than two usually are.

Sunrise

Sleep came and went for him that night
And as the hours wore on, the world turned
Just out of sight. Just out the window.
With the dull light of a book light illuminating
A graphic novel, not quite reaching
The sheets covering his body.
The dark walls, the piano, the wooden carving;
These only existed in his memory.

Yet, slowly but surely,
A dull light rose from the West,
Bringing the world back to his eyes.
And he rushed out onto the deck.

The flames slashed their way through the atmosphere
'cross mountaintops, into frost-covered valleys,
Touching the morning dew, with no heat, no sound.
Simply a shimmer, a reflection of vitality.

Behind him stood an old friend, her face turned
Towards the horizon. She was there to watch too,
White, glowing, pale, yet sentient as always.
Smiling as she had always been to see him rise at this hour.

He smiled. They smiled.
As she fell behind, never lost in the light
But at the same time fading,
The world turned, and life itself erupted from the horizon.

Sleep

Sleep comes but once per day,
Then takes its leave, leaving you to wander
and wonder what your wanderings during the night
had been. Why you are still
Head on pillow,
Body under blankets,
Bladder almost full,
Stomach almost empty?
The brain and body waken...

Or do they
Fall back into the sleep where they are constrained to
Think certain ways,
Act certain ways,
Obey certain laws,
Breath the air,
Consume the food,
Rid one's self of waste,
Rest the head,
Go to bed?

The body falls into predictable rhythms
And the mind falls into the same trappings, singing:
"Stay thy hand, for this is not how we should behave."
Sleep comes but once per day.
What would you dream?

Crazy

Some people may call me crazy
Sometimes I call myself crazy
But I think I know what's truly crazy:

The man who takes sticky notes
And a pen whose ink smears
Onto the top of a parking structure
4 stories high
Who yells at the noisy lights
Whose cacophonous, showy "light"
Blinds and hushes the symphony
In the night sky.
Who sits in the corner of a parking space
Glancing now and again at the moon;
the reason he came all this way
The blushing, beautiful moon

He is not crazy.
Who's crazy are those who refuse to do the same.
For their passions, their inspiration, their gods or goddesses, their loves.

And if you do not agree with me,
Well, then I'd rather be crazy
If I can continue in this "maddening" love.

Mountain-side glowing
In the blue bath of moon shine
Intoxicating
As the most ripe draught
Without the side-effects of
Alcohol. Beauty
Drank in by the eyes
Absorbed by the retina
That all men thirst for.

Meadow

Putting power to the pedals
I was able to fly
Over ground, under sky
An earthbound glider, quickly flying high.

Then, a sudden quiet
As the blackened cavern spread wide
Became quite sparse, then none at all
As the solid walls of pine and cedar
Gave way to:

Shuddering, silent, shimmering sprigs of grain
Hushed as the wind lazily pattered along their tips.

Further still, a single sentinel, stood in solitude, watching over
The heads of grass and looking towards

The shadow-borne silhouettes of a
Forest untamed. Jagged peaks penetrating

Skies of the bluest blue.
The last rays of sunlight licking monoliths of granite
Crumbling gods of other eras still ruling mortals today

All stood
Watching, quietly, but surely
The meager creature that had sped into their domain.
The meager creature that had become completely entrapped.
Like the deer to his light.
Or the guru to his epiphany
So was I in the meadow.

I am dissatisfied

I am dissatisfied
With this piece
It is too trite.
The structure is too common
Too common for the subject matter
I am no pop song writer
I am an artist
A wordsmith
A listener to the soul
To the intagible
The transcendent
Which makes no sense
And guides us nonetheless

Shout your words, Muses!
Through the woods, they echo
And I hope that I may catch
A sound, a murmur, a quiet whisper
Of the wondrous things you said.