Talk To Me

Talk to me.
Tell me your story
Your ragged tale
Of gain and loss.

Show me your wounds
Those angry slashes
On your soul
Untended and unhealed.

What beach sands 
Swallowed your blood?

Into whose arms did you fall
When pelted by stones?

Talk to me
So I understand.

People like us
Are known by our scars.

Pointless

You are in all I write...
Poems of love and passion
Bleeding poems
Poems with meter and rhyme
Lightening poems
Sparking and slashing rumbling skies
Poems that weep like a widow
Draping a stone cross
Poems that grin
With the aroma of morning dew
Poems of satisfied desire
Twisted in crumpled sheets.

You are in all I do...
Breathless August nights
Checks on a calendar
Making tomorrows yesterdays
Easy afternoons
Sweat on my skin like rivets on a hull
Legs pumping
Muscles straining
Heart hammering
Pain surging
Bursting in my chest like rockets
Flaring like napalm on bamboo.

You are in me...
Fastened to my spirit
Inextricably joined
At that magic moment
Where night meets morning
Birds sing
Earth warms its path around the sun
And the universe hums
In sounds unutterable
Beyond melodies.
That is where you are.

It is pointless to ask
Why you've gone.
You are where angels wing
Holding wide the door
Where the light in your eyes
Humbles the stars.

Old Men's Dreams

What is the stuff of old men's dreams?
Those in their fading years
Who burrow in their bed each night
With the sum of all their fears.

My grandfather's father was a soldier
As was his son's son.
Both fought wars and shed men's blood
With battles lost and won.

But when they lay upon their pillows
What machines grind through their dreams?
And when they cry out in their sleep at night
What horrors fuel their screams?

Can anybody tell me what old men dream
When their last barriers burn away?
And can speak of what they see
On the midnight side of day?

From Shiloh through Saint-Mihiel
From Normandy to Khe Sahn
Can anybody tell me what old men dream
And where their sleeping minds have gone?

I stand apart and listen
Wondering at these gallant few
And may only guess at old men's dreams
Upon whom honor falls like dew.

Shiver With the Wolf

The wolf sleeps alone
Too wary
Too cagey to share his den.
He settles into darkness
Willing himself to not shiver
Lest he betray his heart.

We share this, in the helix of our DNA
This dark determination
To conceal our hearts.

We sleep alone
Even when we share our sheets
Careful to hide our hungers.

It is not the apparent that defines us.

We may never be known
Until another understands
What fuels our souls
And feeds our famine...
Until we shiver with the wolf.

Indigo and Emerald

Indigo skies in her emerald eyes
And clouds pregnant with snow
A northern wind and a long-lost friend
Before an evening's fire glow.

Ease into this avenue
Now stretched soul to soul.
Find a place in her smiling face
And her rover's quickened roll.

Settle down before you drown
Sometimes you try too hard.
Take it slow and let it grow
Before the finished work is marred.

Indigo hours and gentle powers
Times of joyful surprise
Will help you win and enter in
Her smiling emerald eyes.

I'm Back!

It's been a difficult month. The hard stuff isn't over, but I'm getting there. Thanks for the good thoughts. I appreciate every one of them. ~ James