The Fruit of Peace

These bones are critters that scurry through a freshly-mopped floor.
Eyes that dream of a cool freshly-made bed are lead...sinking
To the bottom of free days.

A few hours of darkness and a crack of light
From an old wooden door, strange wind
From a screened window covering skin,
And the fruit of peace is plucked and had.

Green Leaves

green leaves fallen
on asphalt strewn about,
random--silent--who
decides which

ones ride the wind
or burn in the pile?

off to chlorophyll heaven
or hellish carbon ash
come argue freedom
caterpillar men

Fire Child

Would you skim through your breaths
Like a pebble flung across a placid stream?

Forgetting the eyes thirsty for just
A glimpse of fire in the sky--of fire
That walks among corn stalks leaving
Chaff in its wake.

She looks up singing, looking for the blaze,
The same inferno that rages within her--perhaps,
She is not alone.

Looking down on her rain-soaked feet, she wonders
How the sun loved the moon.

Incarceration

The peace that moves with the swaying of the mango leaves
On the provincial plains of our ancestors
Is the same peace that curdles within the man
Inside a prison cell.

Solitary.

Beating.

Listening.

To rivers screaming the past
And whispering the enlightened hope
Of mango leaves swaying
On the provincial plains of his ancestors.

The Colors of a Shadow

My best bud is sometimes dark, a pristine black,
when the sun winks.
He contorts, shifts shape,
sometime dwarfed, sometime humongous,
sometime my size. He follows me around
when the sun winks.

I see him in vivid color when
I stand behind glass.
I realize we've been meeting like this
for so long now, he's never late.
Whether I'm brutish or the softest child,
he sticks, reminding me
of my many colors.

For so long I was not much
of a buddy to him. He was
often dismissed while I went
wielding swords against familiar
dragons, but somehow
we fought as one.

The days have aged and
my friend remains,
steadfast in our commune, but now
I am to him as he was
to me--he would've taken dragon
teeth in my stead. It took
an angel behind the glass to make
me see when she spoke,
I love the rainbow after the rain.

The Love Pig

It sees the barbs
it must squeeze
through, the full
breadth of its pink
body: the love pig.
All the way over
the other side,
it comes out dripping
of rose petals;
the air foggy
with the steam
of love cried,
sang, screamed--lived and died.