the bells I ring tonight
are the beats of my own heart
and the fireworks
are the smile returned
to the colour of my eyes

a step out the door
a victory dance
and a celebration
not of good-bye
but a song of hello

and the breath of the extra second
a chance to make a sacred prayer
to gift back the borrowed breath
that got me through this year

rock
paper
scissors
it's all about
the upper hand
when everyone
just wants to touch
the feel of palm to palm
and even those who admit it
don't
for all the fear
of what we can't
control of what we'll each give up
if we dare for connection between the lines
I
to we
where I never
broke a single heart
where I was never stifled
and you were never cut or smashed
and nothing was ever a game it didn't want to be
rock
paper
scissors
where all that was wanted
was the warmth of fingertips to flesh
and caring not to hurt required no strategy at all

Dec 26- morning

he never visits
the same place twice
at least not as the man he was
unless he's with a childhood friend
and even then
where they're going and where they are
counts more than where they've been
and nostalgia is only paper wings
that fluttered once
to make the storm
with the when and where
lost in history
of neither consequence
nor of regard
with the importance of memories
for the making
of the ones they're going to be
and moments for the taking
like alchemists who've learned
there's nothing much
to worry
when the famines
also hold a feast
though sometimes it's OK
to take from the day
not the romanticism
of what it never was
but a little something
that warms the heart
like a coal plucked from a fire
of maybe long ago
to give a little heat
in laughter
to give a little spark
in dream

12:45 Xmas Eve 2016

everyone's saying
that this was a terrible year
when really it's only
the truth uncovering itself
and information overload
and the baby boom
that's finally caught up
with us

and yeah the fascists
are visible again
and so many prophets
left to the other side
and the climate is starting
to kick some ass
and nobody gives a shit
when it's the brown babies
that do the dying

but 1929
was a terrible year
or 1942
or just about any year
in a long long time
if you live in Palestine

each year will be what it will

but it isn't the year

that makes it that

but rather

what are

we can blame the world
for oppression
but were we freedom
and while we cried
our tears for water
did we remember
we could hit
the pimps of Nestle
where it hurts

and while the heroes died
we have to ask ourselves
were we just dry humping
their ideas
or did we take those wisdoms
deep inside
to gestate an evolution
and are we prepared
to be our own unsung heroes
or just reality stars

if you rose every day
and did one thing
that was kind
if you loved with a broken heart
if you sang for the joy
of the light
if you planted something
to watch it grow
or dropped to your knees
to pray
for an outcome
you may never know
if you found yourself a little more
and learned to be a better friend
this was a good year

the challenges came
from one solar rotation
to the next
and we survived each one

go out into the snow
or sand or grass
and blow a kiss to a star
to give it a wish
in return
because all we needed
of this year
was to make it to this day
for this chance
to be the better world
to love harder
to shine brighter

and look it...
here we are

whoever she is
it does not matter
except that she will become
a little bit the you
I will meet someday

but nothing so big
as to conquer fate
when the gods have already
betrothed us
to synergize the evolution
they have dreamed
for each of us to find

my heart beats steady
my breath is calm
the stars need not be molested
by the baseness of my wishes
and desires

all I could want
is to grow and shine
and today is to do that
here inside myself
tomorrow holds somewhere
the dancing of the light

and whoever she is
that I am now...
it matters
when someday
she'll become
a little bit the me
that will meet you
beneath
the gods and stars

when spring comes
you will not find me
a snow drop in the sea
I have drowned
we all know this is true
but I sank so low
my lungs evolved to gills
that breathed the water
and the ice
until the gills
evolved to wings
and I was born as fire
to hide against the sun
known only by my shadow here
where none of you can find
what's really me
except for in the safety
of only honest dreams
me...the traitor
and deserter of myself
but there was something left
that needed getting out
before it all was gone
so I sent it on ahead
maybe one day
a boy with an apple
or a man with a broken gun
or a poet with spiders
bursting from his lips
to dream the world anew
but probably an old man
with patience he can't afford
or a child
who hasn't learned to see
what's the missing part of me
or maybe just this woman
who was a snow drop after all
until she resurrected
and made her way to free
will find this shadow flower
growing near the shore
to take it in their hands
and only see
the promise that it holds
to bring the growth of light

I wonder
if more people drank
their coffee black
would Tim Horton's
and Starbucks
be so popular
because you have to taste
the truth
to know if what you desire
is really
what you like

as for me
I learned to take
my coffee black
not for any truth
but more because
I never wanted to depend
on what is
or is not on hand
to leave me vulnerable
in my relationship with joy
(and rations I have found
if you aren't too used
to what you're giving up
are always good to trade)

the trick is
to authentically enjoy
without
and not to do it
of some kind of misplaced
stoic drive

or to enjoy what good
there is on hand
as long as you don't have to use it

to sugar coat
the hard to swallow

truths

to deceive yourself

they're what you love

on the darkest day
I sent my red shoes
to the spirit realm
and burned the shame
of a world that says
you must or mustn't dance
when dancing's all
we're here to do
but only when we choose

because the vanity of rebellion
belongs to little girls
when women who are truly wild
wear blue
and those who feel
they owe their beauty
as a kind of sacrifice
can never sit a number out
with striving toward the vain
an obsession to be loved

but in the smoke that danced
I saw one vision
as the Hermit
the other le Bateleur
and so I knew there was an end
but a beginning also too
beyond the alchemy
I dare to let my waking self
know that I have dreamed

so on the shortest day
I set out bundled sage
to welcome back the light
and I danced not because
it is the lot
of girls beyond redemption
or because I could not stop
the desires that have led me oft astray

but for the light I carry in me
and the snow that lets things rest
while one dream shifts
into another
and a woman claims herself
by the music that she plays

in the darkest hour
comes the return
of the light
when your world has crumbled in
on the vacuum of itself
and there is nowhere left
to go
and imagination has lost
so much remembrance
for the meaning
of warmth and shine

that's exactly when it comes

because turning points
will always feel like endings
if you keep looking back
and the Phoenix is at its coldest
and most compressed
before the shell is cracked
and it is greeted by the day
though somedays
the darkest dark
will come
and the stars
will leave you abandoned
in the night
in the company of wolves

but that's exactly when it comes

and the universe
returns compassion
to the ones who keep on
holding on
for them it brings the gift of light
to rekindle dying fires
and while the eyes
no longer remember
how to not be blind
against the growing
of illumination
they will learn again
to see
because when there is nothing left
the imagination can perceive

that's exactly when it comes

for the times
you anchored my heart
to this place
when I thought
each molecule
would make its escape
into somewhere
where nothing has been

when you held the candle
against the wind
of the tornado
the night the light went out
and the dark fell in

for laughter
that spray painted
the sky with stars
and smiles that rose the sun

for the nightmares
defeated by dreams
and the lost and found
and lost again
you found

for the way
the compass needle
is forever drawn
no matter which way
it is I face

let me send
this gratitude
for the days
you brought the fire
to thaw the frozen
from where it turned
to ice

and give you
love and also light
and what dances now
by its own breath
to make you prayers
of magic
for the miracle
of your heart

when our love got too big
with nowhere to go
it tore a hole in itself
because it could not stop
expanding the way

it needed to

and now it runs out of itself
while I am trying to catch
every drop
with a bucket made of holes
the way phantoms hold
with what they are not
or hold the counter
of what needs to be held
but at least it is out there
somewhere refusing to die
and growing just as large
as it can find the room
to grow
and there's something to be said
for resilience like that

To Ever Dream Eternal: Or, Let There Always Be One More Impossible Dream to Make Possible...just one more

let the sky remain
too high to reach
keep the mystery for the stars

every time I stand on tip toes
raise the ceiling
just beyond
my fingertips
beyond the too easy
too easy to take for granted

do not let me play
with constellations
but save them
for the places
only my imagination
can ever find

let the clouds fall on my tongue
to dissolve into the light
I carry in my veins
and to my heart
but do not let me pick
a one with greed
like apples plucked from trees

leave the sky one eternity
beyond my dreams
so I will never run out of wonder
or know the limits
of just how high
the flight of magic
can lift my soul

my dreams can dream me
to the heavens
and dream themselves to true
but these feet must never lose
the space to always dance

and the promise
of somewhere that is left
and waiting
to compel me to dream again
beyond the just beyond

when we never learn
how to accept
the mystery of the unseen
with our egos whining
like children 

in grocery store lines
sometimes we give them
the empty of what we make up
just to keep them quiet
and then we tell ourselves
those temporary fixes of stories
are truths
and believe those truths so much
when the facts contradict
the assumption in innocent lies
we have told ourselves
we mistake reality
with what is false

maybe the ego needs to learn
it can't always get
what it wants
this life is a mystery
and each of us a story
yet to unfold
and the truth can only be seen
when we recognize
how we've filled in the blanks
so full to the brim
we have left no space
for reality to enter
without having lies
spill out of the cup

sometimes
it's necessary to hide
like when energies come knocking
that operate in negatives
like helicopters in the heart
that promise to take you high
but amputate the stars
from the skies of your dreams

sometimes
it's necessary to hide
so when they ask if you are home
you lie and say you're not
or introduce them
to the self you aren't
dressed in a hungry guard dog clothes
who is ready for the bite

sometimes
it is necessary to hide
because that is how you keep
the softness of your heart
because if the right energy
ever comes along
it's good to have something
sweet and tender
left to share

and sometimes
it is necessary to hide
because scars are part us too
but too many get like heavy blinds
or bars
that block out or in the light
and the light is us forever
while the scars are only now

sometimes
it is necessary to hide
because the world can be cruel
and if you don't choose
what to hold back
it will leave you
with nothing left to hold
hiding beneath the dark
of your amputated sky
behind the prison
of your scars
so that if anyone ever comes
there'll be no stars left to find
and the authentic
of everything you are
will be only ashes and craters
wearing a mask
instead of light and love
and the tenderness of shine

some scratch the paint
to see your truth
and of those
some will tell you
who you are
and of those
there will be some
who agitate and scrape
to tell you who you
ought to be

the artist's world
must be titanium gates
to audiences
who take assumptions
as souvenirs

the truth of the artist
really only comes to life
in its magic and its breath
for the ones who come
to question
who it is
they are themselves

I didn't wait for you
to find you again
when I am walking
toward you
unearthing you
continuing this journey
with every breath
my reason to want to leave
and my strength
to go on
my sacrifice of alone
that has shown me
I am never alone
so that I am not waiting
but walking with you
and through you
and toward you
as it has always been
as it will always be
and forever is not
this lost of now
but the finding found
beyond the veil
and the illusions
reality constructs
of time

I glided through the day
on the frozen tears
of the morning
(you know it's the warmest
that freezes the first)
and nobody knew it at all
but maybe you
who has not seen
the way I can hide
a dying heart
inside my smile

and in that
and in this
I have learned
what it means
to let it all go
scaring myself
with the emptiness
of the void
but more so
with what remains
and is eternal beyond
what the mind
can comfortably know

that some things
can be so deep
and still never learn to fly
when I can't stop myself
from piling the what happened then
and the what never did
on the wings of what tomorrow
had hoped it could do

I wanted to be like a child
with a violin and a bow

not yet making music

but learning with practice
and try
but it all went out of tune
the way it seems to now

every mistake
a wrong I can't right
defeated when the song
won't leave my head
and the notes remain sour
and elusive each time

so I am a skater
carrying the weight
of this person I've become
but have never known
with only this heart that still beats
and these eyes that cry
for the light of the stars
my foreign fingers
will never reach
with the limbs of the light
embedded in me

only my tears carry
the dexterity
to find the steps to the dance
of the way this song jumps
lonely and disjointed
from its unrosinned strings

I wanted to give
something it's wings
or at least my half to give
but today the cold carries
the echo of what happened
the day before this
coming back at me
from the other side
of one day after tomorrow

and I just keep learning
to glide
with these tears
to keep me warm
flowing as fast
as each of them freeze

I am
a little too much
fire

there is no bridge
that I can cross
without it falling
before I reach
the other side

but all I can do
is burn

I am fire
and if I let
these flames go out
I have nothing
of this world
but the anonymous ashes
I leave behind

maybe someday comes
some kinda water
that can cross an ocean
blind and unwavering
in its dreams
like a current
that does not dilute
as it passes through the halls

of the pantheon
of the sea

like some kinda
mighty water
that doesn't need
to fear what flames
are apt to do

but me
I am not the sea
I am this fire
that cannot cross a bridge
but must wait here

with its thirst 

and still
it has to burn

does the sunrise
ever hurt your eyes
when it catches you
from the wrong side
of the day

and have you ever
fallen in love
with the poetry of crimson
left on your knees
from sliding sideways
into luck

do you sometimes know
even when you say
you don't
especially
to yourself

and do those knowings
ever turn to secrets
that brand you as a ghost
among the sleeping
yet alive

have you ever
found yourself
only because
you walked contrary
to the way
of the maps

carrying
ancient talismans
like diamond rings
to remind you
you have never been
a pawn of the gods
but more
a consequence
of the stars

and have you stood
on mountains
and felt in over your head
beneath those stars
yet as a fish
who never wants
to find the shore

has your fortune
ever been made
of conjuring gold
not for the sake of wealth
but for the apprenticeship
of the transmutation
of resilience
in a spell

have songs played
in your ears
on stations from
other realms
while you shape shifted
into what could be seen
and the things that could not

if you have ever heard
these questions
without me
writing them here

then to find the answers
I seek
to these
and the questions
I dare not to ask
maybe
I have only to listen
to find truth
myself

we all just want
to find a better way
in a world where
the good guys lost
and nobody knows
because the guys who won
are the heroes
they celebrate
with textbooks
and holidays

and some of us
protest with aspirations
of martyrdom
and others as gurus
and none of that
is gonna get it right

when the martyrs absorb
all the hurts around them
and then congratulate the ego
on its capacity for resilience
and how well they've learned
to revel in the suffering
of dying for another's sins

and the gurus build
their temple walls
that allow no criticism
to dare to penetrate
forsaking mirrors
in the name of mental health
proclaiming imperfect perfection
as a short cut
that passes by
the mutual in the evolution

but when the martyrs
see beyond the punishment
of the mirror
through the illusions
and the tricks
an image of projection
is bound to play
with the spirit and its truth

and the gurus
accept that what is seen
by others
is also part their truth
and zen is not to say
the masters have it figured out
and all the contradictors
best fall on their knees

when the martyrs
stand firm
in their knowing
tempering humiliation
with calling for respect
and the gurus offer empathy
from the heart
as quickly as lessons
fall from their mouths

that's when hearts uncover
and each piece fits into each
and those of us just trying
to make it day to day
find the synergy
in the cosmic
of the one
to overcome
the martyrs and the gurus
who brought us to this state