if you are hurting

just lay still

and let the dark

fade back

the illusion of

the pain

the distraction 

of the day

the deafening silence

of the night

baby I'm beside you

feel my cheek

against your soul

somewhere I am 

quiet there

falling through

my own dark too

and listening to

the secret fears

that you're afraid

to tell

listening to the sounds

alone speaks 

to itself

and holding you

to this heart

inside the interverse 

where the memories

of unseen

are remembered

as much as made

and written in

the etchings

of sacred light

that need no witness

to make the universe

believe

defiant existence

beyond this time

that cannot

be forgot

that cannot break

in dream

ancient wounds

and altered states 

of mind

sometimes baby

you're so hard

to find

and you're a bad dog

when you bite

but I know you

in the night 

when you're a 

dream child

from the stars

an angel bearing scars

the medicine I need

sometimes bitter

sometimes sweet

sweep me off my feet

and make me stand

my ground 

in a universe

so far from here

I can see you clear

and lighting up

the sky

the only answer

I need to why

the sun can laugh

but the moon

must cry

then learn again

to smile

and while you're 

sharing fires

with demons 

in the night

I'll invoke the spirits

to hold the lost child tight

and closer to the source

of Creation

where you're found

songs to rhythms

of the sound

of heartbeats on the ground 

distress calls out

to stars 

to take the distance

from the far

exfoliate the miles 

of scars 

that make you

hard to find

while you hitchhike

the backroads

of my mind

and places left

unmapped

but I'm not gonna 

stand real still

to whisper to 

your heart

I'll be out there

dancing too

down the gravel 

and the dirt 

to meet your game

of seek and hide

and when I find you child 

you won't need

to fight 

just baby know 

to take the ride

I don't need the warnings

I've learned a bad dog bites

climb the ladder

up through the stars 

and meet me at the moon

I'll leave you the key

hung from a song

to open this secret room

where making believe

is all we need

where dreams contain

the truth

let me undress the day

unstrap the armour

you have worn

and wash you in 

the milk of tears

of penetrated

to the bone

let me feed you mana

from dreams

you dare not speak

not even to yourself

and wrap you in

this soft surrender

so you won't fear

to fall

let me stain this map

into the chambers  

of your heart

for the places I get lost

so you will not

forget your way 

to where you can 

be found

let me write the sounds

upon your ears

for all I've named you

here in love

so in the silence

when demon's speak

you'll remember 

who you are

let me light the fire

inside your mouth

so you can take it

when you leave

and in the hours

when you are searching

you can call your way 

back home

crumbling under the weight of time

fracturing in the kaleidoscope reality

that doesn't let me see

where the truth in the image lies

trying to remember the seen 

and unseen are just illusion

and all that is real is the felt beyond

the places the ego cannot touch

but with the way the light skews

through the human eyes

while through the ears

comes on the mocking beat

of the ever counting clock

of a heart that grows cold in the chest

through the nights of single breath

and the days without the sunlight

in another's eyes

I have been too human 

for the spirit to have its way

and so sometimes it takes this body

for a cage

some days it slips through the bars

and leaves the hollow echo 

of its prayers for going home

while others it sings the song

of clipped wing beings

who must only dream

to find their kind

in prisons and in forests

and in skies I've long forgotten

that are calling to be soared

and the world becomes a blanket

with its hallucination of the night

waiting for songs

forgotten how to hear

to remind me of 

the touch of day

like the sailor lost at sea

who took his life

the day before

he could be found

I never learned how

to practice

the discipline

of not indulging

in the recklessness of hope

without silencing the faith

that speaks from in the heart

mourned the dying of the stars

until I could never honour

the sacrifice of light

bringing wishes to the Earth

killed my dreams

with the knife of artificial

self-fulfilling prophesies

just to remove the risk

that dreams might not

come true

and buried myself in the rubble

of counter-fate

to eliminate the passing of hours

I was not found

until there was nothing left

to find

while I lay down

beneath the moon

Starlight Eyes is watching

deciding what we will do

as footsteps are already taken

in the place

where nothing left is hid

and nothing needs to be

and scars are as sacred

as the light

that still bursts through 

our seems

and all we have to wear

is the transparency

of love

that brings all 

in its own time

outside of time

making cradles of hearts

for the sacred found

inside of dreams

and the honouring

of knowing

beyond the knowing

and knowing with faith

what is done between

the here and there

is how the spirits

will decide 

you're a dangerous man

to love

because if I love you

then I will have to know

what it really is 

to love

and not to cling to half a lie

I will have to learn the truths

beyond this human 

comprehending

and remember who I was

before I came 

amnesiac into this place

I will have to believe in more 

than the illusion 

of who I think I am

and accept the miracle 

of purified reality

where love is so sacred 

it humbles me back to child

with responsibility too large 

to hold with both my hands

to endeavour to hold up

with the atrophy of these arms

what Creation has granted

this disbeliever 

who did not feel worthy 

of the gift of crumbling doubt

nor the transcenion of this 

stunted vision of the world

released into unseen before

where the stakes are only love

and everything to lose 

and everything to gain

and everything to shed

and all to metamorphosize

where on the other side is light

and a universe forgotten

waiting to be explored 

waiting to be

dangerous enough

to love

I wake confused

and weak and empty

and know that she

is gone again

how will I dance

without her

the unfaithful lover

of my essence

the careless mate

to my soul

who has stolen

the sharpness

from my eyes

and turned me to

a hungry dog

that does not recognize 

its reflection

in the mirror

the beast who likes

the taste of blood

of everything she loved

but if somehow

you catch a glimpse

of the gentleness

now gone 

somewhere soaring

in the light 

tell her I am sorry

for all the hurt

I couldn't stop

and the hurt I could

and the times I lied

and told her we

were strong enough

when I knew too well

we weren't

but do not 

come closer

to this empty shell 

filling now with

whatever passes through

what you are seeking

lingers beside you

like a ghost

a breeze too faint

to sense

that longs also

to feel

When I found

there was no 

room left

in your heart

for me

I hollowed out

my own

leaving not

an empty hole

to bleed into

the dark

but a place

I've saved

to fill with light

so when 

your own heart

has grown

too crowded

to remember 

refuge

for even you

you will know

that somewhere

on the other side

of the moon

there is a heart

where you

are always

welcome.

 
in the quiet

when the voices 

get too loud

I wish that 

I could 

give you music

to draw the sense

out of the noise

from the chaos

that dances between

the knocking of 

the ghosts

cold at your door

and the absence 

of heartbeats 

in between

to tame them

into rhythms

that make 

melodies of screams

in the alchemy 

you've used on me

that converted 

sleepless nights

to songs

and resurrected 

broken-legged

fantasies

to dreams 

that remembered

how to dance

Red Buffalo Woman

In a short fall before a long winter, there was a Red Buffalo Woman who came up lame. Day after day she pushed herself to keep pace with her herd, growing weaker with every step, so that by the time they reached the great river, she had lost most of her strength. With too much exhaustion to pay mind to her steps, she misplaced her hind leg, sinking past the hock in a deep mud hole along the river bank. She struggled to free herself with no result, and eventually her herd was forced to move on, leaving her behind.

            The Red Buffalo Woman collapsed to her knees and waited helplessly for the predators to come and pick her carcass bare. But before the wolves and the coyotes could draw near, a man came upon her. Feeling sorry for the red buffalo woman, he dug her from the mud hole and brought her home with him, and because he had many motherless children, he invited her to stay with him as his wife. The Buffalo Woman was very happy and worked hard to care for the man’s own mother and his children.

            However, soon she discovered that the man was lazy and did not like to hunt. As winter came on, his children grew thin and sick. One day, the man’s mother came to the Buffalo Woman. “You can see that my grandchildren are starving, but you are so big and fat. Could you not spare just a little for us? Just something for the pot?”

            The Red Buffalo Woman loved her family and could not refuse them. “Of course,” she told her mother-in-law, “take what you need.” And so it went on day after day that the old woman and her son carved the meat from her bones. She did not complain, because they reminded her each time that she should have died on the river bank, and the gift of her flesh was a small price to pay for the warmth of their fire and their company.

            It was a long winter that stretched past its moons, but like all winters, it finally yielded to spring. But as the buds peeked from the trees and the birds filled the skies with their songs again, the red buffalo woman found she was nothing but bones and hide. “You are no longer of any use to us,” her husband told her, and taking that hide from her, he and his family left her and set out for their spring camp.

            The Red Buffalo Woman laid down on the damp earth, twice abandoned, with nothing left of herself but her bones and her tears. The grass grew up through her rib cage and all around her skeleton, but she did not move.

            A passing Eagle happened to fly over head and looking down saw the Red Buffalo Woman who mourned her own imminent death. “Why are you crying?” he asked, swooping down to perch on her skull.

            “When I became lame and stuck, my herd left me to die. But I was found by a man, and I learned to love that man and his family so much I let them strip me completely, but then they had no more use for me, and left me also. Now, I have nothing left to offer the world. I have nothing to give and it is better I die.”

            “Nothing?” asked the Eagle, snapping one of her femur bones. “This marrow is delicious. The very best I have ever had.” When the Eagle was done his feast and had sucked her dry, he gathered the empty bones of the red buffalo woman into his talons, lifted her high into the air, and released her above a steep cliff.

            “Why have you done this to me?” she cried. “First you have sucked the marrow from my bones, and now you have dropped me to my death!”

    

        “No,” said the Eagle, “I hollowed your bones to make them lighter, and I have uplifted you so you could fly.”

            The red buffalo woman was rapidly approaching the rocks below and knew they would smash her to dust. “I will die!” she screamed.

            “You will fly!” assured the Eagle.

            Just then the wind whistled through the hollow bones of the Red Buffalo Woman, tickling the insides of them. As she shook her frame in response, great plumes of feathers sprouted from her shoulders and her back, and sharp claws sprung from the shards of her broken femur. She gave a thunderous flap of her enormous new wings, just as a solar wind grazed the underside of her belly, and rose up high above the clouds and all the creatures of the Earth, reborn in flight.

The end.