Projects in color
Lux
№ IGossamer Through even the stillest seas of fog,
dreams emulate reality, as art imitates life;
we wade in the company of timeless kin,
pondering what truths slip past
our branchlet fingers, pining for a knowledge
that trumps what our brains can process -
so that our hearts can see with clarity
where our eyes fail, mired by the mists of uncertainty.
№ IITrespass I've found my way here before.
Songbirds of concrete nightfall,
brick-lain memory lane,
where laughter echoes like a chorus
not a soul could avoid joining.
I've felt trapped and lost
beneath the glow of mirth
and not once questioned my purpose.
Sometimes a tumbleweed
is what we should aspire to.
How else would I have found
a corridor of heaven
in an otherwise monotonous labyrinth?
№ IIINectarous You tasted like yesterday.
Like the summer squeezed of heat.
A good time minus the headache.
You inhabited my lips
as if a familiar tenant.
As much as I enjoyed the palaver,
my tongue humbled itself
with the tune of your fervor,
each bud blooming with flavor.
You tasted like fun,
and I can't wait to drink up
that smile again.
№ IVDebris I'd climb up to see you if I could.
No mountain too perilous,
no tree high enough.
But I remain a bit broken inside.
My hands have healed,
though the scars still sear,
picking up what I can.
Every piece reminds me of you,
of what could have been,
and the failures I see in myself.
Though you've gone,
I sometimes see you in the sky,
the way you might have
been shown God.
But I only see you, mine,
and the shards that I'd love
to leave behind.
№ VEffloresce Even in the throes
of a trillion storms,
even in the tumult
of nature's wrath,
beauty finds a path
to the surface //
and despite a silence
that is timeless,
Life, in all its
immeasurable brilliance,
flourishes in shades
not yet named
№ VIObstinatus Torchlight sunders the horizon,
but hope doesn't melt away.
Its courage is inherent,
like sediment in ancient soil.
Serenity in its bones,
hope is unfazed by the cataclysm
of humanity's traumas.
With a monolithic spine,
its intrepidity is a coat of armor
we all ache to bear.
Should the sun,
in all its omnipotent radiance,
one day usher the Earth
into the Hereafter,
hope will not only stand firm,
it will join us in a loving embrace.
№ VIIDormant Ferocity dwells in the veins.
Like a perpetual tar river,
lit aflame by the heart's whims,
an ability to take than be taken,
to survive than surrender,
exists beneath scales of fortitude,
in the marrow of a birthright
to lay claim the breath
from lungs unseen.
Just because there is no voice,
just because there is stasis,
doesn't mean
tranquility cannot beget the fight
// the fight to remain.
№ VIIIVestige Stripped to layers
left to the imagination.
You liken the hidden
to a fallible weakness,
but I know better.
You see rubble of the flesh,
and thus failure.
I see strength
and a devouring ability
to never yield.
Now, there is no guesswork;
only the raw truth:
that real adamancy
is neither learned nor adopted
-- it's in the bones.
№ IXDashboard I can still see the light
swimming in your smile,
bokeh rubies painting the windshield
but not detracting from you.
Our fingers latticed
and eyes struggling to enjoy
anything but each other.
A film unfurling on the biggest screen
the countryside had ever seen.
The sky could have been
weeping shades of purple and green
and I'd hardly cared
except to witness
how they reflected
in your deep, demanding,
cinematically brown eyes.
№ XBarbican I am in ruins every time we speak,
even when your teeth refuse
to bereave the silence of sound;
my composure crumbles
in the shadow of awe
that spills from my throat
with neither beckon nor deliberation.
And yet your foundation doesn't falter,
but I never doubt the reason.
The reverent molecules in my blood
are used to pave your infallible mortar.
№ XIVermilion Rebirth Beneath the weeping yews,
fruit fed by the salt of grievers
swell with the memories lost
to winter's savage touch,
to the point of bursting and seeping
into the sundered seams
of those rife with empathy.
Each scarlet bead clings to the thorn,
a lantern for souls too weary to mourn.
Roots and flesh alike imbibe the decay,
fashioning new seeds from sown days.
№ XIICenozoic Hope is trying to find me.
The world is festering
from the inside out
and my crystal-ball dreams
are coming to a close.
I'm sick of knowing the fall
is here, is imminent,
but I toss my eyes back
and let the cavities in my skull
receive all forms of light.
May hope froth at my lips
as it swells every nook
inside my subconscious
// try as they might, the cynics
mapping our world's end
will never cleanse me
of my - albeit delusional -
confidence in a better tomorrow
№ XIIIKeepsake I've carried you for so long,
too often I forget you're even there.
A relic of a memory harbored
betwixt reality and the fringe:
a diaphanous reminder of love.
The pain of being plucked
and buried in Heaven's pocket --
but no kinship is innocuous.
Sometimes I stop to breathe,
and to recall the mirth
you brought me.
So much more exists in my bones.
Thanks to you, life itself
has graced me since birth.
Any burdens are my own;
in this heart, you were faultless.
Maybe someday I'll visit a field
and forgive the loss of you
there - one petal at a time.
№ XIVPieces Caressed from structure,
we embrace instability
as it has spread like a virus.
But within our hearts we feel
that Life knows better than us.
In the disassembly
we collect like petals
joining in a breeze.
My love and woe are but fractions
that will someday unite
and become unstoppable.
№ XVThrive From the bones of an organ
previously worshipped,
now discarded and forgotten,
beauty burgeons in an empire
claimed by the barrenness
of doubt and neglect.
Triumphing the science of nature
and reality's coldness
is vibrancy steadfast,
its roots never stronger
than in the putrefaction
of colorless dispassion.
№ XVIUnlikely Haven I find you where memories go
to survive.
There's art here, you just have to
open your eyes.
Life and love speak through
cracks in stone and flesh.
No blemish is too loud to go
unappreciated.
№ XVIIArk Brimming with tempests
bathed in the glow
of a heavenly death
she swims to the surface
of a waterlogged Eden
with Hell on the mind
and paradise seeping
from every saturated pore
you could hear her throat
reverberate with delight
pouring with a preamble
of the greatest deluge
this side of the century
№ XVIIIAmbit Our dreams have no walls,
and there isn't a mote of hope
that can be trapped by the ceiling.
We are but clouds
skating across the sky,
downy white fantasies
creeping along the underbelly
of an immeasurable ether.
We build castles
where only our eyes can reach,
if that, because we don't need
to live in them.
We need to throw our hearts
into the great beyond
and listen to the voices
that would otherwise fall in silence.
We need to dream,
and protect them at all costs.
№ XIXBoundary I cannot protect myself
from the need to protract
every urge for freedom
that creeps through gaps
// they push for the horizon
a place where wings
affix to every shadow
and the notion of flight
refuses to abandon me
but if a world without barricades
can be achieved
then I'll squeeze, yes I'll squeeze
myself through those openings
until I'm free, until I'm free
№ XXEpigraph Risen is the heart
from a grave forgotten,
enrobed in ashen air
it tries to smile against
the falling sun, a dying monarch
whose lividity stains
the quiet firmament.
A melancholy hums to life
memories nestled in thorns,
eager to find their way
home again --
where my embrace
keeps vigil with the wolves
that haunt the emptiness
in which I am sure
to once more fall asleep,
fall in love,
and dwell forevermore --
in the maw of a dirge
confessed by the wind,
irrigating my barren roots.