dandy seeds

Think of us like a dandelion

Hands held open

            Fingers danced in the air current

Wafting way up a/head

            Out of sigh/t

We lose parts of our bodymind to the win/d

Carried cross foreign counties,

Many different noses sniff the sky

Notice the change from

Burning bark

To cinnamon

Eucalypt

to elgan teak

Scents / first indication of difference

Our elements have been 

s c a t t e r e d

to/o soft and sharp-sounding places

                                           Kakamega,

                              Oaxaca,

                 Uganda,

Leningrad,

                  Lake Tahoe,

                                Bruxelles

                                               Soon, India too.

I cannot sit well 

                    with the feeling

Of losing my self,

               our selves

                    /so freely/

One of the dears came back dancing,

         galaxies bouncing off her eyelids, 

         light flicking inside her iris

She calls it the planting of seeds in minds

You..

          You’re the farmers.

Off into fields you walk, 

        head higher than mine

        see your own horizon

        with your own eyes

Gather water on the way,

Open hands /

Bottled sunshine

            Refresh parched earth /

Stop nodding off, there’s work to be done

Promise to come back in spring

Once this life has taken hold

Settle / roots / everywhere

hug. everything. 

I’ve told you before

you are exquisite

you are more than the sum of thoughts, 

you're the sum of your stimulations

This earth needs your sweat.

Let inspirations be the lessons

           seeds left in your wake

         remember: 

         from many rain/drops

         we create ourselves

 a lake

i’ve just learned to float on.

When we reach tributaries,

water falls in tribulation

             Together, drop for drop,

             Reach re/atomisation

things change

there is a positive way

of dropping

one’s pretenses and aggravation

You are teachers, planting trees,

 /            Each leaf a frantic spreading           \

/\            Each smile a fractal memory         /\

     friends back home,

          shedding skins for you

letting you go,

letting this water flow over the rim of 

          yesterdays' hidden beach

Means letting the world come in

And go out.

Go out. 

Solitude is priceless.

Perhaps that is why I am a self-diagnosed narcoleptic. It's the only time I am truly alone.

Words from greater artists

“We were together. I forget the rest.” ~ Walt Whitman

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” ~ Lao Tzu

“So, I love you because the entire universe conspired to help me find you.” ~ Paulo Coelho

 “There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life.” ~ John Lennon

“Let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.” ~Kahlil Gibran 

“Anxiety is love’s greatest killer. It makes others feel as you might when a drowning man holds on to you. You want to save him, but you know he will strangle you with his panic.” ~ Anaïs Nin

“I love you without knowing how or when or from where. 
I love you straightfowardly, without complexities or pride: 
So I love you because I know no other way than this: 
Where I do not exist nor you, 
So close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
So close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.”

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?” 
― Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems

“Hello, sun in my face. Hello you who made the morning and spread it over the fields...Watch, now, how I start the day in happiness, in kindness.” 

“Ten times a day something happens to me like this - some strengthening throb of amazement - some good sweet empathic ping and swell. This is the first, the wildest and the wisest thing I know: that the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness.” 
― Mary Oliver

“I like flaws and feel more comfortable around people who have them. I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.” —Augusten Burroughs

Tulip fingers

You hid it
       exquisitely
bruise behind your smile
your beauty fell like flaking paint
       on an ancient home

I knock gently
             daisy in hand
             shoes removed
             awkward feet holding timid toes in holy socks
Waiting . . .
You're not home today

I left a lick of fresh paint on your threshhold,
       a note for curious eyes that read
'you are a child of the stars, you know'

One hundred and eighty four days into my apprenticeship,
I learned something of the structure of old houses
              how they sway in gentle breezes
              there was a view to the stars in your attic but
I could not stop sneezing from all the dust

I'd look for stray planks of wet wood
     build a bridge up your creaking steps
     hold my breath that you'd answer when I knocked again
You never did.

Clouds are out in full force today,
it's not raining so you stay hidden
           ridding myself of all smallness
           I make cumulus my horizon line
                       step into my wings
                       throw myself off the daily cliff
I know the stars will be my streetlights when i've no longer got nightvision

A blind man feels his way past me
pausing
           to ask why I'm crying
I said, I'm losing my sight of the wonder in this world
I said, I am losing myself in splinters and bent nails
           my eyes need emptying
I left the best parts of me
           safe in the chest of a ghost
           gave myself a wheezing lung
           and its burning
from all the smoke
           bleeding
from all the broken mirrors

One hand on his heart, the other reaching toward me
He flicked a pocketknife open
placed a spring in my palm
drew a ring of blood around it
           'Breathe..
See how this tested metal needs blood sweat and tears
            to become

We run about this life following heart lines and hippie trails
Life lines and tales of to-be children
            but no one mentions the scar line
Have you never seen freckles, ridges and warts
That speak of your mortality too?

The stories of the skin are forever ever-changing,
Do not forget the blood of scars is the same as the blood of blushing
Do not forget that you exist, no matter what condition you're in
Child, feel blessed for your splinters and failures
They show that you have lived.
Know that you will bounce back like the spring
Even with blood on your lips.'

I look down at my hand.
See dirt under each nail, carefully placed
So when you left, your tulips could grow
From my fingertips
Your roots could infuse my nervous system
Fuck
I miss you

Blind man taps out of frame
leaning heavily on my words,
Taking my burdens along with all the others
I am alone again.

I tip toe back past the old house
leave buds in your letterbox
plait some grass together
leave the path to your door free of weeds
           this is my peace offering
           yes it is too late
           no I will not stop trying

There's never anyone home anymore
in the abandoned shack of a memory,
though I drop all my tears in your gardens
nothing will grow there
the ground is frozen
I know it's not my fault, it's winter,
Still, I can't think of anything to say other than
I'm sorry

I'm sorry I did not accurately capture the scent at your neck
that the stain on my pillow 'pon waking is
         wept rememberance
         instead of
         leaked dreaming
I used to lose myself in your smell

We were safe
My nose in your neck
heart bashing against lungs
climbing my rib-ladder
to reach your tongue
'taste my vibration', I'd whisper

I leave incense on your window ledge now,
a glass of sweet water to wet my lips
somehow swallow my dusty vocal chords.

Sun drops
the spectrum
on your stoop
Colouring ciggie butts
Old ash leaving charcoal smudges
in your creases

I've seen so many thresholds since you left
I've found myself a stranger everywhere

I don't know what to do with myself
          so I go on
          playing with the flaking paint
          sanding a rough patch away
          admiring the layered warmth of the wood

I pray you're having good dreams
I pray your new reality is less battle and more beauty
I see your ghost waving at me still
but I thank God you finally got to sleep
though I no longer believe in 'Him.'

The fucked thing is
no one else got to see your
      vintage lace curtains
      broken oil lamps
      the pieces of sea shells by the back door
      hanging on tangled strings
but me

and now i've gone and lost the front door key.

up

the insatiable pull of the sky
      an anti-gravity
crying out to me
inter-mittently

fall
     into
           me
               softly
or at great speeds
fall somehow, whether lost or completely free,
jumping, tumbling, screaming,
fall into me

toes bouncing before long
to take off
pile as many hearts into this basket as I can
fill up high to our eyelids in helium,
we fly away while

the world
shrinks
underneath us

heart y o u

paw paw shine from a distance
hair coiffed
just a hint of deoderant
or cologne
high-collar, thick heel, long coat,
fitted

companion leans in for a cheeky whisper,
he throws an appreciative smile
down a delicate neckline

subtle blush
dropped bottom lip
mind in last night's midnight
rendez - vous

their little secret

cory wrote andrew a note;
               '  ever notice
how the neckhole of a lifevest
resembles the saving grace inside my chest?
              i heart you andrew x'