They warned us not to enter, but he couldn't help himself.

The rumors made him curious, 
until they led us past the end of the train tracks.

Where nothing seemed to exist unless you believed and I he did.

I haven't seen him since.
 

You left the buildings to collapse
I saw your eyes between the cracks
But now they’ve turned to coal
You were but a card in three
To break the hand you’d given me
But now you’ve reached your goal

I’d blame you to the end of time
Or when the world begins to rhyme
But now I’ll purge my soul
As I your name, remember mine
I’ve got a cliff I need to climb
But now I’d dig my hole

Spring came on reluctantly this year— like the probing of a diffident lover, uncertain of welcome. It gave me time to remember how much the heat of the new sun felt like a caress and how the breeze from the south made me feel like shedding layers— clothing and skin, and running wild-hearted through the first green.

You are the flame that lights up my candle But your heat burns me, till I melt away into nothing Your touch is like liquor, makes me drunk with pleasure But it exhausts me whenever I'm in your presence One careless word or thoughtless act from you Gets me reacting like I'm on an overdose You voice laced with impatience shatters me into pieces But I am never complete without hearing the sound of your laughter You saved my life from an ocean of loneliness But now you've got me drowning in the sorrow of you not understanding me You keep me afloat with your warm embrace But your distracted

tulip petals droop
beneath the weight of water
cupped in open palms
feathered dandelion dust
drifts away on breath of dreams

~Wiscasset, Maine

First published in Founder’s Favourites, no. 3 (Mar. 2018): 13. 

To the child in me, they seemed so grownup.
To the child in me, they seemed so grownup.

When I was little my adult relatives knew so much.
They guided me and taught me best as they could.
They were wise and all knowing to naive, little me.

To the child in me, they seemed so grownup.
To the child in me, they seemed so grownup.

I watched their examples, their speech, their mannerisms.
Like a kid in a candy store, I absorbed some and rejected others
For better or for worse, they helped make me who I am today.

The bridge is redundant,
left to permanently soar
over the disused railway line.
You may go across or over,
though if you choose the former
there is no train to hit you.
Underneath are pensioners
throwing sticks for eager dogs,
toddlers learning to ride their tricycles.
A woman sits with her legs apart – the folds
of her sari fall sheer from her groin.
A couple have taken themselves
out of the house to broach the matter
that won't be solved indoors –
their postures lock in an iron grid.
And nobody takes the first step. Nobody

Have you ever questioned your existence? Have you ever felt that something is different? Have you ever wonder if your changing? Or it's just the world is transfiguration? Night is the time I dont know myself anymore Every song made a deeper meaning Every memories came rushing back to me And every lyrics hit me like it's written for myself Night is the time where I'm changing Like a serpent changing its skin Night is the time where Ed Sheeran's song made me cry And the time where Adele made my system run in havoc Am I the only one? That felt like the night is a time for solitude Time for

How she accepts it. How she enters willingly into the cold. How her skin, almost immediately, becomes cold as the water is, her body's heat pushed deep down under, to protect her internal organs, that flush with blood, that float like fish in some warm Mesozoic ocean as her heartbeat thunders round them, as they move, just for now, companionable, together. She see penguins on the dipping, rising shore and people bundled up who look like penguins, black against the snow.

The seasons seem halted.
The weather's fine and still.
Summer's flowers–
Vetch, toadflax campion–
Vie with autumn haws' red.
The greens deep before the coming gold.

The fields are ploughed
Into football jersey stripes.
The swallows have flown
And brown edges the leaves,
But the warmth inspired the verges
To lush new growth.

Puffs of rain drift across the fields
And rise like smoke in the vales.
Horses and sheep continue to crop
As a heavy mist descends,
Clothing the land in mystery
And crystal drops on dry stalks.