I awoke from a dream

You spoke down to me

You are drifting too far

Too far from my reach

I am under the ocean

I have sunk into sleep

I am held by the darkness

I am lost in my dreams

Loosen your grip, my dear

You are holding too tight

Where darkness grows tall

So too does the light

Your words, they wear thin

Like glass I can break

Leave me to wander

I have met with my fate

My dear, my darling

You do not see

Where the nights grow long

So too does the day

I lay in my bed

Awake in a dream

In an explosion of light

You spoke down to me

There is light in your darkness

And words on your wall

Release your arrow

And see where it falls

You have held it too long

And the hour grows late

Open your heart, my dear

Daybreak awaits.

When I return

To the island

Where I was born

I reunite with the ocean

The force of the sea

Steadies my feet

My mind, made still

By its motion

I walk on the edge

Where the land meets the sea

I drift from my head

As I study my feet

I breath in the sky

And the song of the gulls

I sink down through the sand

As the earth rises up

I draw my name in the sand

As I sing in soft tongues

I ask the wise ocean

Of what is to come

It speaks to me

At night in my dreams

I reunite with the island

In the arms of deep sleep.

He saw it there standing

A shadow on his path

A pit to dig deeper

A shovel to grasp

He was born from dark water

In a fast-moving flood

With eyes made of light

And roots in the mud

He grew tired of running

From the shadow he cast

With no sun in the sky

It stood on his path

He'd need to walk with it

To keep himself whole

Through the valley of shadows

The dark night of the soul

He asked God for guidance

A way through the night

He broke through the surface

And bent toward the light

He threaded the light

From the stars to the brain

Like the web of a spider

Life's a fragile thing

He'd find peace again

In the wind and the rain

In the sunshine, in the shallows

In the deep seas of pain

Shadows are cast

From a backdrop of light

When we cast away darkness

We lose sight of the light

Only with contrast

Does life become whole

He walked through the valley

The dark night of the soul.

In an old French fort

In Vietnam

The shrubs were pruned

Into elegant swans

It seemed out of place

In a time of war

Green swans, backlit

Under rounds of mortar

The MACV supply sergeant

Kept a rock ape called George

They'd walk hand-in-hand

When he wasn't caged

When George grew restless

He'd go to the bar

He wanted to fight

After all, it was war

My father was stationed

At the old French fort

His room, down the hall

The phone, by the bar

Each morning, he rose

To make the day's call

George came from the darkness

His eyes filled with war

He was tired of living

Caged behind bars

It wasn't a living

He could have foresaw

He and my father

Had that in common

Both lived in bars

Tangling fates with the ARVN

He was sick of being mortared

In the sweltering heat

Chuck made the call

George remembered his teeth

He went for the neck

As my father recalled

So by the hackles

He grabbed him

And tossed him over the bar

If they'd sat down together

They would have agreed

Both man and rock ape

On a great many things

But as fate would have it

The ape intervened

He knew only war

He never knew peace

Strange things happen

In times of war

Men live with rock apes

In old French forts

Where mortar rounds fall

Onto rows of green swans

And each time you wake up

It's still Vietnam.

Raindrops hit the windshield

A thousand souls

Clog the highway

The loose change

On my dashboard

Will soon be used

To appease the angry gods

Of the Garden State Parkway

I have my St. Christopher

Hanging from the rearview

He protects me in travel

From lightning and toothache

I drive the winding highway

To the place I was born

Where locals surf the ocean

Under the white burning sun

I drive the dirt roads

Out past Warren Grove

Through seas of pygmy pine

Of old black jack oak

Where sheep laurel blooms

In the white sugar sand

Where the dirt's colored red

And fire sweeps the land

I follow the bridge

Across The Mullica River

Where brackish blue water

Bleeds through green grassy delta

Where the laughing gulls nest

And the blue heron rests

Where the watery veins

Seem to snake on forever

The house I grew up in

No longer stands

It was fallen by progress

Not by storm or by sand

The shed my Dad built

Is all that remains

The gardens - all gone

White stone in their place

The old shed remains

Holding its place

As time marches on

As the sun keeps the days

It stands in the shadow

Of a time, now gone

When men and the ocean

Still sang the same song

Where the locals lived

Hand-in-hand with the sea

And their veins, like salt water

Snaked their way to the sea.

The future is growing

Like a song I can sing

It fills up my lungs

In the darkness, it breaths

Behind my eyes

It unfolds as I sleep

In a moment, I'm gone

In a moment, I'm free

I'm captured again

When I open my eyes

Like a moth, I stay still

As the sun lifts the sky

I'm reborn at night

Where the future grows deep

In my dreams, I am gone

In my dreams, I am free.

A third eye opened

When she closed her eyes

As the tides of men ebbed

She heard earth's mournful cries

It cried of great loves

It cried of great falls

It built the great cities

And tore down their walls

The guardians of eternity

See more than men can see

Her third eye crumbled

When she built up the walls

She felt the grip of gravity

A thousand hands at her feet

From great heights

Each time

She would fall

Where older souls

Would have retreated

She insisted on drowning

‘Til she was dragged from the river

She coughed up the water

Life's eternal flood

As the water released her

A third eye opened up.

I was born in the springtime

When the wind bends the sky

When the ground opens up

And the ocean is wild

I was born from a storm

That broke open the sky

In the belly of the ocean

In the deepest of night

I am made from the rain

On an earth, breathing fire

I bleed blue into red

To make indigo sky

I've danced through the summer

I've walked through the fall

I've waded through winters

Where the earth never thaws

When the sky opens up

I open, too

I was born in the springtime

When everything blooms.

She felt a pressure drop

A barometric shift

As the nights grew longer

The words left her lips

Her brain underground

Rooted in dirt

Life drained from her body

Like water through earth

It thickened her blood

And drew lines in her face

She was root-bound

Pulled down

The earth had swallowed

Her air away

Her eyes burned bright

In the long summer light

She was electric

Buzzing

Amplified

When the air unbound her

There were no roots

To ground her

There was endless day

Endless flight

Her words

They carried her

There were so many

In the air with her

She was never more alive

Never more far away

In the clouds

She could scatter

Her mind could unravel

Adrenaline sat

Like a crown

On her brain

Time became slippery

And her blood moved quickly

These were the days

When it never rained

She felt the pull

The smell of the soil

The earthly impact

The spiritual withdrawal

Time pressing down

The volume turned down

The earth was swallowing

Her air away

Her words were her wings

Chaotic

Free

Unhinged

She never felt the climb

The way she felt the fall

There was a price

She would pay for it

And she had no problem

Paying it

To touch the sky

Was worth every fall.

It's in the blood

It's in the wind

I can hear it in the song

That the ancestors sing

Carry me home

To the eastern sun

Where the spider holds the story

In the silk she has spun

Where my blood runs fast

And my mind never falters

Where my roots come alive

In the cold, briney waters

Carry me back

To the land of high water

Where the sun bursts open

On its red fiery altar

Where my vision expands

Away from dry land

Where the light fills my head

And my arms are wide open

Take me back

To before it was written

Where the white buffalo is born

To transform all that's hidden

Where the freedom we seek

Already resides

In the air that we breath

In the ever-changing tides

It's in the blood

It's in the wind

I can hear it in the song

That the ancestors sing.

I dreamt of the earth god

How he came to be

He swallowed the pit

From the devil's tree

Tannined and bitter

Dark and withered

His veins turned to roots

That bloodlet the rivers

I dreamt of the drowning god

How he came to be

He swallowed the earth

Away from the tree

The seven seas rose

Collecting lost souls

In the roar of the waves

Their stories are told

I dreamt of the drinking god

How he came to be

He bled the red wine

From the vines of the tree

Ecstatically dancing

He tempted the fates

Reverie was the song

Of the poison he drank

I dreamt of the sun god

How he came to be

Melting time into resin

That bled from the tree

Ambered and layered

Fractured and fated

Eternities captured

In the sun's glowing heat.

I stood on the cliff

And they gathered below

The things that all knew me

The things that I know

Your sorrow, it sings

Like a dove at last light

The sad, lonesome truth

In the absence of light

I love you like madness

My heart, wrapped in gold

I'll carry your sadness

Our love can't grow old

So hand me your sorrow

I'll let it grow wings

It will fly on forever

I won't let it sing

Though the thorns, they blind me

This weight, I can bare

For you, my sweet love

This crown, I will wear

We'll burn down the bridges

We'll witness the light

We'll find peace again

Our hearts intertwined

We will let the tide take us

We will let the waves come

We will bath in the rays

Of the exploding sun.

Far away from all things else

I laid down in the bed

And I buried myself

They could not unearth me

Not by shovel, plow, or crane

I've come to belong here, you see

For I'm in need of no pain

Far away from all things else

I stared at the TV

And crawled into myself

They could not flush me out

Not by whisper, song, or wail

I'm in need of this hiding, you see

The way that two lungs need the air

Far away from all things else

I swallowed the pill

And succumbed to myself

They could not see the fire

Not by vision, art, or prayer

This was no escape, you see

But a panicked gasp for air

Far away from all things else

I tried to run

And caught up with myself

They could not slow my gait

For I would soon be there

I can feel it creeping in, you see

Long before it's hardly there

Far away from all things else

I lost my mind

And I found myself

They could not imagine it

Not unless they'd once been there

The path is dark, you see

But there are lights that hang down from the air

Far away from all things else

I dug through the dirt

And unearthed myself

The darkness was so heavy

So heavy, I might break

But the light will shine brightest

When the hour grows late.

He moved through a house

That grew deep in his head

He wandered its hallways

Time twisted and bent

His eyes combed the ceiling

His mind climbed the walls

To live is to fly

To fly is to fall

His pain was like armor

He held strength in his scars

Though the ceiling was black

It held every star

He was a climber of mountains

Perfection made of flaw

To live is to fly

To fly is to fall

He braved the white water

He came up from under

In his darkest hour

He swam toward the shore

He broke through the uncertain

He felt it burst wide open

A new world of freedom

A new world of flaw

It had deep oceans

Pain and love could be spoken

To live is to fly

To fly is to fall.

Quan Yin wears many faces

Some are gentle

Some are fierce

Born of eastern tradition

The goddess of compassion

She fades to the west

And burns brightest in the east

The Black Mahakala is one of her faces

He is rebirth

He is death

He's the funeral pyre

The world on fire

He severs attachments

And to the ego, he is death

He came to me at a dreadful hour

I closed my eyes

And the images poured

He studied my face

My thoughts, he could trace

He reflected the mind

I already wore

Tall flames moved around him

And molten metal poured

He was exploding power

He wore skulls, not flowers

When everyone scatters

He gathers the wood

For years, I had these visions

They waited for me

When I closed my eyes

They were there to reflect me

To read and protect me

To reconnect me

With the many eyes

I was ecstatic with grief

Entombed underneath

Under earth's pressure

I had fossilized

I'd have to walk the path of fire

Protected by the great ignitor

He had come to smoke me out

He was ferocious protection

My burning reflection

He told me the truth

In my hour of doubt

To live is to walk through fire

The slow dance on the funeral pyre

The path that burns holes in the feet

Enlightens the way out

I had a habit of going under

Of only hearing the thunder

My head was full of water

And the tide was always dragging me out

It was the fire that protected me

And I didn't want it to be

I knew I'd have to burn

Until I was all the way out

His wisdom is ancient

Old and forgotten

Faded away with so much else

He comes to let the fire grow

To burn the holes

To illuminate the places

That we last want to look

Compassion is not flying

It's more like falling

Again and again and again

It whispers to us - just keep moving

From the ash, new things are growing

You will learn to rebuild and reframe

His compassion is made of fire

So we learn to touch the pain

His path is one of last resort

So we may live to outlast the flames

He is made of light, but born of fire

Through fear and hesitation

His blade cuts through

He's our world when it's on fire

Mahakala - the great ignitor

His love for me was rare and true.

Sometimes I dream

I am lost in the forest

Where herds of white horses

Run wild and free

I can't see the end

Where I am heading

Then I see the white horses

And I follow my feet

When I was young

Barefoot in the forest

The green briar thorns

Stung at my feet

When I was young

Lost in the forest

The future was there

Calling for me

I come from the fog

I come from the forest

Where herds of white horses

Run wild and free

The future is wide

I dance in the distance

The horses surround me

When I cannot see.

I see the earth

Where heavens falls

So silvery and white

I see the earth

Where heaven falls

It paints the midnight sky

I see the earth

Where heaven falls

It pulls me close, tonight.

I used to draw on my hands

You noticed it

We were in your white Dodge Shadow with the "Pave the Rainforest" bumper sticker on it

It was October

Clinton was president

We were parked outside of Hoyt's Cinema in Manahawkin, New Jersey

You drove me home

It was the first time you held my hand

Each day we spent together

Until I went to Belize, to the jungle

My father drove us to the airport in Philly in their red Hyundai Santa Fe

We were still kids then

It was 3 o'clock in the morning

You were still drunk in the back seat

It was May

Bush was president

The Iraq war was raging

I was having a bad reaction to the antimalarial

My guts churned

I fought with my head

I kissed you goodbye

I told you I loved you

Each day we spent together

Until you went to Uganda, to the jungle

You drove yourself to the airport in Hartford in our gray Toyota Rav4

I was sick

It was nothing new

I stayed with my parents in New Jersey

I sat on the beach

It was November

Trump was president

I thought of you across the ocean

You landed at night

You drove to New Jersey in the morning to get me

You told me that you loved me

Each day we spend together

We drive around in our green Toyota pickup

It's August

Everything in Vermont is so green

We are older now

We complain about things together

It's what people from New Jersey do

We battle with our demons

You dance to make me laugh

I use the wrong word to make you laugh

I had a dream about us

We saw Sirius rise into the night sky

We watch TV together

You hold my hand

I love you.