Living/Dying (for John)

The hole in my heart
How does it heal?
The birds scattered their
movements to the wind
Music made me want
to always be with you
forever in sound
And when I drove
I imagined you behind
the wheel
You gave me a push
and the road glided on by
The clouds moved
and the first sprinkles
of rain fell
as if crying for
the physical dimension
that is this Earth
All the pain and pleasure
All of this
is ours
to play with until
that time that we
run free
Free of the heaviness
but not of the love
The place you showed me
that morning in the dark
My movements floated
on air
There was such peace
a lightness hard to
describe in the words
we have here
Another space where the
body is not the body
but the soul is eternal
I didn't have to cry anymore
It's that place
Where the flowers kiss
the breeze
The sunlight is bright - a brilliance
not of this Earth
and the ships pass on by
I will see you there
In living we are dying and
in dying we are living

Venice

People disappeared into the mist
Like heartbeats thumping
And the same sight I saw before
Was still there
20 years later
I tripped again and again
My own angel was following
Telling me I was lost
In those long flowing robes I first
Saw him in
Lost in the deserts of Egypt
Where I had been before
And rode on a camel
Seeing the sky and many lights
We are here on the Earth
Yet not here, he said
Hold my hand forever
For I will always be here
And always have been
I woke from the dream laughing
So hard the tears cramped my eyes
Now I remember the desert, his hand,
And the sky
The wonder that most turn a blind eye
And through the many lives I've lived
All different places, different times
Have not left me unwanting 

 Lost in the Sand by Mimo Khair http://mimokhairphotography.com/

Muse

The street was crowded

and at every corner

I turned and

thought of the muse

that shimmered

like a diamond

soaked fog

on the San Francisco Bay

I used to sit there and watch

the still shots of

life surrounding me

a long time ago, it seems

but it wasn't

it's like painting a picture

something always escapes,

an elusive detail robbing

the canvas

colors run together slowly making

life of what was just

gray matter

moving fast forward, I stop the

train and turn to look over

The palette

it almost had me thinking otherwise

but it made perfect sense.

 Painting by Mark Rothko

Still

I wonder, I wonder

I move and sometimes the air

Moves with me

I see you

I look up

I see your eyes

And wonder about the way

I shift in my shoes

As your pupils gaze at me

I become deaf and realize you've been talking to me

I wonder what you would do

If I put my finger on your cheekbone

Under your eyes

Looking at me

And traced down the map of your face

Until you stopped me

I'd feel your neck too

I wonder what you'd do

If my hand came home to your lower back

And pressed you hard against me

I think I'd stop wondering

I could feel the blood like Siamese twins

Between us

And now you've finished talking

And look at me that way

The pinpoints of your eyes

Caress mine as time is frozen for one, two seconds

It's hard to tell

It's so still

And so are you

 Alex Grey - Kissing 1983

Empty

Empty was how I felt

Flat as a crepe

Without the filling

I blessed the floor

For it kept me in one place

Even as I walked

Baby steps I hoped

For a love like you

To fill me

Like an empty container

Waiting in the closet

For some cold hands

To touch it

Eagerly anticipating

The drink

Greatness

I'm lying down seeing you/ as you smile at me/ your strength and ego are not the same/ I run to you with longing/ so precise it removes any doubt/ about what you and I are feeling/ I know when I write words/ they like a great love/ are always and forever bound/ by trees as paper/ turning yellow with age/ I can only hope to be with you similarly long/ living side by side/ with all of life's pleasures/ like a blue sky crisp in winter/ reflected in the snow on a lake/ I saw long ago/ I took a chance/ on standing in the frozen wilderness/ thinking this could end/ this could crack/ but I'd rather try anyway/ than forever live with wondering/ what could have been/ my feet slipped over the crystalline surface/ moving with freedoms long left behind / full of exhilaration/ brought me to the highest place/ just like your love/ I'm free but I choose/ to be encased in your sphere of passion/ and I see that life is suddenly/ beautifully real/ all the pain/ all the magic/ all the possibility/ I also see that/ in all this time/ I have been the one stopping myself/ from greatness.

For A While

For a while I couldn't dream, it was like

a sad part of myself killed the dreaming

I would sleep like a stone hitting the bottom of a pond

The murky middle alone with me

The time of death, of dying surrounded

And the days before, when what you were talked to me

I remember more about the times you weren't there

I thought God must be like this, all powerful

Though you weren't really

Only flesh and bone, my father

In your dying I sprang forward

Growing into my true self

When I did dream, I was on an island

An otherworldly glow filtered through

And a field of daisies danced high in the wind

I saw a freighter passing and knew

It was you

Going on into the light

And when I woke, my heart ached

to be back there with

the green hills, the hallelujah light

instead of where I could not touch your skin

Because I saw,

I saw it before you became ashes

They said it there, that a member of the family had to view

I said yes - you looked so still

I had no fear of saying the wrong thing

You were not there anymore

 Muzaffer Mehmet ErSelcuk