Nova

Ascending up toward the tiny
Twinkling, teasing light above.
Forever focusing farther,
Wondering what it's of.
Into the darkness, into the colors
Of every shade and hue
Surrounded by stone, surrounded by gas--
Perhaps a friend or two.
Big or small, or nothing at all
That can ever be seen.
Pulsing or glowing, nor nothing is showing
With distances in between.
Born in a cloud, glowing in life,
Death in a whisper or loud.
Cooler at first, warmer through life,
Then releasing its external shroud.

Flushed in Red

 Black crows flying
Vanish to the sun.
Rising moon
Reflecting back
Secrets that we hide.
Rivers flowing deep between
Grass-lined lips of the valley side,
Plunging deep into the cavern
It masks from others' sight.
Peaking high along the ridge,
Flushed in red,
A cougar screams and claws its way
Panting to the outer edge.
Climbing down, rubbing softly
Against the hard stone valley side.
Mighty rams slamming hard,
Rushing headlong with a smack
That echoes deep into the valley,
Past massive outcrops
Of deeply moaning rocks
To the lapping waves of the river below.
Caressing round rocks,
Protruding to points above the flowing water,
The river sucks and pulls its way
To its waiting mouth
The glistens in anticipation
For the water to come
And flow into the salty waves.

On the Element of Fire

Come in closer. Do you feel the fire?
Do you feel the building of desire?
Are you drawn in to the flickering flame,
Mesmerizing, poetic, and untame?
Beware the fires we build on the dry ground,
Lest it light each rhyme and rhythm and sound,
And the flames leaps out from mind to mind
As wildfires that leap out from pine to pine.
The forests allowed to naturally burn
Allow for rebirth and so do not turn
To blackened skeletons and dark charcoal--
Only cleared underbrush should be the goal
So new seeds can spread from the opened cones,
Stimulated by fire, the flame that loans
New opened spaces to previously
Tangled forests and minds that grievously
Had been impenetrable to the light,
A former place of shadows and the night.
The fire is either a hearth or a Hell--
Place of renewal or of a death-knell
For the too-sensitive soul, too-dry trees
Acting as kindling, ignoring your pleas.
The descent into the flames of abyss
Renew or destroy, dark death or bright kiss,
The only options offered, the red heat
Burns off impurities, or's a repeat
Of the Hell we all house within our hearts,
Until we relive all of the parts
That only destroy us and drag us down,
And fires give way to waters, so we drown.
So some in closer and feel the warm fire,
Give in to the rhythms, love, and desire.

Enframed

A fire spreads upon the sea, and the land
Below all these churning waves of sea and flame
Lies in surprising calm and silence as she
Sits within the frame.

In one hand we can see this seductive girl
Carries cool water, and in the other flame.
Yet, she's neither wet nor showing she is burned,
Sitting in the frame.

She once belonged to the artist who painted
Her with such inky shades, until this girl's flame
Spread out onto the sea as her hair set her
Face into a frame.

Her hand holding the water weighs itself down--
Her hand reaches out toward you with the flame
And asks you as she asked the artist and me:
"Sit within my frame."

I have sat with her to fill her with water,
To quench our brows of such a terrible flame
As we, you and me, find in her, claim to see
Bursting in the frame.

I have watched her painting long enough to see
Her hair and breasts, thighs and navel burst in flame
I wished to cool--but I used breath, not water,
And burnt up the frame.