prisons and accolades

I go back to my poetry

rehearse those words-

Remembering 

who it is I am 

I'm inside those lines

diamond mines, I hope.

if you love them, you love me

those words are my best moments

my worst days 

my prisons and accolades 

I'm lost and far-afield at times

simply dazed and undermined 

filtering the barterworld

barraged and falter-find

My own words remind

pen and paper/ tie that binds

rock of ages, scribbled pages 

I hold on with steeltight grip 

the Truth, like springtime 

hard to find

even harder to remain

I in you ~ you in me

scrubbing out my

orphan stains

Sharps

My thoughts are ringlets
separate and smoky
-this twining toxicity-
delicate, obscure brutality

don't send me in there
alone
I can't face my
sister's bones

I look at photographs
of my pastel past
but can't forget the barbed-wire words
coming like echoes
through these bloody halls

I saw hell
inside those walls

Can you really
raise the dead?
ghosts of yesterday
haunt my head

I sleep on dust-
my desert bed
but I've heard whispers
of wine and bread

blooming trees!
green, greener, greenest
redemption
for things lost
(long ago)

Can you really heal me?

Here I am.
fragments
at your feet

Joy

i will be your somersaulter
morning time
colder water

my clothes are damp
from dew and delight
choosing joy
choosing life

silver slivers
sunlit shivers
running paths and
rolling rivers

I will not be forgot!

giddy thoughts
hidden spots
slipping on the mossy rocks

I cannot be lost!

Heavy breath
sun and sweat

this work is never toil

my hands bleed. bruises
and scraped knees
dirt in fingernails
moss in my hair

i will carve out
a path
in this wilderness

i will set these stones

i will sing the sorrow
straight out of your heart
i will make this place
a home