Let me string flowers and other poems.

Let me string flowers,

a wreath of regret and light

for your foolish head,

and make a crown of thorns

that hold promises on their points.

let me place them upon your head.

The flowers of trying again,
and again and again,

the thorns to remind you
of the things you left behind.

Let me lay you down

on a pasture of faith,

let me water you 

with shining understanding,

let me dig around you 

a moat of assumptions

and let me drown you

in the thing we call

together.

Will you survive, then,

as you watch the endless blue,

as the sun burns your irises,

and you lie still

being watered, 

cared for

made sacrifices for, 

sacrifices you never

asked for

to begin with? 

Will you, after the moat is filled,

after the watering is done,

become a single, dying rose

of joy?

*****

In a dream last night, 

awash with watercolour purple

a fading blue and the firm hand of gold spots, 

a face I love, a name I do not know

Asked me if I would make him my muse. 

Long hair the colour of a tinted evening, 

Straight as the lies he was made of, 

Hands that found a thousand ways to smoke me, 

To show me a mirror.
He asked again. 

Can I be your muse?

What good is a muse, I ask.

And I tell him a story from long ago where

I was singed by a muse,

a shimmering muse

with wings of eternity, a firefly spirit, 

and a sailing ship for a totem,

that he left on my shoulder. 

A shoulder he claimed as his.

Then, my silver-fingered one, I ask,

As poetry fills me tonight, 

how shall I carry the burden of you

on the one shoulder I have left?

*****

Dawns don't stay.

Dawns go away

Dawns play

As a mere interlude 

Before unleashing the harsh light of day, 

Where the sun leaps over everything 

Where daylight is harsh, real, flat

Because dawns don't stay.

Dawns don't stay

How can they? 

The day brings with it

Light and movement, predator and prey

Where music drowns, and art fades. 

Because eyes don't don't have time to watch the sky be perfect.

Dawns don't stay.