Colour is god

In a grey-scale world

It draws your eyes

And forces you to bow down

In awe of its difference

I see the red heart

In the grey desert chest

I see the hazel and brown

And the golden flesh

Blazing like a beacon

Blinding and burning me

Until submission

Presses you prostrate

And all you can do

Is pray

They say

When you get dragged

By the riptide

Kicking and screaming

You should relax

Lay still on the surface

And let it take you

It’s when you struggle

It’s when you fight

You get pulled under

And are drowned

But it can be hard

To remain motionless

In the face of things

You can’t control

It is gathered over time

From here and there

Brought together

In the cold skies

To fall as one

Simple, silver, snowflake

No different than us

Or everything ever

All condensed across eons

there’s a small jet engine
parked inside of my skull
and it runs 24 hours a day
seven days a week
ready to take off
at a moments notice
fueled by tiny shreds,
small bits of emotion
that stumble perilously near
and the roar it makes
pours out of my mouth
as endless conversation
like a hot exhaust
in the face of people
who draw near
for the spectacle

so i sit for a moment
and stare at the stained glass
across from my desk
that my wife applied
well enough that it looks real
and i am calmed by the light
that streams through
softs reds, some yellow
but mostly baby blue
and the engine stops
blissful silence spills in
a middle of the woods
on a warm summer’s day
rare kind of quiet
and i know for a time
that I’m in charge of how I feel
of what is false and what is real
but it takes effort to climb that hill
and find the space above it all
to sort out the paranoia
from the reality
that i have everything

tabula rasa

What a thing it is to dream

And live in a place other

To awaken and wonder

Is this where you belong

Or is that where you left

Am i here now from my dream

Or dreaming now away from home

Either way belonging seems absent

brown is earth
a place for birth
and all good things
that cover the earth
it is strength
it is laughter
and irreverence
like Bombadil in the woods
it is the ground on which we stand
it is the foundation
of all that sprouts from this vast land
brown is mother’s arms
from which we come
and to which we will return

look at that rotting liver
it oozes yellow to the floor
and drives men to snipe
from the safety of their self-dug holes
screaming “it’s not fair hypocrite”

but sometimes
it’s more than the horror
we sadistically seek to see
it is daffodils at dawn
crying our rebirth
urging you to resurrection
and that is what i choose

the most life-like colour you’ve ever seen
is leaf and blade
is sunlight turned to nourishment
a stained glass shadow cast in green
spilling across the floor
and it wants to reach you
to take your corpse
and return you to a life
you never knew you needed
and wrap itself around your silent heart
to make it beat once more

this is red
that writhes in your head
from passion poured in love
as it settles to gentle heat
a thing that lasts instead
of burning itself out;
a pillar of fire at night
to guide us within sight
of some promised land
we never knew we needed
filled with fields we never seeded
ready for a harvest
keeping us going

this is blue
a colour that never wanted to be
someone else’s “you’ll do”
that never wanted to be
a soft white snowman
standing in the spring sun
slowly becoming undone
before no one’s eyes
having heard –

“i love you
because i loved you
but i don’t love you
like i loved you
when i loved you
long ago”