Message in a Balloon

I will praise you
With an upright heart
Few of us are capable
Of such prowess
When clipped by hurt
The clench of pain
Tightens our sacred eclipse
Still the conscious craftwork
Your heart manifests
Into a spell like balloons
Tied off with just one twist
Filled with glitter
Secret letters
And a kiss
Paints a picture
In my mind of what
Our hands
Could write
A story to tell about
The scripted paragraphs
We measure out
Courage in our ink
To love one another
Like a journal of strength
Traveling across
The aquamarine sky
In a wellspring of air
Quietly before anyone exposes
Our coveted affair
The automobile of our
Delicious lack of despair
Sandwiched by compassion
While a sort of helium
Fills each one to suck out with envy
By a pack of chipmunks

Blown up by our wellspring
That now floats away
Into the next village
Hanging over the
Sparkling sea of ourselves
Reflected in a tensionless
Inner explosion
Free and ready to pop midair
Bunched into a crew of ribbons
Dangling in a union
Above the swords of life
Suspended justly before the
Cataclysmic cast
Of crystal quartz rainbows
Speckled skyline beams
Unshakably likened to our love
The archetypal couple
Who’s there guiding
The boat with you if
You’re missing an oar?

The riddle asks—
I know an alligator
That’s willing to meet us
At the mouth of the bayou
Even if our arms should steer
Us out to where
Our muddy messages landed
Our handwritten
Desires will be unfolded neatly
In the shape of all our dreams
If we forgot what we wrote down
Seamlessly streaming
Bobbing up and down
In the blue water of my eyes
Flowing into
The silent song of yours brown
Lovingly long expressions
Captured in the
Castles of our clouds
Laid out on our backs
Sweating out
The musky array
Of yesterday
Mud caked are we
On display
Begrimed in sweet love
Would we be free?

© GÄ

Just for You

One word brings another
While each letter drips
Slowly from my mind
The synapse triggers the spark
Through the door of my heart
Into the garden of my
Sweetest sympathy

One two three words
Become a sentence that
Run away and bleed
Coursing through my veins
Shooting from my lips
In wild excitement

Does the whip that cracks
The back of what may
Or may not exist entirely
Find itself pushing harder
Past the disconcerting thoughts
Hiding beneath
Incredulity

Lift up the rock
Under green leaf
A shallow hole
Where all ideas
Are in comfortable chorus
Chambered in a fold of black sheep
Emotions crisscrossed
Into broken twigs
In the form of
Comprehension transfixed

Who wears the
Sketch of a heart
Like this?
Have you ever wondered
Why this shape
Is the one we all chose
To agree upon
As the symbol of
Our love?

I thought you might have

I type the letters
L-O-V-E
And images of colored feelings
In similarities form
For us to select popping up
Even charmingly so

Used by many ancients
Epigraphy monuments
Familiar love
Familiar sonnets
Representing our 15th century
Tongues of song and
At each corner of your
Smile I find my eyes
Light up for awhile at past life tiles
Hieroglyphs and Vedic rhymes

These are
The only keys that lead
Your unforgettable hand to
Stir the syrup
Of our humor
In a bowl of savory
Timeless affection

When morning arrives
I swing my legs over bed to bring you
A tray of raspberries and red roses
Your curly initials displayed
Proudly on my chest

You know the rest

Even the sun
Is jealous that
I made my way to the kitchen
Just for you

© GÄ

Home

If I stayed in that house
If I lived in that town
I would still be alone
A winter of snow and stone
Frozen to the bone
Sadness wrapped around my mind
Nothing left but the time
Wasting away
In this broken heart of mine

I forgot how to shine
Forgot that the sun was even alive
And now I’m here with you
So happy I could be here to
Tell this story to sing
Knowing with so many things
In my life all going wrong
Something is finally going right

Why do I love this so much
I don’t know why I do
Why do I love you so much
I don’t know I just do

No more goodbyes
Always understanding why
This is where you belong
With all of the loss and harm
All the fights that you’ve fought
All of the pain that you’ve been through
Has brought you to me
So let down your walls
Open up to it all

Dry your tears
Calm your fears
Let the meltdown fade away
Into the flames of eternal forgiveness
All your confusion erased
And replaced with a kiss
My love is relentlessly
Breathing for the both of us

Why do I love this so much
I don’t know I just do
Why do I love you so much
I don’t know I just do

Knowing that tonight
We have a life worth living
And you make it a better place for me
Can I make it a better place for you
To start receiving
The love that you deserve
Do you have the nerve
To look me in the eye
And call this home

Why do I love this so much
I don’t know I just do
Why do I love you so much

Call this home
Call us home

© GÄ

Aflame

Strike a match
Light the fire
Will you set yourself aflame
For the one who will
Only watch your pyre
Burn the blaze twist and turn
Crackling and hissing
Dreaming of kissing
For whom will you
Set yourself on fire
If the lover that you crave
Hides behind the cattails
Leaves you in the shadows
Only to wail and moan
For affection
Why ignite your heart
To fall from your desire

For the heat of it all
Thousands of miles left to crawl
This desert will not give you
What the one who pours their ocean
Out as the water bearer will
Rescuer to their beloved
Spilling every last drop
There will be nothing that could stop
The passion of this love savior
Who is liberated in the center
Of your fruit
A tree of sanctity
In the middle of
Your spicy warm enticing
Mango heart

© GÄ

Distant Song

The one thing
Seems always searching
Sparkle of hope in your eyes
All built up in excitement
Perfect fingers
Perfect toes
Gorgeous eyes
Gorgeous nose

My fingers burn to stroke
My lips missing every detail
Of your secret
My palm can feel the breath
In your stomach
Little hairs echo hello
On my skin
And leave an imprint long
And stretching
Lost in waiting
For everything wanted

On the bus
Pretending to focus
Your canvas at the edge of my mouth
Our eyelashes combing one another
All the trees around us are melting

It’s just like I pictured
And nothing is framed
As I thought it would be

I will wait
For fate to reveal itself
To conjure up the muscle
Behind what is patient for me
Tolerant for us

When can I touch you
I’ve been tempted so long
When does the labyrinth
Open doors distant song

© GÄ

Ageless

Walking through
The back door
Of existence
We enter in with
Agelessness
As I find you
Lounging on a couch
Comfortably spread out
A place for us to
Remember where
We fit the pieces
Together
Feet up
Fan out on your hair
Eyes stare
Blinking unaware
Of what we were before
Just what we are now
I find myself
Without a care
Burying my face
In the holiday of
Your lap
Laughing at everything
We forgot
What day is it?
What time did we say
We’d be there?
I love spaghetti
But not as much as
I love you
Or the way this feels
Dusting off the past
Before it ever happens
I’m not hungry for anything

You said
Thinking about
If I care too much
Is lost on the avenue
Somewhere in the middle
Of the Atlantic
Hanging like a drape
Round the window
Of some absentminded curtain
Blowing freely
You’ve never given me a reason
To hide behind the mist
And the words we share
Always taste sweeter
When we kiss

© GÄ

Shhh…

As I caress the silken warmth
Of your hands
Listen to the breath
That breathes the air
That blows the sand

Beyond us and below us
Above us and before us
Touch me again
Fold your arms around me
Climb inside me

And then…

Reach outstretched—
Engulfed beneath we
Come up for air
So indiscreetly

Accept this sweet incarnadine
So free, so delicate, so gently

Releasing all the pain
Breathe in and out again
Push into calm devotion
Divine carefree emotion

In a hot spring
Diving deep and in between
Cleaving in the cave
Of loves ravine

Hush now
Whispers here to comfort you
I’ll strum your hairs
Slip into dreams of palest blue

© GÄ

Night Steps

Kissing water
Onto the citadel
Out splashing
The fish
New glistening
On wet lips
Answers come
In tidal waves
Never quite empty
Always quite full

Will you take a drink
From this waterfall
Are you thirsty
Enough to quench
Is there something less arid
Do the currents abed
Is this our moment
Next to black
Granules

If you were sand
My head would dip lovingly
Into your dune

If you were outer space
My heart would hang brightly
Over your moon

If you were ocean
My hands would hold lightly
Buckets of you

If you were a cyclone
My blood would run hotly
With airwaves in tune
Over your radio
Singing la la la la la
Humming da da da da
Wind chimes

Was that a miracle
On the hill?
Will you bring roses
To my dreams?
Possibly wrap your arms
Around my screams?

But really

I don’t actually want to scream
I’m handing you my bones
A sacred skeleton key
I just want to know you
Will you
Come climb the
Satin blue ivy
Walk the night steps
Crawling up the mosslike green
Into a bed
Where you can
Rest here next to me?

© GÄ

Keep My Love

If you keep my love
You will remain in my love
Just as I have kept your love
We will remain in this love

Into a bird precisely because
You have been love
Given this love
The gods are generous
In love

In this way
I have loved to avoid anger
In this way
I have loved to avoid fear
In this way
I cannot avoid excitement

This the very love that
Prompts my wings from
A nesting place deep inside

This the very love
That shuttles me out
Past the neon signs
At midnight

If you keep my love
You will remain in my love

© GÄ

Speechless

Speechless
I was found
Now
Speechless
I am sore

This is
The story of
How I lost
The graph
To my most
Intimate design

Protected
Broken my duality
The reflection
Unfound

Teasing
My throttle
Black creeping
Disguise

You mastered
The love
Didn’t you
You conquerer
Unforgiving taker

I want to
Slide digits
Against the back
Inside
The open crack
In me

Touch
The hidden
Caged glowing
How it bubbles
Oh how it
Rises

Soothe the
Separation
Mend it with
Friends and
Warm honey
Sleepless
Sweetness

Newfound land
Spoken
Hearts command
A common place
For
Waiting on an
Island
In a speechless
Reservoir

Silence speaks
A thousand
Words

© GÄ