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He was a mountain,
A lion; but to us
A tuft of wool

He’d thrust me up
Like a flightless bird
Back to him I fell
Taught me kindness and pride
In the works of one’s hand

He knew when to lift me up
When to...

“It seems to me,” said Booker T.,
“It shows a mighty lot of cheek
To study chemistry and Greek
When Mister Charlie needs a hand
To hoe the cotton on his land,
And when Miss Ann looks for a cook,
Why stick your nose inside a...

Transmute; she said
Is when one thing becomes another,
A stranger to a friend
Or a man to a father
Evening to night and so on;
Hence, I understood,
That nature moves in gradual steps
And one thing becomes the...

The humble carpet brush 
sweeps away
cigarette ash, 
    moth scales, 
    dried tears,
and angel dust.

Friday nights –
The mad, bad streets,
Pacing, thinking, wishing, seeing
Cold nights, tipsy, hot blood –
Deep dives and long drives,
Strange, loud, high neighbors.
It ends on a Saturday morning
Sleepy, Saturday...

Where whispers hum in soft delight,
Fine nights bloom, a tranquil sight,
Finding might in fleeting time,
A melody spun from careless chimes.

Coins of thought, like stars, align,
Casting dreams in a silver shine.
In every...

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of...

I end this year the way I lived it—moving.
Scarred knuckles, quiet wins, loud lessons.
I learned that silence can teach,
that roads don’t apologize for being long,
and that becoming costs more than dreaming.

Some days bent...

The night has a thousand eyes,
And the day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world dies
With the dying sun.

The mind has a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one:
Yet the light of a whole life dies
When love is...

Roll on, keep walking, dear heart,
I pray you don’t fall for those who want you not,
In their name you will fight darkness and doom
As they watch from vantage points
As you bleed, they will call you weak
Dragging you through...

Tread lightly, she is near
Under the snow,
Speak gently, she can hear
The daisies grow.

All her bright golden hair
Tarnished with rust,
She that was young and fair
Fallen to dust.

Lily-like, white as...

He wanders slowly,
hands in his pockets,
eyes tracing the faces
frozen in time,
their stories reaching out
from the quiet walls.

The floor creaks softly beneath him,
but the air feels heavy
weighted with...