After the River

They gathered in the legs of chairs 

Their arms without wings 

Little lies that exist in all the places people

Remain digging 

Rooted in wooden feet

Clipped to prevent their wandering minds 

Who had grown accustomed to traveling

On airs of imagination

Painting spheres of degrees of separation

Seven too many 

Their fatigues curled into 

Settled riverine logs

Grained sediment swales

Where rests remain damned

A ton of want permitted to be 

Puzzle piece strain at becoming 

Rich in wheat, spirits slack

Settled into a winter’s lack at peace

Untidy and unkempt

For graces we couldn’t lease

What will you do when the harvest fails to reach

Where love leapt to the cobwebbed corners of dwelling 

The wet remainders of creations lost 

To another moon

The queen of many kingdoms 

Shiny and unyielding 

Her desires - wolf pack cries and eagle shrieks of hunger 

A fallen nest, a child to beget 

At fathers unmade

Wills unmet 

Some cold wet island 

Where everythings been abandoned anyway

To madness

Griefs go unpunished 

Wind rides on whims

For what’s left to do after you’ve ridden the wind?

Tiny deaths each time a lesser god speaks before the shoreline

Where love is always leaving 

And while you surely bed beside

A womb of great tides 

Light shines through 

Dirty fingers demand a sleeping bride 

So I reflect, I reflect, I reflect

A pray the graces I grant 

Could give the winters their softer tombs 

One more dance to the depths my love 

And these unsung ships return their doves 

Every morning sun

Sung to that other moon 

Sheared and drawn still 

For the great belly’s fill