Where does it go? I don't quite know.
Into the woods in a golden flow.
Up to the sky like a misting glow.
But where, oh where? I don't quite know.

Disparate voice, or disparate hand?
You could feel king of the sea and land.
You could take hold of that wisping strand.
Oh! For that unity, that would be grand.

Our Side of the Lake

The clock has stopped.
At least, it seems like it. We hope it has.
Time seems frozen, and all is quiet.
All except us,
whispering in the silence.
The sounds of the traffic cannot completely reach us here,
here next to a quiet lake with many roads across it.
Roads drawn long by the streetlights,
drawn by the moon,
drawn by the starlight.
The roads waver, and sway, never disappear.
But we stay here, on the dark side of the water.
This side is quieter, this side is sweeter.
This side affords us the luxury of not counting the minutes between light cycles,
And ignoring the chime of the crosswalk.
These things have time and purpose.
They are predictable as the impending dawn,
They keep asphalt Life on the move.
Stately and timely, go and stop.

But on our side, it is hushed.
We can only hear Time distantly.
Our side of the lake has grass and trees.
Benches are barely discernable in the blackness,
and the path is only a black smear under our feet.
I know that down this smear lies the ticking of a clock,
and that soon we must be reminded of it.

But not yet.
Not yet.

We count the steps back to time reluctantly.
Each is accounted for with equally uncounted kisses.
Eight steps.
Ten steps.
Time is still on hold.
It awaits our approach back to the light before crashing into our awareness.
As we reach the road, flooded with that orange glow,
We become conscious of Time again,
and we must resist that overwhelming desire to flee back into the warp.
Run back into that silence and timelessness
that exists on our side of the lake.

Paradise

A thousand suns burn on your lips
Hotness around your mouth, down your neck, into
A tangle of hair,
Curled and smudged in the dark.
The dashboard gives off ghostly light
As we wrestle with time
Wrestle with motion
Wrestle with fast and slow and every speed in between
Sweetness like honey and whiskey burning my throat
Until I can
Barely
Speak
In throaty desperate tones
So I do not speak at all.
Why speak, when fingers and
Lips and
Divine breaths of air
Rushing endlessly past my prickling tingling skin
Speak volumes in only sensations
Words are meaningless
Compared to the senses
Your smudged hair like grey and black charcoal
Soft yet dramatic
Your eyes of distant flame
Dark and deeper than a philosopher's soul
Fingers and flesh and love
Running rivulets of lava down bare skin
Falling into eachother exhaustedly
Collapsing against sweat and cool breeze
Outlines against the backlight
Against the outside world looking in through the window
And whispering "hush, hush"

"Never disturb lovers at rest"

The wounded phoenix, in all his fire
Eyes of the red-scorched sun that consume all he sees
Flicking, tasting the air
Again and again he rises, again and again he falls
Battered from his youth, knowing nothing but flame
Unable to regenerate completely
Unable to rejoin what was broken
Yet unable in his pain to move upwards fully
He feels the majesty of flight
Then is toppled
He rejoices in the wind under his wings
Then plummets
The crash always preceded by unimagineable pleasure
He revels in the sensations
All the more aware of the immenent collapse

When the fall is inevitable
And he knows nothing else
Twisting, burning, furious, and passionate
Yet tender, gentle, and breathless
How can he stay away from those heights
The heights that he was so brutally pushed from
The heights that cause the downfall
His eyes flashing with flame
Burning with desire
Charging the cliff face to climb up to the sheer dive

And the wounded phoenix, flying
Only to plummet again

When the plummet is all he knows
The rush is equally desired and feared
And soon he will fly again