love
i wish i could name everyone whom i’ve ever loved- but their names stay as ephemeral as i do. i remember the places, and the feelings. and the names, on the right days: victoria, to boise, to seattle, to paris, to los angeles, to ann arbor, and every city between. and i’m in love with everything and everyone. there is nothing as boundless as love. love permeates. a person who truly understands love could love anyone and anything. laying in the grass, on a warm sunny day. opening yourself to the world! this is my life. if you want to know the meaning of life, and purpose, and sentiment, it is love. it’s those places and those names. of everything that is so complicated in life, love is so simple. its beauty is in such simplicity, really- we twist love, and we make it hard. but the feeling of love abounds. love is vice, love is virtue. isn’t it really love which is next to godliness. we’ll hide and shy from it sometimes, where it’s safer, but who has ever grown from safety. not i, not you. this is my life. we just dip our toes in, but isn’t it easier to dive in. oh to live forever in the liminal space, before we feel the water. but also to live forever when we just look in. to live forever once we’ve submerged. when all of this is done, there will be nothing left, but the love we’ve felt. cynicism is easy. love is easier.
Space
would that i could live forever flitting between complete ambiguity and absolute certainty. It is only in the transition between the two that causes pain and discomfort. There is no pain in knowing, there is no pain in ambiguity. There is only pain when we push ourselves in the liminal space between the two.
une vie
Beaucoup de jours, je vois la beauté dans tous les choses. Mais quand je ne peux pas, ça pèse lourdement sur moi. Ces jours-ci, le monde est gris. Et souvent, quand le monde est gris, je suis aussi. Et aussi, il y a des jours ou je me sens trop de bonnes choses. C’est douloureux, comment je me sens des choses. Bonheur, tristesse, beaute, douleur.
nostalgia
when i look around myself, sometimes, i see nothing but nostalgia. it floats around in the corners of my vision. the color of those flowers, the light through those trees. this road looks just like another, this lover just like one other. i drown in comparisons. then, days, weeks, months and years later i find more nostalgia. where did it come from, when all i see is nostalgia? i went down this way just yesterday. but it looks different now, i’m so different now. every moment i am so different, and yet i live in nostalgia. i spread my memories in front of me. i pick through them, like when i was so young, my halloween candy spread in front of me. i had dumped my bag out onto the carpet to search. looking for my favorite one, i know i had gotten a few of them tonight. there it is, so sweet, so sweet. i know i’ll have to go home soon, but for now, i have this sweetness. my life is permeated by sweetness and bitterness. oh, how i fluctuate. can we have one without the other, of course. does the bitter make the sweet more sweet, of course. does the sweet make the bitter more bitter, always. i know so many extremes. they surround me as the nostalgia does. they hold hands when they come across me. nostalgia is nothing if not punctuated by sweetness, and bitterness, and love and loss and youth and innocence but also pain and sorrow and difficulties in living but also happiness happiness happiness, oh i am so happy, the color of those flowers, the light through those trees. i see this road which looks just like another, i come across it. it always leads back home. what is home? the color of those flowers, the light through those trees. this road, i live at the end of it, always, always, always.
R.S.
if Zeus is jealous
it's of the lightning in you
his cannot compete
S.C.G.
how wonderful to
allow a meeting of souls
on a Tuesday night
G.H.
my heart stays open
like the flowers in heaven
love is eternal
E.V.
what of obsession?
to understand another,
to be understood
H.V.V.
poetry swims in my mind
even while I sleep
I am writing stanzas for you
to reach into my soul is to be closer to yours
and somewhere in the world
a little girl, just like I once was,
she dreams that she will know someone like you
and the little girl is happy
one life with you could never be enough
and so I promise to find you in the next
so that what you have said will always be true:
even the stars are jealous of our love
The Poe(t)
the birds that dance
in moonlight &
over the hill where they rest
flaps & flies & flittering wings
the feathers that float high
they carry a message
to my ears yonder for
that I trust to hear
of love & loss & troublesome things
the things, I think, most difficult to bear
but - if i could have just one more wish
in this harsh life of mine
it would be to join the birds above
& sing of love and wine
O Dionysus, Aphrodite,
I will come to join you
& they rest on Mount Olympus
H.V.V.
you love sunflowers
and the Guayacán tree
is it because they, like you,
reflect a golden beauty
that is bestowed by the sun
a beauty gifted by the heavens
cherished by all
only intimately known by a few
how lucky for me
to be one of them