Cold Coffee

Photo Credit: 14red0s

When all of you

is tossed away,
Old coffee--

Wet cold comfort
too bitter to drink,
irritating and acidic.

The milk and sugar 
offered with smiling face
are too sweet,

A stomach-turning syrup;
Its false note
Stark to the discerning palette.

Do people come in decaf?

Autumn Wind

Photo Credit: Anne Asbury

The Wind runs cold fingers through my hair
I lean back, opening to it.

The trees rock back and forth
Stripped of artifice
And ornament

Their shining leaves fall away
In the rough embrace
Until at last they stand,

Naked to the eyes of the sun.

When there are no more ways to hide
The dark bark inside
The mismatched and broken branches,

When the sweet sap is all,
The essence of all I am and can be.
Will you see

My limbs 
Curved and proud--
Or gnarled and bare

With no new spring to come?

Maybe I Can Fly

Photo Credit:teddymafia

How might it feel
To climb high,
Over all mundane details
Of graveled life,
Over low-hanging clouds,
Stand on a ledge,
See tiny lives below,
Sparkly stars in the sky?
To stand above it all,
Petty loss and nagging pain,
Over money and grief and failure,
Grasp the Big Picture
Once and for all?

Would the sharp air
Bring clear insight?
Would it be possible,
In such a moment
Of wind-borne clarity,
To finally step 
Into the unknown,
To brave the void;
Surrender all
To seductive gravity,
And plunge into sleep?

 

Sleep

photo credit: cobrasoft

Inky black velvet

Enfolds
Like a lover's weight,
Sinking, sinking
Into warm oblivion.

Heavy-eyed, languid,
Kind negation
Takes me.

Swallowed in its embrace,
I become darkness.
My naked mind

Models drowsy dreams.