Everything

Encircling one another with naked arms,
the enigma of creation,
all that could be called god
is in this.

The world begins with our love,
warmed by our mingled breath,
and set in motion by our own beating hearts,
echoing each other's voices across the gaps,
pockets of potential between us.

All that is warm, fresh, and new,
bursting with honest joy,
true euphoria sings
beneath the skies of our contentment.

We hold this world
between our brushing bellies,
and pin infinity between our blessed foreheads,
and in the end,
here between us lives
all that we will ever need.

For You, Buddha

And it was then
when my words
dripped
from your lips
like rain falls
on the surface of the river
the body where it began

It was most surely then
when I smelled
the poetry
on your skin
through the forest
and over the mountain
so many miles away

I do know it was then
that I breathed
knowing that you too breathed
and I burned brighter
just knowing that you
were out there
looking for a reason

Bone Love

Your love is my joy and my sorrow.
It is your profession of love,
unsubstantiated
that creates this fear in me.
It is not you I doubt,
but your constancy.
I am assured that you
are firm in your belief,
in your opinion,
of your love.
It is the endurance,
the reality of that love
that leaves me cold,
questioning.
A love unsaid is dead.
The love we force upon ourselves
and the love to which we cling
feel the same.
Both have bones of desperation.

Fight Fair

I am a detester of whispers.
Hater of hushed laughter-
the slivers of spite that wedge themselves-
into eardrums and tear ducts,
beneath nail beds and
rupturing the smallest of the heart's blood vessels.

Shout out your discontent.
Clarify your contentions against me.
Use facts and speak plain,
that I may refute your nonsense
and retain my pride.
Spare me all your veiled contempt,
I refuse to be shrouded thus
and spoken of in third person.

The River Whispers

My river speaks in whispers
the sound of it's voice reaches me beneath the rumbles of traffic,
grievances of sea-birds
and the chorus of leaves in the wind

It's breath smells of mud and stones
as it smears the dampness of growing things
inside my nostrils

To me, it murmurs secrets
why the maples crowd it's banks to watch
it's slow parade to the sea
how it's waters, siphoned from beneath the mountains,
tastes in the mouth of the ocean

It unravels mysteries of being bridge, hurdle, artery
to the beating heart of this world
and in it's hushed, trickling voice
it imparts the wisdom of enduring-
the beauty of moving, always to bigger things



The River Whispers by Dakota Farley

Whats Left

The world wears away all that is
into nothingness
billboards and road signs
now tattered and indecipherable
are testaments to what this Where used to be

Grooves worn in dirt roadways
and footprints in soles of shoes
are evidence of steps that took
all the Them's
from this Once Was
and into oblivion

Shards of glass
in the rotted window frame
flash in the sun,
brief flickers of memories
from when our Whys lit the day
and night
and kept Us roaring through all the Wheres
picking up Hows and
throwing them to the side of the freeway,
as aware of When as the ruins are
here in this ruined Now.


Whats Left by Dakota Farley

Divine Mysteries

I hold them before me in my mind-

On my left, a perfect golden youth
small in stature but so steady
a father's eyes in a young face
so solid is my Peter,
the Rock form which all I have
is built.

On my right, a tall, thin, dark shadow
pale as a ghost with the stance of a broken man,
a ruined temple
pain and passion swim in bottomless brown eyes
so wretched is my Judas
whose betrayal came in loving kisses.

How I can love one so selfishly
and the other so selflessly, always in the wrong order-
is more Mystery than Divinity.



Divine Mysteries by Dakota Farley

Jewels

Somehow,
as I look up at the turquoise-copper sun-setting sky
I am simultaneously reminded
of grandmother jewels

Wire and shining stone
treasures from a far desert somewhere
and you,
or more truly, us

How somehow despite being hard,
thin and unapologetic as strands of copper
and smooth and placable
as round blue stone
we fitted together,
oddly,
but together
just like some of the most beautiful things,
together.



Jewels by Dakota Farley

Motel Mornings

When the dawn light clatters against the windows,
and it's racket seeps through the shades and curtains

When the small sounds of stirring daytime
build into a tidal wave of waking,
drowning our brains in consciousness

When we once gain begin to recognize,
to relish the feel of skin on skin,
the smell of last night's love

When we open our eyes in increments,
only to get lost in the sight of one another-
the parting of your lips,
the curl of my hair-

Only then will we know the pain of parting
and how grating is goodbye

Leaving us on the sheets,
and alone
rejoining the world.


Motel Mornings by Dakota Farley

For Corey

I look at myself in the mirror
and I think of you
Its that close to my heart, this song of you and I

Your brother was your side-kick
and probably still is
but you and I were just as thick
for all that what was ours
didnt resemble yours and his

While you might have left me
I havent been alone
Theres parts of you with me
these pieces are in my pockets,
weighty, like stones.

You showed me how to own
what I liked, what I was
To say it out loud in uncompromising tones
To tell people, not when they asked
but just because

Its because of you
I love over sized jackets
that smell like smoke
and tucking my hands
deep into their pockets
finding eight ball keys, lighters,
Swisher Sweet wrappers
and receipts
for food you bought
for you and me

Youre why I like parks
Just sitting in my car
listening sometimes to the radio,
others giving voice to my own thoughts
just to hear how they
bounce off the windshield

Youre why I like fields
driving through them and
imagining myself as safe
and anonymous as a tall
piece of grass, only as lost as I want to be

Youre why I get tattoos
on my birthday
Using the occasion to
poke holes and flood myself
with ink
Pictures that yell out what
this heart is loud enough
for evne the most blind and
deaf to purposefully misunderstand

So, when Im asked
why months of your silence
hasnt made me stop
waiting for you, I laugh
in their questioning faces
because I could never hate you
without first hating myself

I know you never had much use for my words
going about your deeds silent and uncompromising
but please, hear me now
When I said I couldnt live without you
I didnt mean that your leaving would bring me death
but that until my last day comes
you will always be with me
For Corey by Dakota Farley

My Haunted House

My past is full of poisons, precious
my heart, a home for horrors past
Once, these devils near overcame me

Gladly, that moment didn't last

But as you wander in those corridors
in those chambers of my heart
Beware of shadow creatures
and from lamplight, never part

I have chained them in these inky places
and once in every while, dear,
for you, those Ghostly claws may reach

Still though, as I said,
with me close by to guard you,
there is nothing real to dread
and with this warning comes a question,
a hope, a siren call
are you brave enough to love me,
full of darkness, demons, and all?

My Haunted House by Dakota Farley

In Your Land

In your land, in your broad flat
plain land
we took shelter in small towns,
eddies around which the wind and
railroads thundered
It smelled me, tasting the soles of
my feet, painting me with its
burnt colored dust
What is this forest child, this
daughter of mountains and
foothills
Smelling of lakes and bracken
creeks and clay?
I, a far wanderer with a gypsy
heart
Will always reek of frost and
orchards. In Your Land by Dakota Farley

For Elizabeth and Tyler

Its smiles in the morning and
holding hands in the car

smiling silently and listening
to you soaking up sunshine

finding us in between the lyrics
and the static on the radio

touching knees and tangled shins
under restaurant tables

whispered laughter and breath on
earlobes

Its kisses on knuckles and fingers
grazing jawbone

It is all these every day intimacies
that outshine loud sung devotions,
claims of affection that shout
down and bully doubt to give
cover to empty promises.
For Elizabeth and Tyler by Dakota Farley

My Apology

If only I could reach deep inside,
and find the right words to apologize.
Id dig them all out and make a rhyme.
To show you just how sorry I really am.
You'd feel the tears behind my eyes
and see your face in my dreams.
Maybe then you'd know
what your forgiveness means to me.
My Apology by Dakota Farley

Rescue

Salvation comes outta nowhere,
but never to me
I look for it out there
cause right now I cant breathe

I need someone to save
just for once to be a hero
To pretend to be brave
and feeling them cling to me so

A perfect rescue is waiting
for delivery to us
It'll help us deserve love
Show us the meaning of trust

We'll keep patiently staring
into that sapphire sky
Together just hoping
it wont pass us by
Rescue by Dakota Farley

To Be As Stone

To give all my love
without holding on
To get what little
you have, whats not yet gone
To think of you seeking
and finding some other
safe harbor
How have I been insufficient,
lover?
Im sinking, holding on
for dear life
"Not too tight" I think,
frantic in my strife
Because Ill crush you
like glass in my desperate hands
You'll shatter and scatter
to the distant four winds
Leaving me where you found me,
drifting in the vast ocean, alone
Unthinkable, unacceptable,
the only option, to be as stone
To silently, and so serenely sink
Sever that obsessive link.
To swim isnt a choice now.
In all these long years,
I've forgotten how.
My lungs full of seawater,
to you I dont even matter
So now, into the waters
of eternity I sink
Given now, the room to think
on mistakes and choices made
and suddenly, no longer afraid
Better to die than be
a person someone else has made
A smile now on my stoney face
I peacefully go to my watery resting place


To Be as Stone by Dakota Farley

Hopes

When did I stop believing
that love could cure all ills?
Was it when I started sampling
a few too many pills?
When did I stop believing
friends would stay beside me?
Was it when the demons started
spilling from inside me?
When did I stop seeing
each day as a gift?
Was is when every moment
became a burden for me to lift?

I want to see the sun again.
I want to see it on your face.
I want to feel it in my heart.
I want to believe in something,
anything again.


Hopes by Dakota Farley

Sugar

Sugar, sugar, shiny sweet
the yummiest part of a candy treat.

Sugar, sugar, sticky sweet
mouth is full, but still I eat.

Sugar, sugar, sickly sweet
fills my blood and slows the beat.

Sugar, sugar, deathly sweet
Of the heart I filled with even more to eat.

I never liked my sorrows half so well
as when I made them taste so swell.


Sugar by Dakota Farley

Burning Pictures

Burning bridges, like burning once treasured photographs
after tearing them in half.
So much easier than expected,
so much simpler than I'd predicted.
No pain, no wrenching of my soul, still missing the heart he stole.
Just a bright light, acrid smells, loving heat,
and then nothing.
Eyes and darkness meet.
The earth still turns, no catastrophe.
The good, bad, and ugly still lives in memory.
It's well and truly over, that thing I threw away.


Burning Pictures by Dakota Farley

Listen, Sister

Baby sister, I see your heart breaking
I watch you wander
often floundering in your fight.
I see inside you, I know your misery
it matches the stuff
contained inside of me.
One more heirloom, just for us.
You have so much love
re-gifted every day.
We to you and you to him,
keeping none to stay.
Homeless, place-less, superfluous.
You feel so wrongly, thinking places are too few.
So many, too many places fit for you.
I know you, sister, I feel your wanderlust.
You've been hurt before, and lied to.
In me, I wish you'd trust.
I'd give you my last four years of wisdom
just so you could see, bring yourself to wake
and avoid all those mistakes,
I see you poised to make.


Listen Sister by Dakota Farley