Bullfrog Slinging Sadness

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The neon light ignites the night, burns thru the thick atmosphere. The city’s mist is a long exhale, coughing up sins, spitting out sorrow. Bullfrog stumbles past the double hung door, never touching a side. His presence and his sound do all the heavy lifting. His case escapes his grip and marries the sidewalk. Gleaming brass abuses wet cobblestone. Bullfrog never misses a beat.

The sun is done with setting and making it’s way to rise. An audience of none has their peace disturbed. The low hum and soft high, Bullfrog transforms souls to sound. Drunk and fat and tired, the prima trombone slides down and down. As log as the case is open, notes fall out where dollars once were.

If you ever find Bullfrog on the street slinging sadness, don’t worry to mistake him for a busk. He won’t raise a brim or bell.

Clouds on The Other Side

The summer solstice soul's shine
the bright sun ray, the radiant glow.
Her heart and heat and beating life.
Amber glows the evening set.

Darkness’ light inverse consumes me
cool to touch, warmth inside
Look down past her wings
the lakes scattered are holes thru the ground.

I can see the clouds on the other side…

By her grace and by her light I am made complete.

I'm Hers

The light that glimmers and gleans from your eye
she shines in the darkness
she brightens my love

A hopeful tear, torn, today
I'm humbled by grace
I'm boldened, her beauty

The wreckage of sorts, sorted, assembled
Together forever
She and I, one

A marathon from which I'll never tire
Inspired desire
for her breath once more

She pulls up from her knees, and drags me with her
Despite resistance I know
She knows

I am the completed constructed self
She is the keystone
My puzzle, I'm solved

Forever intrinsic, her eye light glow
Forward, onward, upward, together
She brightens my life

Today I know more surely than gravity
I am guided
I'm protected

I'm hers.

Love A Woman

Lisa Citore

If you want to change the world… love a woman, just one woman.
Love and protect her as if she is the last holy vessel.
Love her through her fear of abandonment
which she has been holding for all of humanity.

No, the wound is not hers to heal alone.
No, she is not weak in her codependence.

If you want to change the world… love a woman
all the way through
until she believes you,
until her instincts, her visions, her voice, her art, her passion,
her wildness have returned to her-
until she is a force of love more powerful
than all the political media demons who seek to devalue and destroy her.

If you want to change the world,
lay down your causes, your guns and protest signs.
Lay down your inner war, your righteous anger
and love a woman…
beyond all of your striving for greatness,
beyond your tenacious quest for enlightenment.

The holy grail stands before you
if you would only take her in your arms
and let go of searching for something beyond this intimacy.

If you want to change the world…love a woman
to the depths of your shadow,
to the highest reaches of your Being,
back to the Garden where you first met her,
to the gateway of the rainbow realm
where you walk through together as Light as One,
to the point of no return,
to the ends and the beginning of a new Earth.

Ambrosia

Ptolemy

I know that I am mortal by nature,
and ephemeral;
but when I trace at my pleasure the windings to and fro
of the heavenly bodies
I no longer touch the Earth
with my feet:

I stand in the presence of Zeus
and take my fill of ambrosia.

Wings Turn To Amber

Solid ground, where are you now? I float above solitude’s sound. I float above, escaping the chaos. Clamoring patrons. Failing to fall for the false sense of…Happy now? Echoes in the chamber. Everyone is in the chamber - my wings turn to amber.

My soul is detached from my body. I hope she’s coming with the lightning. I’m sick of sitting here waiting, pausing, hoping for the end of our murder.
And the order is death.

Death defying diligence, perform magic. Get us out of here. The pain is powerful; a prowess. Arrogance altered by the current in my current state.
I sit looking backwards; forwards, with no words. The hype of the animal distorts me. I see me, I am me, there are no trees. Forever hungary. I feel me.
I am me.

My family.

Deceptive Eyes

Thoughts for hope.

The feelings obtained from audible sounds are truly moving and profound, but the beauty and grace from reflected light dance with my iris and play with my emotions. Sound takes you away to places inside that the image cannot, but the definition of the work is applied thru interpretation. When the light I see forms waves and cliffs; mountains and space, light and truth, and darkness and confusion, the motives emitted are rigid; definite.

Reflecting your image in truth and falsehood, a magic we enjoy, love, fear, and hate…but the story is truly universal. It lives within us and dances around us. Our story is our morning and our night. We are captivated by it, and yet we reject it. It is the touch on that very human distinction. We are more than the sum of our parts.

My heart beats, but it will beat for anyone. My stomach hungers and my fingers tremble, but what defines me is not the muscle that wraps my bone; not the skin that hides the muscle. It is not my eyes that can deceive…I truly am, at my core, more than physical. I am made of my parents love, and I am made peers companion. I am made of my teacher’s lesson, and I am made of my church’s conviction. I am more than I am. All together I am something more.

But I am not unique. You are your mother’s fear and your father’s strength. Your sister’s tears and your brother’s guidance. You are the regret of yesterday and hope for tomorrow, and you are so much more. We are our story. We are our past, we are our present, and we are our future. The light that dances before us, when the story is projected, we see ourselves.

We place our past on the screen, along with our hunger and our fear. We place our present along with our fatigue and our intelligence, and we place our future with our hope.

You could assemble a human but you could never assemble a soul. Soul building cannot be taught. We share the blood of our class. We share the trials of our generation, and we all share our one common soul.

We look on staring with deceptive eyes.

I Am My Tragedy

I am my tragedy

Encapsulates; escapes me.
Bone regarded as the statue statute
and the flesh falls off of the test salt flat.

Bring in my sorrow tree.

Pick a leaf and weep with me.

Feel my pain and feel my glee.

Break a bone not known to thee.

My heart's ablaze, Forward with my pride.

Lay me under in part malign.
Hollow under; solid over.

Roll me over; I am tower.

Into forever; Never better, 

I follow the curves of ground.
I fold in.

Push from top; stop! 

Let me follow thru on days overt. 

Lean left; follow up; downshift churn.

Statue Statute crumbled fall.


End of days for catacomb protein.
Hollow fulfillment.


Enter environment; become what is near.

Slowly turning, crunching gear.
End of life is just first gear.
The other I begins tonight.

Ripple rustic raw completing.

Wave of dust mimic sand and oxygen.

A day goes by and still the turn is shy. 

Goodbye.

Wake! Shake the ground under my Statue. 

Rattle the flesh fall far from bone.

Sink in my knees under tomorrow’s city.

I am this life; this existence endurance.

Orange Citrus

Courtenay Lee Althouse

She smiled, opening her mouth
to the moon;
her reflection in the pond
like orange citrus.

We never knew she wept in the closet.

She wore the sand
like the dull
colors left in
the crayon box

Her silky strawberry hair
curled to her elbows,
laughing with every
bob and weave.

She raised off
her dimpled knees
and blew to the wind,
“Wait around; I’ll smile again.”

We never knew her favorite color was orange citrus.