I love stained glass

I feel like it sometimes

Shattered

Stained

Reworked and scored to fit

Soldered back together

Shattered

Stained

Reworked and scored to fit

Soldered back together

And how I see everyone after you is a reflection of how you saw me

I fucking love stained glass man

Thousands or millions of otherwise insignificant, minuscule miniatures of infinitely varietal minerals

Gathered together at one place, at one time, and gathered again by indifferent hands - kinetic mountains with depressions and ridges that slide back in rivers to a whole new space in the same place they’d just been settled on for who knows how long

All these slivers of time, all these shapes and sizes - made amalgam in this indifferent crucible - this smoldering hearth of wrought iron, casted, tempered metal -

Released, dripping and drooling, this sizzling, popping, molten magma like slobber from the jowls of a dragon - choking on itself- twisting, contorting and spiraling - rapidly cooling from blazing dribble to smooth curves and jagged edges on some serpentine pole rolling over blistered palms older only than the fire slowly dying and sputtering on the business end of this dragonet (bayonet?) (wyrm/dragon/drake-headed bayonet?)

Blown, bent, shattered, molded, chipped, dunked in cold water and melted again -

Stained, cut, sanded and battered, arranged in alien panes - a Frankenstein creation - made in one vision from fragments of so many others

I see a stained glass window and swear that we’re brothers

Nothing without this impossible context

Each person a sand grain - alike and so separate in ways unapparent - drips of starlight and nothing in a fathomless /bottomless bucket

How I see everything is a reflection of me and all these granules that came before me,

These panels shattered and replaced and made anew

That change how I see and change how I’m seen

All these people who’ve changed me

And made me beautiful

Beach emerald coast

Moon full and rising high up in the sky

Waves slapping gently

Maybe they’re crashing

I’m looking out at the scene from the shore

I see a sea turtle hatching and more

Crabs and some sea gulls are waiting in score

Daunted intrepid - courageous and sure

See the lil sea turtle storm up the shore

Sure’d and gleaming , sure’d we’re more

Tourmaline comet, go forth and be more

And I so acutely aware of my body

My failures to maintain it

Crude oil out my joints in drips

Cartilage crunching like the gnashing of teeth - that color me monster and scruff me, dangling, beneath myself -

hold fast now, passion -

Nurture now, this whimpering hearth -

Roar now, passion - as steam billows from our quivering lips - breathe, you beautiful, twisted; fickle thing! - our heart crackles and pops, a frenzied tongue darting for air

And we

We

We,

clamber, still,

As tie - rods and intestines drag, squelching on coal

clamber forward, damn, you, slug!

despite the groaning and squealing of rust against iron,

Roar now, passion. Feed this engine.

Roar now, ember, come, redemption.

Fierce I’ll remain -

as I sharpen my spirit. 

I needn’t dull my edges or arrest my potential - 

To play well with others. 

I need only to act with intention. 

Maintain my integrity. 

My resolve. 

By the soft and lapping firelight of your love,

I hone myself;

And continue to take shape.