AUTHENTIC INSPIRATION

Where does the fragile yet pliable language of art reside? I, as a writer, believe art in all forms has a universal consciousness. Living inside the soul of an artist, an image begins, this idea germinates and evolves to a moment where the internal world can no longer house its need, and art is born. Born of its own cognition. I wrote Authentic Inspiration by my need to string words together to form the intimate language of poetry. TJKG

Authentic Inspiration

The beginning of life blooms
a promise of fragile inspiration,

just as you are.

An organic pattern of
self-proclaimed truth, the extraordinary

without meekness,
a medium mistress.

A muse nibbles around natural control,
driven into crazy consummation,

a passionate kiss.
However slight,

the shadows are following you,
a comeuppance of neglected memory—

as you try to create a silhouette to hide,
the gray outline is what haunts you.

You can’t silence yourself from me.
You can’t escape your mind of me.

The apothecary of the brain
creates primary shades of realities like

our memories, like our bodies; we return
to dust after we slide into death’s façade.

It is not life or death, it is all life.

Or is it a simple stand for a painted canvas, a portrait
of a face that can surrender to the allusion of

horror or eternal beauty.

The indescribable mania of authentic inspiration
each time happiness settles in the green of your bones;

your art is the one breath forbidden to be taken and yet

you breathe.

TJKG

SMILE THERAPY 16

I'm not offended by all the dumb-blonde jokes because I know that I'm not dumb. I also know I'm not blonde. ~Dolly Parton

Smile Therapy 16

I am in smile therapy when
I was driving my daughter to school today,
and she looks at me with that all knowing look of
a ten year old...
I look at her and say,
"What?" Cause I have seen the look before--
like when I am dancing in the kitchen to Justin Bieber.
Unacceptable for sure.
She says,
"Aren't you embarrassed by THAT gray hair on your head?"
I respond like a good mother.
"No."(well maybe a little)
"We all get older,
and with that we get gray, but don't worry
I am going today to get it colored."
She looked ahead to her elementary school and said,
"Good thing,
and I want you to know...
I will never let my hair get gray."

From the smiling mouths of babes.
TJKG

A SWELL IN THE THROAT

“The hawk with talent hides its talons” unknown

A Swell in the Throat

In the kindness of the word,
the tenderness of the voice,
kind is harder to swallow
than the harshness of hurt.

I know the tone, I know the
tremble which calls from
a place unknown, a voice burrowed
deep in the well of my soul.

The curse is a swell in the throat,
a heart locked into a pulsing silence,
a dream that seems surreal,and
a flower lost to the spring equinox.

I am connected to the recollection when
distance is thick like midnight water,
hope lost to the storm of hurt, and
the calloused words of forgiveness repeat.

My past is mixed with the other side,
blending a visceral memory living in me.
And as I look out the freshly cleaned window,
I see someone that reminds me of me.
TJKG

SMILE THERAPY 15

                Complete peace equally reigns between 2 mental waves. Swami Sivananda

Smile Therapy 15

I am in smile therapy
when each of my children
sits and shares
their life with me.

I am in smile therapy
when each of my kids
goes to school
even after a
beautiful
Mother's Day.
TJKG

MOTHER'S DAY--SEMANTRON HEART

In a moment of faith, I hear our mother's voice guiding our actions with compassion. It is a blessing of truth to be given the gift of mothering.

Semantron Heart

Far away
church bells

balance on
ribbons of wind--

the ambiance of
your voice,

"Mother"--

echo in the
sanctum of each
touch,

breath in the
nave of
your soul’s
elevation,

floating upon
the intonation of
wisdom,

living in the
flute
of our passing
narrative.
TJKG

THE IRONY OF MARILYN

The beauty of a woman must be seen from in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart, the place where love resides.
Audrey Hepburn

The Irony of Marilyn

You
remind me of
a little girl who
has a need
to be
held
like a bunch of wild flowers.
You
are a
woman who has an
insurmountable want
to be
held tight by certain
hands--palms
infused with freedom
as you
play in the
harvest grass
of passion's impulse.

TJKG

SMILE THERAPY 14

The image of this smiling Buddha is enough to put me in a place of peace and bliss.
And maybe giggle a little that we are all sharing the same universe staring at the same moon.

Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace.
Buddha

Smile Therapy 14

I am in smile therapy,
even on Monday, as
the world continues
to rotate with the rhythm
of the fullest moon.
TJKG

MAY DAY

"Do I still enter the avenue of your yesterday... Where we kissed in boulevard of broken dreams...Do you still call my name silently in the corners of your mind...Can you still paint my face in the crossroads of today?... in spite the long and winding road to Oblivion...you are to me beyond all my heart can hold....you are silently beyond forgetting." H. Ramos

May Day

Under the many moons of Mars,
I keep slipping back in time, searching for
that moment where I knew nothing
other than you.

If I would have known
our ruddy world
was written as a
burning love sonnet
by some famous poet—
for you to win the honor
of a heroine—

I would have graced more
of our memories;
I would have repeated your
tender words,
illuminated the silk of
your hair captured in
my constellation,
sculpted in marble
the curl of your shoulder,
shared
the music of your laughter.
I would have scored you to my soul,
imprinted
the dusk of your touch
into the rhythm of my step.

I would have
kept Mars alive, an unveiling
captured in a telepathic locket,
our globe elevated
over our
hearts, our green
love story whispered
across one night’s sky, as
our universe is lost to a
falling star.
TJKG

YOU LOOK LIKE A WOMAN CAUGHT

“To all the girls that think you’re fat because you’re not a size zero, you’re the beautiful one, its society who’s ugly.”
― Marilyn Monroe

You Look Like a Woman Caught

She looks like a woman caught
unaware by a camera
as she walks through life
as her own private muse;
an esoteric beauty glowing
through her reclusive truth.
This woman wants to feel beautiful
by the simple act of allowing
herself to be loved.
She is someone in the
transition from blur
to focus.

Her high black heels
tied around her neck,
a shortened skirt,
a gutted suitcase, the
unabashed pleasure of
chocolate and smokes.
Her red lipstick,
Chanel No. 5 perfume,
dancing every Thursday
as tea candles burn
the pink of her flesh,
a kilo of coded barbed wire,
ignominy mirrored in
this woman’s mind.
Beauty and depth, she insinuates,
occupies the dark years,
and now the sky is less dark
with smoke and mirrors,
and eluded captures.

She puts on a kind of show,
jumping from a staged warplane,
free falling and hearing
slightly in the distance,
the discipline of a knotted cane,
"someone was beaten,”
says the rising echoes of the wind.
This voice ricocheted from
the clamoring of beauty’s chains--
The silent sound of women’s
hearts remembering
as they are
beating, beating, beating.
TJKG

http://dversepoets.com/2013/02/19/open-link-night-week-84/ 

SMILE THERAPY 13

“It is better to be hated for what you are than loved for what you are not.”
― André Gide

Smile Therapy 13

I am in smile therapy
when my girls are doing
the dishes
more often because
I have started
doing them less.

I am in smile therapy
when I dance to Madonna's
song Vogue in my kitchen
with my friends and my kids.

I am in smile therapy
when I get to spend
a Sunday afternoon
in the sun and
dream about the
surf curling over
the sand.
TJKG
Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.”
― Dr. Seuss

MY DEAR,

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight. ~Kahlil Gibran

My Dear,

Do you know
what you
could have had
until you don’t have it?
The stroll under the
urban sunset,
a dream falling to less of a dream,
and more of a stark reality.
Do you know
what you had now
that you don’t have it?
I am flanked in between
the moments between moments.
When is the time
the right time?
Do you know,
as my hand reaches for your
hand,
the linking of four finger
interwoven in four fingers is a
privileged
connection--
more private than a slow dance,
hotter than the door handle to hell.

TJKG

SMILE THERAPY 12

Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night. ~Rainer Maria Rilke

Smile Therapy 12

I am in smile therapy
when driving behind a
truck that sets
free a pink snowstorm
of cherry blossoms.

I am in smile therapy
when I hear drops of
spring rain tapping
on my side walk releasing
the familiar
scent of the earth.
TJKG

THE MUSIC OR THE WORDS?

“Music is the art of thinking with sounds.” Jules Combarieu

The Music or The Words?

Burning, grinding,
slipping of steel linked
chain, cranked
down by the strength
of blue porcelain
hands.

The tufted cape of
crimson velvet
dances across the
theatrical stage of
opposing faiths.
The posterity
of a librettist’s opera.

Our script was
tangled in the
ardent drum
of scored
stars;
a forgotten kiss
wins
the unswerving need
for connection.

Do you remember the
moment when
we were weightless,
slipping effortlessly
between worlds?

Attending our opening,
we read a history of
words
written across the
musical
lines of our time.
"Tramontate, stelle! All'alba, vincerò!"
(Fade, you stars! At dawn, I will win!)
Puccini's Turandot
TJKG

SMILE THERAPY 11

Support organ donation. www.donors1.org You can't take them with you.

Smile Therapy 11

I am in smile therapy
after I ran a 5K
in 39 minutes and
did not
feel like a twisted
barbie afterwards.

I am in smile therapy
when I know I can
support OUR world
and use change and
awareness to
make a difference.
TJKG

A WINTER'S STONE

What you are is what you have been.
What you'll be is what you do now.
Buddha 624-543BC

He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things he has not,
but rejoices for those which he has.
Epictetus 55 - 135

A Winter's Stone

My heart weeps in
the consequence of
my decision.
A winter’s stone, a deep
question, a flower filled
with ethereal reason.
My heart is swollen,
beating only to the words
you speak to me;
my pulse is threaded with blood
slowly bleeding into my vision.
A race, a game, a duty,
a chandelier’s warmth illuminating
the path of a painter's immortality,
lost in her pensive Paris.
Sketches and scores of her face
drawing the essence of
black or white,
needing the velvet of the
purled pigment to
capture the slip between
stolen moments.
My heart finds
the lines of your mind’s wings
draping over my shoulders
and guiding my fingers to
your portrait.
I wait for you to restore me
to my heart
as you are my mentor and
I am life’s humble apprentice.
TJKG

SMILE THERAPY 10

love builds up the broken wall
and straightens the crooked path.
love keeps the stars in the firmament
and imposes rhythm on the ocean tides
each of us is created of it
and I suspect
each of us was created for it
--Maya Angelou

Smile Therapy 10

I am in smile therapy
as I dance in
the cold surf as the
warm sun
rises above, pulling
the smile from inside me.

I am in smile therapy
when I feel my heart
pounding;
I count my blessings by
the number of smiling angels
I have built around me.
TJKG

ODE TO MY RESURRECTION

Faithfulness to the past can be a kind of death above ground. Writing of the past is a resurrection; the past then lives in your words and you are free.
Jessamyn West

Ode to My Resurrection

The other day,
minutes before the day fell
into black night,
I spoke to my resurrection:
White lotus rise from mud,
child rise from the primordial ocean,
woman nourish from pagan grass,
phoenix rise from sovereign ash.
My soul’s entombment resurges
in the moment of the rising of
something once dead.

THE BRIDGE CAUGHT FIRE

“Breath is the bridge which connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts.” Thich Nhat Hanh

                                                                                       photo:T.Kraft
The Bridge Caught Fire

She saw me laughing
just on the other side
of his confused memory.
She saw me laughing
and questioned the
surging floods, the deprived tides,
the darting fish, and
slow drinking cranes.
There was not enough time for rain
to return to water to continue to nourish
the flow under the bridge or put out the fire.
(The connection senses eroding years,
slowly decomposing marred minutes,
charred wood, and fractured hourglasses
of life’s sandy moments.)
He saw me laughing
just on the other side
of what was once a bridge arching over
the vein of the river which has now
boiled into a desert.
Fossils of past actions
scattered in the dried
crevasses of a foolish passage,
reminding the laughter
of evaporating tears.
The souls stand alone on
a once fluid shore,
two sides face each other,
love four feet deep in stone;
elephant bones erect as pedestals
like stalemate chess pieces,
solitary pilings, or a
trunk-less support;
a gate-less graveyard of history remains.
He saw me laughing and she
did not know
our bridge was once a gateway
between each others homes.

SMILE THERAPY 9

Sometimes life is just funny!

If you don't learn to laugh at trouble, you won't have anything to laugh at when you're old. Edgar Watson Howe

Smile Therapy 9

I am in smile therapy
when an elderly lady says to me,
as I stand behind her
in the grocery store
check out line,

"You can jump me!!"

Our eyes connect and
I slip in front of her,
her face the shade of
a red rose, and she says,

"Ohh, maybe I shouldn't
have you jump me,"

realizing the implications
of her own startling statement.

She starts to giggle.
I start to giggle, and
she says as I am
about to leave,

"Now don't go jumping
other customers in
other lines."

Now that is smile therapy.

THREE VAGABONDS

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the
things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.
So throw off the bowlines.
Sail away from the safe harbor.
Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore. Dream. Discover.”
- Mark Twain, Author

Three Vagabonds

A rolling suitcase, an expert.
A carry on, an observer.
A pillowcase, a dreamer.

A yellow sun is bonding

three vagabonds descending
life’s driveway, blending in

with the green budding trees,
a thin layer of chartreuse pollen blanketing
the intimate scent of mother earth.

A Southern morning breeze;
we three are
caught in the heart of the gospel.

Across the street Jesus shares

the Sunday ministry, a pulsing life
packed in the Georgian-laden pews,
we are joined and soon to be parted.

He is you
and we are him,
secured in the belt
of the love you live.

You tame and cultivate;
he surges and excites.

We are a beautiful combination of magi’s energy.

One watcher,
one lover,
one believer.
TJKG

SMILE THERAPY 8

in Just-- spring when the world is mud-- luscious the little lame balloonman whistles far and wee
e e cummings

Smile Therapy 8

I am in smile therapy
while playing in the warm
spring rain, smelling
the breath of
hyacinths in the quiet
wisps of clean air.

I am in smile therapy
while watching my
laughing child
as she swings
on a home-made
rope swing.
TJKG

MODERN DAY ESPIONAGE

Modern Day Espionage

Warm sun sits on top of goose bumps,
nerves reverberate inside steel drums,
trapped screams ricocheting, searching

for the sliver of dusty light that punctures
the black ceiling; thoughts banging on the inside
of metal doors, drained flesh luring tenderness

and tanned radiance. Iced water spirals down
into a fiery stomach extinguishing the
past holidays and petty gifts; an exchange

of forgotten trinkets and lockets filled with
photographic memories. Time revives seizures
in my psyche leaving burns on my chills.

Temptation is ignited by someone
who understand what temptation is
all the while calming the spasm in my soul.
TJKG

SMILE THERAPY 7

I had a little get away to Georgia to visit with my dear friend. You never know what life has in store for your smile therapy.

Smile Therapy 7

I am smile therapy
when I am exploring
vacant houses drinking
red wine. Seriously!

I am even in smile therapy
when a Georgian black bug
flies up
inside my pant leg and
dines.

I am in smile therapy
when I am at the Jeju
spa and a tiny Korean
woman
scrubs the dirt out of
my pores.
TJKG

RAIN ON A FUNERAL DAY IS NEVER IRONIC

Make sure you leave your mark.

“The bitterest tear shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone”
                                                                                 Harriet Beecher Stowe

Rain on a Funeral Day is Never Ironic

Fat rain drops snap on metal window sill;
wet life touches each green sprig emerging.
Shakespeare was reborn to stage the scene
of a day when death will be celebrated.

Chirping birds seem not to notice
the swollen tears of human defeat.
What is life?
Song?
Pruning?
Speckled blue eggs? And
flying off to an inevitable death.

Heavy storms cleanse
our losses and births purple crocus--
one stable rock, pastel brown dirt, emerging leaves on an oak tree,
ten thousand washes, the falling of salt, the release of sin, the mourning cloak;
one drop at a time, each will descend from the widening sky
of blue,
gray,
black, and white.

Finality creates a memory, a memorial
written in square roman letters
(dating a beginning and an end)
starting and returning to one’s given name.
TJKG

SMILE THERAPY 6

Smile therapy is found on the inside and spread in the smile. Test it on someone today, and leave a comment with me.

Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been. ~Mark Twain

Smile Therapy 6

I am in smile therapy
when I see the infectious
nature of a smile,
birds chirping at dawn
ignoring daylight's
saving time.

I am in smile therapy
knowing a smile can
grow from the inside out.
A smile can shadow a cautious
bitter heart
to a warm hand of sun.
TJKG

I AM THE FLAME

Words are only painted fire; a look is the fire itself.
Mark Twain

I Am the Flame

I am the flame
no one wants to touch.
Am I the fire, or the moth?
I am the flame that might burn you
if you come too close.
Am I the flame, or the fire?
I will set fire to the pain in you,
releasing
your dancing blaze,
forcing you to
let out the truth and sear
into you the reasons
why people are devoted to you.
And if you won’t come close,
I know you know fear, and if
you do come close,
and if you can smell the smolder,
and you are willing
to come into the
the orange and red
wild licking flames,
I will taste you
and consume you, and mark you,
and leave you
as a living burning inferno of truth.
I am the ember which ignites
the fire within you,
a flare-up from risk,
a comfort from warmth.
I am the glow you feel long
after cool night has come, a silent sun
overturned, an order demanding
yourself to breathe;
the rebirth of a phoenix
embedded with scars,
a cremation of hate, and the gray ash of love.
TJKG

SMILE THERAPY 5

A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.
Oscar Wilde

Smile Therapy 5

I am in smile therapy
when I buy a box of
Good and Plenty and
inside are the hot pink
and white liquorish
tubes of love bringing me
right back to
choo-choo Charlie.

I am in smile therapy
when I take a hot bath
of lavender and Epsom
salt and I slip into the
ether's of steam
and dream.

TJKG

HOPE IT GOES IN AS EASY AS IT CAME OUT

"A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle" Gloria Steinem

Hope It Goes In As Easy As It Came Out

A painter yesterday,
a plumber today
gives me reason
to chip my nails,
scrape my hands,
see my blood,
stub my toes, and
curse at inanimate things
as I create ways to
transform them
into tomorrow.
It is how I know--
I am a capable woman.

TJKG

SMILE THERAPY 4

"Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road,but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence." - Lin Yutang

Smile Therapy 4

I am in smile therapy
when I drive home from
the gym at 6 a.m.,
and the sun is as early
to rise; we both feel
spring coming.

I am in smile therapy
when I search deep
inside my soul
to feel the helix of my
smile.

TJKG

CROSSWISE

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.
Helen Keller

Crosswise

But in art
as in life,
one cannot defer
that
iron
bars
are emblematic
of
uncertain happiness.
One’s hope
affix across
a female form
may
foment
freedom, a
tantamount
to life and
the art
of security.
TJKG

SMILE THERAPY 3

Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.”
― Albert Einstein

Smile Therapy 3

I am in smile therapy because I have
seen too many reruns on Monday--
not of Gilligan’s Island, not of
The Road Runner, but of real life
reeling on and on and repeating to me,
this must be happening.

I am in smile therapy when
shaking my bootie with
my daughters to Wii Just Dance 3
feels like I am out at a dance club
with my girlfriends, in my twenties,
minus the shots of kamikazes
and the smoky electric atmosphere.
TJKG

THE MADNESS OF IT

“I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they're right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.”
― Marilyn Monroe

                                                                                        Photo:T.Kraft

The Madness of It

You need to find the bottom to everything,
to see if it will kill you;
this is the problem with trauma,
there is no middle ground to walk on.
No riddles to solve, no worries to weave,
no bruises to mend, no blood to shed, all
rimmed with barbwire to keep the truth out.

She says…
Your mind does not choose to have
a flood of guilt, a raging of war,
a loop of tapes, a mayhem of tears,
to tear down your body of borders.
I broke it,
so free yourself from the madness of it.

Whatever it may be, I want to stay alive, and if
you want to die, you can. I worked too hard to
find my way here,
to be victim’s blood. And hey--
one of us is crazy and it is not me.

How far under the radar should
you fly to make a difference
to the cipher of scabs?
I have the creator’s want,
the philosopher’s question, and
a poet’s blood,
you need feet on those words,
she says to me and then
I will drink them from your lips,
like water to wine,
she says to me.

I have the universe’s compass and
the ideas are flowing like holy-water.
She says, when you are searching for your
dream boat and you find a life boat
with me and Marilyn Monroe in it,
you will know it.
TJKG

4 DAYS IN PARIS

Happy Valentine's Day

Oh Moon, sweet, sweet Moon, I want to be naked on you. I want to be like a flower growing on your surface, unique and mysterious, at home in the wonder of you, as if my naked body would be something growing out of your soil, something precious, a lovely gift on your landscape.  James Lusarde

4 Days in Paris

The veil is dissolved
as her mystery
is revealed,
my muse, my lover.
I am lost inside
your hushed words,
this yearning, my muse,
this yearning, my lover.

This, I yearn for more–
and more,
my lovely tempest,
my moonlit goddess,
that which has been
given back with the
serenity of your silence,
a loneliness lost
to the distant past.

In the still voice of
my lover's wisdom,
my lips are still tender.
I see more of how
she lives in the shadow
of my stillness.
In the stillness
of my sight,

in the release of
my breath, I seek
to understand you,
your finger tip
is not enough
of a journey to
fulfill me.
I have prepared
myself all these
years for four
found days in Paris.
TJKG

SMILE THERAPY- 2

   All true responses to life...

   If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. 
                                                                  Maya Angelou

Smile Therapy 2

I am in smile therapy
even when the dirty dishes
and the dish fairy are
in a terrible battle in
the night and the dirty
dishes are still
there in the morning.

I am in smile therapy
even when the guy sitting
next to me in a bar
talks to his
buddy about digging a
six foot grave for his
soon to be x-wife.

TJKG

AMBUSH OF THE EDGE

A lot of times I came across as too masculine to men, and they couldn't handle me, they stayed away. Brenda Holloway

Ambush of the Edge

The silver link
slips over the head
of memory’s chain;
the paisley tie of society,
bound body locked from fluidity,
cinched firm to
the controlled leash of time.
Prong collar, a clanking reminder
demanding a
corrective pinch, a straightened path,
an evolutionary whisper,
a tethered beast noosed from
the liberty of his lurch.

His spirit rises leaving
past anger and resentment
and crippling ego to fall; a truth
found in one’s present
unknotting. And as each
knotted cord unbinds,
a hidden scar fades to freedom.
His creator is sculpting
revelations as exposed insides
alleviate trepidations,
a consummation of letting go,
birthed from the
breath of an unraveled heart.
TJKG

I AM IN SMILE THERAPY

A friend taught me about smile therapy and it has changed the disposition of my life. Putting a smile on your face, a smile that comes from your soul, can change the molecules of your being and actually make the world a better place. I know it sounds Forrest Gump...you should give it a try. Big grins for Monday.

"Setting a good example for your children takes all the fun out of middle age."
William Feather

I Am In Smile Therapy

I am in smile therapy
even when I bite the heads
off of Teddy Grahams and
leave their little floured
bodies littering the
kitchen table.

I am in smile therapy
even when Ken and Barbie
are hanging in the Jacuzzi
and I am picking up all their
doll-sized clothes that are
clearly nicer than mine.
TJKG

SLEEP WALKERS

Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. ~Chinese Proverb

Sleep Walkers

I dream of sleep
hidden in the cracked
moments of peace;
my body held in the depths
of gravity’s slumber, cradled
in the core of the earth,
slightly sinking,
warming the ways for my
troubles.

Shelter lies in the depth
of my darkened covers,
a shield that swathes
my human soul,
a haven of raw questions
amass in my heart gives
me hope for the purity of
your worriless home.

I turned over and
thought of you, like
a candle licking away at air.
I turned over and
wanted you, like
a candle’s illumine,
anointing my fears.
I turned over to
purify my burning life,
warming the burning in you.

I’ve been saved
by turning over
and facing me,
burning the feared
traces of my purging.
TJKG

KISS.CONSUMED.CONSUMED.KISS

                Never mind. The self is the least of it. Let our scars fall in love. 
                                                ~Galway Kinnell

Kiss.Consumed.Consumed.Kiss

The kiss swims in

the water’s consuming flow--

with the tenacity of a liquid

emotional current—

waves of deep pinkish orange

luminescence wrap around

a woman’s torso like the

tentacles of an octopus’s charm.

Chaotic-- black ink clouds explode and

her lover vanishes amidst the coral,

escaping into liquid velvet charm.

The solitary storm darkens with an eerie

silence turning pain into a wild serpent;

the raw tale of the soul

flips and propels through

the watchful waters, searching for

the will of need. Tongues reach

for a thousand reasons,

bubbles of screaming questions

surface and the

heart of the creature finds

the reasons for demanding oxygen.

The undertow rolls and

curses in twisting whirlpools

of resolution and

is sucked into a green

undercurrent of truth.

Awareness swimming to the

questioning consistency of the shore.

Rising from the dark depth 

of the primordial ocean,

a burning sunrise glows naked,

a single soul stands beside a barren

pagoda, with fresh toes digging into the

desert’s warmth, whispering

what has happened to my love?

TJKG

THE MEMORY OF THE WRITTEN WORD

Words are a way that mark us even though the writing is invisible,
yet those words define us as if they were tattooed on our bodies,
and those words create the history of a relationship. It implies creation, evolution and destruction--the circle of life, the span of life, the span of a relationship...
imagine the words written on our soul from everyone who has touched our lives.

                       Ink smears, as thoughts sometimes do. ~Terri Guillemets

The Memory of the Written Word

With the blackest of ink,
I create my art on your flesh…
words inflamed by my fingertips,
sounds slipping from your soul,
written by my hand
on the ribs of your will,
all sealed inside your body
with thick of
sealing wax, pressed
by the signet of my heart.
Day into night, hours pass as if
only moments, and
I am a slave to the letters
written upon your skin.

Your written words
now driven onto my skin,
slowly seeping into my flesh,
into my muscle,
into my fierce blood,
circulating endlessly
as air fills my lungs, and
turns my will to a
fluid, lovely sylph.

I find inner strength and peace;
I feel weakness without you as
your portrait lay under my need.
Truth precedes not
the rarest moment, but
the elemental memory
of my earliest universe--
your solitary nest hidden
inside a quixotic liaison.
I gaze at the starry nostalgia
of the slight of your neck, and
I know the inner history
of each of your treasures as I
sit and pine at the omniscience
of your being, languid in your
beautiful byzantine bedroom,
I dream of the ethereal form of you.
TJKG

LIFE, IT IS SAID, IS LIKE A CHESS GAME

“I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear”
-Martin Luther King, Jr.

                                                                                                        photo by- T.Kraft
Life, it is said, is like a chess game.

It is said…
she talks like she has
a martini in one hand
and a cigarette in the other;
she lives and moves in
her ambivalent house; she is
the calculated queen without weakness,
rendered slightly insignificant, a
static image dancing around the
checkered board, a shuffled
unbalanced triangular waltz
is what she presents with the
wisp of a dull ache
in her stomach.
She conceals the truth
for the reign of her pawn’s pledge.


It is said… with
the slight correction of
the fine line of a rifle, precisely
crossing into the right sight;
it is the king’s face-off.
It is the combination of energy,
the scratch of time across his face,
the combining of life’s castles
forced into one completed step,
the cross-hairs of configurations
that are hidden in the missing move.
He is pinning another, conforming
to the rules of the game, and still
unable to check mate in
a stale mate that nobody will win.
TJKG

I DANCE WITH ABANDON

I often think that a slightly exposed shoulder emerging from a long satin nightgown packs more sex than two naked bodies in bed. Bette Davis

I Danced with Abandon

I was a man back then,
someplace lost in the
past centuries of time,
when making love was honest
and felt and filled with the
faces of lovers’ dreams.
And a woman pined for it,
and a man delivered it, sincerely.
Something like
the tango, a slow stepped
lovemaking dance, hips that
connected with
a knowingness of you.
TJKG

THE NOBILITY OF THE NIGHT DRIVE

A hunter of shadows, himself a shade. ~Homer

The Nobility of the Night Drive

And there you stand like
a red stop sign
on some deserted road--
a nameless road,
a winding and twisting script,
a finger gliding across a map,
white lines dividing brain matter.
You are dwindling behind me like
an 8 track without lyrics.
You continue to stand still
disappearing into a certain shadow, into a
broken rhythm where reality stops moving.

Driving forward, wild hair finding wind,
you are a little secret locked in my mind,
you hold otherworldly symmetry,
reservoirs of memory, topography
fading into the past black roads,
an arrested fluid mirage.
My memory is becoming elastic, a
bending liquid story living in the
recess of my yellow cautioned bridge.

Life is soaring around me like
a solitary bird of prey
kiting the domain of her sky; behind me,
the rearview reflection remains silent.
My white leather passenger seat
is empty—black cracks in the creases--
left behind from another lifetime.
My fingers wrapped
around the sturdy steering wheel driving
a circular perception, my translatable
top down, my speeding tires
making contact with the present ground,
ether of your vanishing memory.
TJKG

THE CONSTELLATION OF YOUR BODY

“True strength lies in submission which permits one to dedicate his life, through devotion, to something beyond himself.” Henry Miller

The Constellation of Your Body

The incense of wet wood velvets
the pleading of my lips as your purity
is an anointment to my flesh.
I am undone by the thoughts
of the constellation of your body,
your cleanliness surrenders
me to my prophet's devotion,
(a white-winged victory balanced
over the benediction
of my heart.)
Your skin, the color of creamed milk, brings
trembling strength from a place unknown;
you are the birth of a vision of hope.
My prayers are sanctioned as
words escape through the
the scent of your breath, and
when you breathe out your swollen
lips turn from white to burgundy,
and the certainty of your life ignites
the smoldering embers of my
inner secrets.
The taste of your words bestows me
to the core of your existence as
the presence of you
standing right next to me
humbles my testament for truth.

TJKG

ONCE AGAIN, Blue Night

I am planning on re-posting highlights of 2011...Enjoy

Blue Night

Blue night,
I will not sleep, I will refuse you,
I will trick you and dream awake.
One hundred nights died for the truth of one day.

It is you I become in the night.
It is you I fade into the dark shadows with,
my heart swells in the shallow of my chest. I am
shivering inside, with no where to hide. A forest of
imaginary creatures creating fears in my blinded mind.

Swaying in the dark of the night, leaving
bloody footprints at the doorstep of my heart.
I fight to forget our last kiss,
I fight to forget our last touch,
I fight to forget your smell, I fight your image
as it drags me through hours of black hell.

Blue night,
I will not sleep, I will refuse you,
I will trick you and dream awake.
One hundred nights died for the truth of one day.

In the cerulean darkness,
lapping at the gritty beach,
your cracking sky emits truth over a
complex collection of hidden lies.
You know no other light but dark,
rejecting truth in favor of illusion.

Blue is my resurrection.
It is the color of my blood moving
through the rivers of my veins;
it is the color I turn when cold;
it is the color I will be when dead.
It is you I fight in the night.
I am what morning counted on last night.

Blue night,
I will not sleep, I will refuse you,
I will trick you and dream awake.
One hundred nights died for the truth of one day.

CENTER OF MASS

Here is to the new beginnings, the balance of yesterday and today, the balance of holding on and letting go, be at peace, and embrace the blessing of your present moment.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

An excellent man, like precious metal, is in every way invariable; A villain, like the beams of a balance, is always varying, upwards and downwards.
John Locke

Center of Mass

I am perplexed
with trouble’s pain
where the sketches
of the world
seem contented
with their pleasure,
unmoved by the
fissures of hate
even as

our
fingerprints are
left to churn
inside the truth
of the metal bell
of the succulent pear
of the conception
the fig trees love.

My soul weeps,
when my eyes
see ripened hands
upon another’s
flesh as a
mother’s milk
is exchanged
between
interwoven
bodies of life.
TJKG

DRINKING WINE AT SUNRISE

“Men go back to the mountains, as they go back to sailing ships at sea, because in the mountains and on the sea they must face up.” Henry David Thoreau

Drinking Wine at Sunrise

It is dark when I wake and it is dark when I sleep--
How is that good for the soul?
A candle burns at both ends, I am told.

I breathe and die and I hold me inside for you
to find me like a growling fire, a signal hill bonfire,
a hot inferno and then cyclic still cool ash,
twice torching the rocky hillside of the past,
dancing like paper-white snowflakes in the soft air.

Life is superior like a sky painted in crimson and gold;
I wonder what you have seen in your present moment…
My hands have touched the beating of your
quiet heart inside the changing earth of my soul--

I am a woman, who is restless with propriety,
perching in tree tops with black crows, and
who knows how to define water from land,
even the reversed allusions of the two.
Mine is the heart of a dandelion who heals
and loves as it blooms in between broken
concrete with the burst of a silent bend or a
salutation to a sunset or praying
to an awakening eclipse.

I am a woman whose heart
wears the crisp demands of boldness;
a friend who sees tragedy’s heart drip through
the winter trees like the silver sun
rising in the heat of the morning; a mother
who teaches the taming power of the small,
illuminating the fissures in the hearty spirit,
and a lover gives more love than one soul
could feel and this knowing
is the breath of my driven truth.

I am altruistic and raw as the burgeoning sun’s
tiny tendrils creep from a further horizon,
giving unnoticed life to each place it’s rays touch.
I am a hill of thought defining the
fluid integrity of my rolling essence, and yet
I die a little as the light arcs and
burns through the barren branches as
I mirror my life through the eyes of the sun.
I live even more knowing I know how to love.

LE PETITE MORT

“Life is nothing but a continuing dance of birth and death, a dance of change.” Sogyal Rinpoche

Le Petite Mort

Death is handed
to each word
that slips carelessly
from your lips
like the tongue
of a knife
flaying the inside
of my beating heart.
Those words are
a public pillory,
a tethering noose--
each held hostage in
the brain of my
silent voice.
Words define us…
as my actions
are my birth.

A YEAR OF TRUTH

One regret dear world, that I am determined not to have when I am lying on my deathbed is that I did not kiss you enough. - Hafiz of Persia

Who does not love that quote, I mean, seriously? There are apparent obstacles on the journey of life, so remember to keep breathing even in the midst of the pain.

A Year of Truth

Each piece of sadness
has been stirred,
swirled around
like brown leaves
or inflated
plastic bags, sucked
into tornado alleyways,
littering my heart
with voices.
Unswerving air settles
like stillness at the end
of a soaking rain storm,
or breached tracks
halt the
scent line
of a blood hounds
chase —

confused,
unsettled,
enraged—

A branch is snapped
underfoot,
in life’s dash,
two pieces
unchanged and never
to be whole again.
Caution towards
blue skies,
following twisting
clouds and
weaving vines
emptiness seems to
unravel questions
leaving slivered
answers
in labyrinth sections;
I breathe in
their delirium and
another swallow of
breath is released.

TJKG

IN A WEEKEND WE FEEL IT ALL

I feel it all I feel it all
The wings are wide the wings are wide
Wild card inside wild card inside - Feist

Hanging with my girlfriends for the weekend rejuvenated my world... To my dear friends and to every woman, I dedicate this poem.

In a Weekend We Feel It All

Before we get where we are going,
lets figure out where we are. (Unknown)
We are living within integral presence at all times
interwoven in the innate fabric of our trilogy’s trust. (Known)

Reborn into two days of moments with
active integrity we laughed and
loved, and flew with wide wings and
serendipitously sought reason, each holding
a calm voice of hope, and
a healing whisper of wisdom,
a circle of spiritual reason; each
quietly send their intention
to the wind,
and return inside
the witch’s tree house where
we unveil with wine,
we dance with abandon,
we feast with meaning,
we sing with freedom,
we lead each other
to the balance of the universe
to BE ever present and not fear the intimacy
of sharing the depth of one’s heart, and once again,
we depart knowing each woman has a place to call her own.
TJKG

WEEPING WITH HAPPINESS

The question of happiness linger in my mind like the coming and the leaving of the tide, and as Nietzsche said, this is in fact your life.

“Amor Fati – “Love Your Fate”, which is in fact your life.” F. Nietzsche

Weeping with Happiness

She buoys
between the shimmers
of moon light,
melts between
broken and whole passions,
flashes between
worn out words
heard a thousand times before,
and hides inside the tides of
a waxing
world.

From the beacon of her
double mind
burns a single façade--
her life radiates
around her pretty face as
she whispers hidden wishes
under the perfumed
portico of the night;
she wades into the soft wind
pleading to her apparition that
one day she too
will feel full and devoted.

Her head turns and
swirls like a metal
compass hand in query,
spins in the direction of
an omniscient certainty
(east on truth's face)
of knowing that her
breached lighthouse
unlocked waves of questions,
like sparkling sand
on the shores
of her beautiful heart.
T.J.K.G.