i could climb through the window of my soul
the fear of losing power already lost
mouth-dried by the nervousness of exposure

i want to feel the day without fear
as if God were coursing through my blood
as heat on a muggy day
to sweat the poisons clinging to my sells

trudging through the graveyard of my emotions
searching for the tombstone chiseled "Sunshine"
i'm lost in a grove of overgrown flow'rs
neglected like a child whose parents ran away

why is there an officer in this swamp of bones?
is there treasure hid worth guarding the graves?
will  he lead me to the shadows of my longing
through the fetid pools devoid of light?

somewhere in this miasma of concerns
ghosts lurk, flitting though the myths upheld
lost since the first internment, they seek companions
to release them from their sequestering cage

so i enter their silent movie, the script of which replays my life
and with a rose clenched tight between my teeth
dance as bloodlets weep from beneath my lips

now as mourner, i pass those whose gold bands rust
carcasses, dressed in earth, boxed in decay
giants no more, who can harm my battered flesh

my soul flares with tango-passion
no longer condemned to the among the frightened
but looking at fears that choked my freedom
toss the rose upon the tombs of my fright
entering the window, reconciled to life




*Moment

at any given
moment we can
become transparent
without the wind stopping
or the waves counting on
themselves to be waves-
a naturalness in
the way change
and change again
rises from a thousand
campfires on an endless
plain before the oldest
battle to discover the brilliant
emerald valley at the end
of a momeent of
nothing but breath
I hang on
-Jerry Schroeder, Cap.