cloudburst

when the air is still again
i breathe
cupping hands around
dripping blossoms
storm-kissed
nurtured by sunny days
colours of the rainbow
fallen
banished by the fury
dark cloud's wrath
alone
doomed to fade quickly
severed from the stem
gathered
placed in purgatory
the water once deadly
delays
preserving life a while
floating on display
bouquet
i marvel at the swan song
beauty given without hope
lingers
in spite of dismal skies
the message echoes soft
ponder
when the air is still again

failing

when i'm right and you're wrong
and i help you to see not through
any ill-will but because it must be
then you rip out some words full
of anger and malice accuse me of
making you seem like you're useless
leaving me reeling with the weight of
intentions not carried alone in a mire
of feelings and fast being buried
your volatile vomit with direct aim
like a short-lived bug relieves your
emotions and leaves me to blame
so you happily carry on after i'm
left in pieces believing you're right
and my grovelling suffices
some of us care more for the one
back and forth wanting the other
to know what they are worth
perhaps you truly do not know
that your fiery words incite the fear
in me that i'll never be right
every moment with you is a half-
lived life as i fear what you'd say
with that tongue like a knife

unexpected summer

nigh on a month ago the winter clung
ferociously to spring's heels sending
snow and frost from coast to coast
as if the flowers were doomed yet
now the sky throws up a mayday
as the sun suffocates the sand in
his embrace and the same voices
that feared for frozen rosebuds
cry alarm at drying tulip trees
revealing the giddy fickle human
cause that loves one day what it
fears the next and clings to what
it cannot have while bemoaning
what its arms find abundantly
filled while the world goes on as
merrily as it did a thousand years
hence and hearts fall broken with
no hope in sight though the small
answers lies within our grasp to
choose love instead of comfort
hope instead of base reality and
to envelope those reaching in sad
silence with the truth that this too
shall pass and all will be well