The earthy voice of smoke,
A friendly, mindful breath,
That centers one who soaks
In centered life uncoaxed
By insular duress.

When flame dispels the less
Than wholeness placed in I,
The warmth of pleasantness
Embraces one with rest,
No longer self-derived.

The tranquil spirit flies
Beneath the lowest deeps,
And lifts the mental guise
Of separateness to rise
In wholeness, which it keeps.

The spirit, speaking, seeps
Away socratically;
The riddles that are heaped
By ego, we let sleep
And automatically

Our fear, erratically 
Responsive, finds the soul:
It enters practically,
Assured, at that it leaves
Transformed without its toll.

The newly livened role
Of yesteryear recalled
From back beyond the shoals
Before a doldrum's hold
On entities involved

In several worldly stalls,
Until the spirit great
United one with all,
From there to let revolve
The thing to contemplate.

That thing of being–fate
Or what a wretch presumes 
It is, when one relates
Their wants against the gate 
Of happenstance's rooms.

Within the smoky plume
The evidence is shown;
The warmth replacing gloom,
The want removed resumes
As knowledge that one's own

Desire is not alone,
Among so many more,
But deepest in our bones
We all alike bemoan
For happiness to score.

So, happiness restored,
And seeing now the ways
The webs of life can shore
Up everything and more,
I leave the wanting craze.

The thing to do is praise.
I read that once, it seems
Correct to me, to gaze
Out on creation's rays
Like waking in a dream.

And praise how much it teems
And sing the grace to be
Let in on all the scene
Without the need to deem
Things aid or harm to me.

Constant nightmares, yet their pulling
Shackles–daunting, vicious, spiteful,
Full of pacts and bonds of sorrow–
A delightful null of actions;
Haunting quite, yet also lulling.

Soon the cull will heighten on the
Day I lack more mulling flights of
Ponderous inaction; sullied
Might long gone; a manufactured
Strength; a hulled-out, frightened non-thing.

Fondly might I choke in gulfs of
Hack positions; on a tightened,
Miserable racking onto
Right out dull rat-racing packed in
Haunted nights if pulled by waking.

Pulled from blighted, monstrous living
Acted in my skull, it might be
A delight, the fact of bondage;
Sad the plight and want, but cracked once
Sultry sunlight wakes all, yawning.

Condemnation lights refulgent
Lanterns backing future sites and
Days of vultures, black-winged, gauntly
Fighting; stultifying tasks of
Squandered sight of hopefulnesses.

Full of tightening and long hours
Wracked by dullness and delighting,
Conning, acting for indulgence
Right? Consumers jack my future
And my soul; I'd rather sleep on.

Sleeping everyday for more than 
Twelve hours keeps my wits away, at
Core, themselves annihilated;
Heaped; decaying in their store of
Velvet enervated weeping.

Silently alarms are screaming.
Scope now narrowed by the eking
Out which arms demeaning, hopeless
Cares; denial in the dreams of
Ropes, garrotes, repeating trials.

I still remember–that cliché,
But all the same–the heat of
The sun clinging to the black tar
And bouncing before vision,
Beside our strides upon our walk.

We weren't more than friends, although
I fondly wished to have him.
But my nature is to yearn; no:
To pine to seduce Never;
To fall in loves that don't exist.

But not that day. We turned along
The sidewalk's gray meander.
Our long legs we put to use, stepped
In sight of the green walls of
The gardens curling near the street.

He led me to an entrance in
The fence which wasn't into
The real garden; rather we came
Upon a remote wooded
Seclusion, there to house our day.

The auburn promenade had been
Well-trodden down the path through
The grove's bosom, deep in her heart,
Outstretching the sought clearing;
It stood within a thicket green.

The thing was large and made of wood,
And when I asked him what it
Was used for, he didn't quite know
But guessed it was for hanging
Up scores for sports of yesteryear.

We clambered up the wobbling thing,
Without a care for his part,
For my part with fear but spurred on;
Together we sat on the
Forgotten scaffold for a while.

We looked out on the vacant field,
The boughs between obscuring
Our seat. From my pocket I pulled
The lighter and blunt, lit it.
We shared a smoke, a spark in time.

I dreamt on what it means to love,
I wondered of its power, 
My friend played a joke on me by
Pretending he'd leap down from
The tower; I was so afraid.

I marveled at delusion, and
I saw how high I held him;
The high precipice my fond heart 
Had carried him to, lofty,
Above me always pedestaled.

But what could all my fondness do
If chance should blow adversely,
Or black-winged descend upon him?
If peril should strike, will there
Be wings of love protecting him?

He joked and I was flustered, I
Was nervous, but we laughed and
We smoked, gazing at the clouds where
Our smoke will disperse, joining
The orange bed among the skies.