an inkstorm summoned under live oak we dreamed. daniel boonelight

in my own self-concept, but also what i have learned to value in this completely collapsible and promise-fickle world. there are amazing, life-changing people who are indelibly wrapped inside of these writings, and yet there are also people from your life who are wrapped into them as well. it is the same reference point i usually cannot avoid when i hear songwriters: if an album is filled with mere anecdotal and personal reference points that are more navalgazing than a relatable condition, then it loses an empathy factor and fast. i have tried to keep within here the written parts of me which speak to a bigger experience. i can only hope you can meet me out there in the middle; calm waters at sunset.

      an inkstorm summoned under live oak we dreamed

      Part I: Each Others' Angels

      lonestar 10-1-15

      i remember so well my head leaned back

      on a concrete slab in the middle of the hill country

      we were looking at the stars for one last time

      'fore shooting our own cosmic easterly line

      just trying to find something in that vast expanse

      that blessed the amassed romance of dreaming like hopers

      i could feel in the shakes of your legs

      that between the sparks of the saids

      there was something like trepidation gating

      the gazing unbridled stallion set of wishes

      and i quickly grabbed your hand and squeezed

      and i told you that somewhere in my power to believe

      that i was sure this world had a way to keep us alright

      if people are mixed into a shuffled set of cards

      i should somehow hear our muffled voices from afar

      sounding truth inside wishes in the bustles and the yards

      of life that don't slow down, but rustles feathers

      o so very far

      and every now and then when i've got quiet on my side

      and i find myself underneath a big harvest moon

      i can't help but stop to think of you

      i still find your stowaway hairs amongst my world

      and i hope somehow that i always will

      because somewhere in my power to believe

      i was sure this world had a way to keep us alright

      i think i'm probably just a lone star tonight

      quiet enough 3-22-16

      my heart does not experience

      time, or distance

      there's physics never met

      with the sublime lassoed there

      i've barely found places

      quiet enough to take you

      i've been frozen forever

      with my hands in your hair

      inside kids 8-5-16

      i grew up junebug hopping

      and firefly chasing and making

      art from the leaves; we'd wander

      blocks away to play and it barely

      even mattered indeed

      it was outside scratchings

      and trampoline leaps and it was

      always, 'shut the door!'

      because we had inside cats:

      meticulously maintained and contained.

      in a nowadays frame i walk

      back with my grocerybags through

      the sunshine splendorcurtain

      and notice the wild felines dart

      this way and that in reconnaissance

      missions and roaming brio

      and i pass through the doors

      into the air-conditioned gridcube.

      sitting before me are inside kids:

      chauffeured into safe cool cars

      from one building to another

      throughout their day, receiving

      their daily rations and digital awareness,

      meticulously maintained and contained.

      my exhale, sometimes,

      is a prayer to the sun.

      the kind that bears

      a thanksgiving

      to my place in history.

      broken record people 7-31-16

      sitting amongst ourselves

      and one another

      broken record people

      and the dog on the porch

      keeps chasing its tail

      are there design flaws

      or is creaturecomfort

      just the divine set of laughter?

      bareboned belief 4-10-16

      i will never forget the skymelt

      timefreeze of meeting you

      the way that your face felt

      as though i had cradled it

      and cared for it in war before

      the way that your big feeling

      furtive eyes wanted saving

      to be met with salve in a bid

      of tomorrowlike understanding

      i've swatted the flying fruits

      round my head before with

      ample self-protection but i

      will never be able to bet

      on a jackpot like the reason

      the sunshine brought your heart

      to my needing bareboned belief

      wishes and hope 5-7-17

      from the time that i met her, she was always so defiant, so peculiarly against the grain of what most people considered acceptable or true. she pointedly disliked natural-formed hearts in art. she ducked out of pictures taken for the wrong reason. she needed heaps of alone time in hikes with a dog chosen for her spirit as voracious and independent as herself. and one battle she always saddled up to was the subject of wishes. adamant as an evening storm, she'd say, "don't waste your time on eyelashes and dandelions, on numbers that string together on a clock. there's a lot more worth your energy." this roiled up the places inside me where my favorite childhood songs cast their lighthouses, where the fanciful part of my dreaming head felt comforted in the joy of picking dandelions once spring hit and i was good and outside.

      so one day i asked her, "what's the difference between wishes and hope?" her answer seemed to imply that the latter was noble, and had a sense of trust lain into the providential, the order of the universe that superseded everything. while the former relied on tradeshow tricks, the smoke-and-mirror show of superstition. and the whole thing made me think