DREAM-KEEPER

When I write,
thirsting minutes
ripen into unquenchable hours
that drink not only dreams
of vanished voices,
but the voiceless whispers
of veiled promises
and shrouded secrets
that exist just below the surface
of a never-ending poem.

The hours own me
and all dream-keepers.
Champions of dreams undreamed.
Guardians of miles
of absent smiles
and forgotten silhouettes.

As life goes,
their words are now mine.
Their goodness a testimony
to the unattainable,
the clarity
of the unexplainable.

In distant things
I find myself
sheltered
where poetry lives,
where love showers
shadows on the earth.

© JOHN PISCATELLA

EVER FOREVER FRIENDS

I dream the moon
for two,
but drink the sun
for one
wherever the light
leads me.

My shadow
wanders the world,
but my moments
mirror memory
that find voice
down the back
of my mind.

Not even delicate dreams
hidden in my own heart
can resist reflections
between your time
and mine.

We are our memory,
but what is now
is mine,
secret yet visible,
like unwavering wisdom.

Perpetual paths
like distant stars
echo shared footprints.
Night divides
what destiny doesn't.

Ever forever friends
my love.

© JOHN PISCATELLA

EVER ORCHID

Restless are the blooms
within winter’s spring
in memory
of sweet mystery
on a single spike
held in a hollow hand.

Aside a weighted heart
cosmic time
is past faraway
beyond the scent
of soul
under a vanilla sky.

Santa Ana winds
bring voice
to simple leaves
with parallel veins
in shimmering light
shielded from shadows.

Fiery florets,
waxed and moulded
to perennial perfection,
dream a smile
of silent delight
whispered long before
the dawn of dust
on the far side
of a graceful garden.

Only you,
ever orchid,
ever flower.

Forever Florine.

© JOHN PISCATELLA

THE VOICES OF SICILY

How the world has changed
when nothing as something
as somewhere
ushers in the morning rain.

Bordered
by the moon and sea
I am drawn to you
Sicily
in search of me
and the voices
left behind.

What once was
never may be again,
except for traces
of treasured faces
that pass into
the myth of memory
and now stand before me
at the morning market.

In the market place,
where musical threads
and melodious cries
are weaved
between vendors and buyers,
songs are born
at first light
and fill the air
with nostalgic scents
of smiles
and Sunday dinners.

Standing within the fusion
of reality and sentimentality
in a world between time
and timelessness,
the seeds of solitude
and ripened dreams
are trapped
inside the night-tide
of my mind.

The past,
more faraway than near,
can fill the margins
beneath a fractured surface,
but only life lived
with ambrosial smiles
and second chances
can fill the space
in my heart.

© JOHN PISCATELLA