Stephen Mead is an Outsider multi-media artist and writer.  Since the 1990s he’s been grateful to many editors for publishing his work in print zines and eventually online.  Recently his work has appeared in CROW NAME, WORDPEACE and DuckuckMongoose. Currently he is resident artist/curator for The Chroma Museum, artistic renderings of LGBTQI historical figures, organizations and allies predominantly before Stonewall, The Chroma Museum – The Chroma Museum (weebly.com)

Longing

Water remembers rain, the pooling, 
the stippling, the surface, the current…  

It’s like this your face searches, 
yearns for familiar fingers. 
They read the skin like a safe cracker, 
kept the secret code.  No one else  

could penetrate what touch unhinged: 
A mountain of magic & its hidden panel 
only the keeper, the keeper knew 
how to find…  

So love recognized your insides 
like a mirror, & so the sky invites 
tree tips seen in still water:  
bait on a hook, with 
desire a fishy rumor 
believed in to carry, 
to weather  

the incredible stream.

Through Ice

(For the boy found by Amtrak how long ago?)

The first time I was quite young, 
vacationing, suddenly polar-turquoise at the bottom 
of the motel pool, that summer sky lavender 
with a few tundra pleated clouds I noticed 
upon coming 'round. Years later 
came the genuine thing----
Boot stomping on a creek supposedly frozen 
yet: craaa-ooosh, and muddy water up my nose, 
the legs of lead kicking amid popping ice bits-----
So cold, cold, frantic wet wool fingers 
beseeching the bank to come near. If not for 
luck and a log, the swept body would not have 
surfaced until spring thaw. Now, how familiar 
is this other hypothermia, a slow 
almost loving bandit making out with 
the marrow deposits of those earlier times. 
It feels like condensed milk, such misty chills 
creeping deeper to nestle old branch moss 
and strange slick tiled siding, the air's 
watery rush textured like crow laughter or 
no, I'm just sleeping, here, by the rails.

God, I wish it Would Snow

A seagull sky with just a little too much blue
is what I'm in the mood for.

How I'd like to know the sorcery for bringing on
that show of whispers showering
& the vulnerable ground perfect
for such soft shouts.

How I'd like to lie wide open, face up,
waiting to make an angel even from beneath.

No, these eyes will not close, nor the mouth
cease its searching while there's so many salutations
in surrounding shapes.

Yes, it's pearl-grey we've awakened to,
nude & expectant, lonesome for a jitterbug
or melancholy waltz of slow warming.

For some time the sky has hinted 
without shedding a flake.
For some time these white sheets could easily be
northeasters ecstatic in the light of every edge melding.

Well, we can't wait.
Come sculptor, tunnel under,
let's blend our lines further 
than even snow over everything 
waiting to be blanketed private with delight.