through the desert sea

I chiseled out an ancient face
and hanged it in my head
though it was not quite alive as I
was waiting to be dead

we trudged together through a desert
smoked a fat cigar
nibbled on dirty tortoise shells
burned our feet on tar

it went like this for twenty years
or thirty, or probably more
long enough that desert sand
began dripping from my pores

and now my skin has turned to bone
and my pretty name is aging
my ancient face is chiseled out
my brain is disengaging

and though I’m not quite as alive
as I would like to be
I am grateful for my blistering walk
through the desert sea

Wings Of Amity

Is my dead name happening?
September, my quickest friend.
Who waits for who?

Each night, your hands part my lips,
delivering the wise bees.
My throat tickles from his telling wings,
his impossible story
about how God will forget me.

His fierce wildness
will throw thunder, while I drift
on wings of amity
he will strike! My veins will crumble,
my body will become
an old abandoned city
for his merciful army.

The bees cry in agony,
a storm threatens them now
as I dream
of nothing past September.
I am sick with fate,
but rise to courtesy.
The bees and their sweet story
do not abandon.
My grateful knee to the Earth,
I whistle out the bees.
Their freedom, my peace.

 

Wake Up

Here I am, spitting the fury dragons out
at you.
Here I am, grating your skin
down to truth, scratching away your faux colour.
Revelations!

I lift your sweat stained sheets, rummage beneath and
cut you off at your ankles. Then, I feel for your knees, and
when I find them
I nail them to the perfect imprint beneath your
clammy body. I move upward, farther upward to your
stomach. I wish you had a womb so that you
could understand the
torture of what I am about to do.

Life lurks inside you, thousands at a time,
all patiently waiting in line for just one chance!
I brought a blow torch for this.

I watch your skin bubble and slowly drip out of
character, down your sides and leak into your sheets.
You still sleep.
You barely flinch, snorting oxygen like a pig.

I move up from your melting pot, straight toward
your chest. Your ribs have been a great protector!
I have grown my sharp tongue out, praying that
it would not come to this.

I have no use for your heart.
I only want your eyes to open and see
me sitting here next to your truth.

And Their Colour

I see how he boils
I see his skin blistered and peeling
at the surface, and
I see what lies beneath.

I couldn’t help it, his voice started out whimsy and soon turned grey.
I searched for colour, for exposure, for sound;
in every wrinkle,
in every scar I searched, but they grew dull
and duller, still.

There is only one way at a time like this,
for me, just one way.
I carved a switch, long and thin,
kissed it from tip to tip,
dipped it in ferocious honesty
and laid it upon him.

Every sharp went unacknowledged, ignorance shaded
his wounds, so I left them.
He came back for another round and
I smacked him with truth,
defiance and with truth,
and he did not believe me.
So, I left.

Then, he came back and I swat him again.
I welted and blistered his skin, this
time colour arose.
Red infection swelled at the lacerated sites,
and he boiled.
I listened to his blood and his voice boil,
and his skin gash and then blister,
but before all this
I saw what hid beneath.

Now, I stand in front of my mirror,
where he thinks my reflection is
hollow and bare,
and I see all of my wrinkles and scars
and where they came from
and that they will always be

but with their colour,
and their colour,
and their colour!