Little Boy

There is a leak in the Earth,
quietly letting mercy slip
out,
unnoticed.

Ashes sprout in Spring’s fresh
mouth – her lungs
blacken with ferocity,

a dark mother clouds the sky
of an innocent,
a soft snow lays silent,
begging the earth to warm;
a quick suicide.

Her arms cradle his delicate
voice, she is moon craters
and crackling fire embers,
an Earth of her own.

Heavy waves of blood crash through
a golden heart,
blue eyes sicken and he cries.

Her own waves say goodbye –
and the Earth opens one more time.

Mappa Mundi

Mappa mundi. On my back I
sleep without mountains, or oceans,
or broken continents drifting off
in search for more.
Birds turn origami and
I am left with an echo.

Somewhere between maple rain
and God’s sweet thumb I broke
the rules.
Sand has lost all reason.
Sun has lost its meaning.
Direction is meant for the breathing…
So is matter.

Mappa mundi. Inside
I am a universe. The eye of God, on my
back, giving birth to angels with
white wings of clouds.
Thunder claps in approval
while I whistle an old echo
to the vast dark matter

that prays for existence.

that my lips may part for lava

winds sail slow
arriving with difficulty
to confession

I speak against another
back turned
burned by sun light

I am familiar
with the dark –
with poison
with automatic disappointment

that my lips may
part for lava
but not for pardon

and I sail slow over
raging seas
arriving with difficulty
to confession

where familiar darkness
speaks mostly
about me

On The Day

Oh young, on the day she turns
over a new leaf, sun-damaged
veins, shrivelled death

six-feet to go, to sleep,
to walk in to
her dreams, flat-lined
sex, drawn out of virgin
delirium

strawberry fields in
fast decay, on the day
she turns, sixteen
nights after the drunken man
is fast asleep

on the edge,
on metal terror
pumping through her
veins

this is the one,
the hidden light,
night fury flies past her eyes

everything is tight
blood crushes blood, through
life-less young eye lids
she cries, he’s too fast,

a shrivelled raisin on black top
oh young, that night, and what it means,
the night takes, the air
rips

open, stealing her lungs on the day
she turns.

Oh

Oh, dear Satan, your delicious
merchandise finds me
tender.

I am a raw sunflower gasping for
clean air, for rare light
to open my thin arms
and feed my beginning.

I could be a generous gift,
a miracle fragrance in the breeze
of a season,
but I was stomped deep
in the Earth, fed on by worms
before I knew how to dream.

When dreams slipped in to my feeble
stem, they were
manipulated, filling my roots with
poison.
Now, I sleep with deadly seeds
growing in my brain, too weak to survive
cold seasons,
surrendering to dark demons, until
spring brings back
the warm light of hope.

Your Darkness

Are you just out of mind? Or have
you lost bed, too?
I’ll lay you down with straw and
help catch your rogue.

The passage to sleep
is in a cottage, as bare
as birthed privates, down a
cottaged street. The seeker has treats
in that darkness! The darkness
where we meet.

You collected loneliness
in places that I jog in. I
watched you paint,
I watched you slice your flesh
with window,
I watched you crawl under his
sheets at night, to
ward off  the darkness.

Still it comes, a happy thief,
painted like a victim,
no matter your age, it never will
outgrow you.
Though, your flowers bloom and
your pumpkins grow,
though you scrub light into
your palms,
it never will outgrow you.

I taught you a language, a long time ago, a
protection from the shadows,
before sun marked your
pale skin,
before your lips touched a sugar breast,
you were my garden,
you were my flower;
a light, all of your own, to light your darkness.

Bennie and I

Brought white blossoms,
He did, on curved gravel
roads that stood well.

I couldn’t hear him.
I was riding Bennie, my pale habit.
My powder pastry mixing with me
like toxic nasal drip. I picked up my feet,
Bennie lifted me up, up, up.
We were deep in azure film,
scraping the sky for nothing.

He stayed with His ignorant box of diamonds,
level grounded,
staunchly fixed on my weightless finger.

Benny pulled me.
We floated to the tops of stars.
We floated to the top of dark.
We floated too far,

into the “too dark”.
Bennie was lost.
My ghost!
My shadow, swallowed
by infinity.

That’s when the buried corners came,
with hard-boned smiles and
broken teeth,
thin skinny, barely protection!
They came hard. Shattering moon windows,
bursting starlight.
They came for me!

I tried to scream but I was dry.
They picked at me.
They grabbed.
They reached through me,
straight through my green guts,
where Bennie was.
Hiding.

They shook,
shook,
shook,
trying to shake me off him.
They scrambled everything inside me.

Then, I fell.
Out of the stars. Out of the dark.
Back to the dirt where He was waiting
with a quiet ring, bent knee.
I did not know him.
I could not know him.
The buried corners
didn’t shake him out, but
they took my brain and
put the dark in its place.

Now, while my days sleep elsewhere,
He waits.