Ghost Plant

One story
up, under a roof,
under a perfect yellow moon,
I wait.
I watch oxygen expand
into greatness.

Midnight sleeps an ear ache away
from me snoring.
Oxygen starts its engine, then
shuts off again.

God grows in a cradle like a
ghost plant, a living reminder
of what is yet to be dead.

One story
below me, kids are
throwing stones.
An eye for an eye,
till war takes them both.

When tonight catches up, it will
pluck spots from the day until
we sing the song of
the crickets.
I will wait for God to grow
out of his cradle, strike a match
against conscience and finally,
rename me.

I Love Her More

She has a name hanging
in a back orchard somewhere.

Cowbells are ringing. I gave it up
like an omelet to a woman married
to perfection.

I am missing limbs for limbs,
heart for heart. Who am I to promise
life to another broken life?

Her name stands on a balance beam
between two tongues, heated tongues,
a melting puddle of ownership.
Where did she come from?
Where does she belong?

Tug-of-war. I own her more.
Someone who should have been born
is hanging in a back orchard somewhere.

I let her go. I love her more.

Hot For War

I’m not so angry after all
this time, he smells like honey, hot roasting in the damp evening. 
His carpet moves like the sea. I might be breathing, but he’s not. 
His blood is worn out in deep veins, his secret time is up. 
I am not angry this time, he positions himself for love and I watch,
jammed with battle fever, I am hot for war. 
A soldier holds no fear, and there is no time to speak.
He engraves himself with yesterday and I wear him next to my heart.
I am not angry after all
this time. His blood dries up and my ache fades. 
We are both permanent in a temporary place. 

His Name

just the beginning,
slithers off wet lips with charm.

Mockingbirds use many tongues
to sing of slick footprints
stepping in,
stepping out.

At first blush they call,
crested blue, aggressive;
wild for the North,
where dragon fruit merges with devotion;
where I found his name.

We spread together as far as Summer could take us
until we melted into sunspots at the edge of the Earth,
high desert heat drying out our love.

Later, we flew south in high, asthmatic screams;
nocturnal – fugitive.
It is never the first time.
It is never the last.

His after tastes like a razor blade,
but I am a glutton and I cannot
let go of his name.

About God

He may kill me
in plain love, He has
done more already.
His words are iron,
a heavy chain crushing
my fight.

I left a sleepy hill
for His voice.
My feet ached with disapproval,
but I went, as a soldier,
and shall we fight?

I hold armour in my lungs,
but my hands are wasteful,
braided together in conversation
with God. I would be proud
if I had it now. I would offer
everything, but question.

Here, He comes!
Don’t be late. I think
we settle on a couch, sinking
into resentment, I feel His chain.
I am not, but is He
free??

She’s Talking To Me

I am drifting on deep histories
salty seas. She is talking to me.
We are throat cancer. We are worms meat.
My shoulders shrink to nothing.

She dangles from a bouquet of rage,
a hanging body of scarlet. I am her alcoholic
mother. The sky is raining the sea.
She speaks sores at me,
deep reasoning in gray color panties.

I carry her like old luggage, then
scream at the dog to shut it.
Today was just a dream.
I sweat with the sun on chalky concrete.
She kisses  poison like it’s fruit.
Then lays back and licks me.

I play her like a handshake.
The weights are on my ankles.
She burns like radiation while I beg to control it.
I buy my spirit off the market.
She twists the lid off a bottle.
We make love on top of rockets.

She slips through cracks in the surface.
I don’t know how to ignore this.
She draws me like I’m crystal. I’m her silverware and dishes.
I’ve eaten for the last time. Her body is infected.
I pour her in a glass to swallow.
She spits me out and kicks me like a habit.

I die across the oceans.
The water is bad tempered.
She shoots whispers like a bullet.
I’m an empty trigger. I bury her
in the desert. She skins me like a rabbit.
I’m a blue shirt in her sewer,
drifting to sleep on deep history.
My coffin is a boiler. She won’t even haunt me.
My body is  dead to her.
She will not stop talking,
but she stopped talking to me.

The Whisper

A whisper,
sapphire, spiral breath
in the air. We choke
on language. Our silent hands
hold each other
up. The staircase
is a treacherous place,
though.

I at the top.
You at the bottom
of a death match,
strangled by guilt,
waiting for a whisper to
mend your wounds.

You turned me to salt.
I do not breathe.
I cannot whisper.
My eyes have become two
blue deserts.
My voice, a cactus.
I am rolling over barren land,
searching for hard water

and you stand, at the bottom
of the world, in a white ocean begging
me to whisper.

It’s Not December Anymore

Your good beauty is suffering
on my nightstand. Here, you are
gray sand; a sleeping portrait
framed for mortality, unworthy
of a name.

I miss that one sunset. I gathered you
after the rain;
a bouquet of loose eyes
and tight words. My hair curled
around my face.
I watched you watch the sun
burst around my pupils
and we both wanted…

Then,
you were distinct like
wet leaves crushed under our feet,
like stained lips’ plumb kiss.
Silent admissions were made
under our spirited breath.
I inhaled for
you, exhaled for…

I did you no wrong.

We made storms that carved
time and
broke wind chimes.
I painted your hands over mine,
then erased them.
You gave up.

Since,
seasons have exchanged
heated glances; volcanic disregard
erupted from our mouths, but
there were not words,

and silence could have been generous,
but it was not. Not
to you,
nor to I.

That season has come back and I feel
the sunset waiting,
time has dug a cave in
new clouds.
I am silent no more,
my voice is a proud thunder

I am waiting for you!

Miss Serpentine

The bells began to spin without chime. I noticed them
long before her blue hair reached out beyond arms length;
azure fire serpents striking!
The bells twirled and whirled, and I noticed them
before her coiled locks hissed at a lush, worked field.

She had been a craving. Jellied breasts flopping
under moon beams,
underneath heavy breath sheets.
There is nothing like a beat red short bed,
the first bit of skin stretched,
meeting dropped blood-lets by a first night sunrise.

She was a place of blue bells,
lemonade peels,
sleepy grass on lazy jazz fields.
Her mind marked with umbrella lace covering May days.
She was marked by a farm boy first night.

I watched her as she carried the bells.
Big steel bells, pretty stainless chimes. She danced with them,
her long, gold locks wrapped in a warm embrace around them.
She chimed. She jingled with southern foliage while
her feet remembered his.

That’s when the bells began to spin. They twirled and swirled
and she didn’t notice them. She was wrapped in a warm night
with another’s appetite. She was cuddling with the crickets and
midnight winds.
On and on and on this went.

Forever couldn’t measure the time. The sun had went blind.
The moon sweat itself dry.
I watched and realized just how thin my own breasts were,
and I was grateful.
For one day came when she noticed the silence of the bells,
she recognized the twists,
and the turns,
and the absence of the crickets and midnight and feet.

Shock came at her, a black bat of attack. Her golden strands
suffocated, turning as blue as that cold moment.
And there she became.
She stood with force against the night fields,
Miss Serpentine, on fire,
blazing lush, worked fields back at Mister Red Short Bed and
her overstretched skin!

The Charge

Hard back

pages, stained with time and
an aged aroma.

1915. A battle is painted.
Acid slashing,
spitting.

Direct eyes leap from a tiny cliff
onto young bodies. Bloodied. Abandoned.

Somewhere, some mothers stand as sharp
as shrapnel,
bullets piercing their wombs,
their children’s supple homes.

Trembling hands
find a gun
and
a buddy. A soldier. A boy.
Death has no time in
these fields. He is hurried.

Frontal attacks sweep
unprotected spots. Blurring instinct.
Blinding the Earth with a scarlet bath.

Burying dirt with
young boys,
men.

1915. Hard back pages, stained with
memory and
the scent of suffering.

And this….
just the beginning.

*About The Charge by W. Douglas Newton.