and of course it’s beautiful

In here, out there nobody sees. Pomegranate seeds shred through my teeth and we accept it. He smiles and of course it’s beautiful.
A blood moon grows 10,000 times what it was, in here. Out there, nobody knows.
I count, up to seven minutes in Heaven and wonder, in here.
Out there, nobody waits.
Everybody talks.
Everybody spits venom in the eyes of people they love.

I love him for the birds, he just doesn’t belong in here. 
This desert is mine.
I sleep on cactus beds and wait….with time.
The sun is mine. I’ll keep it in a locket for those days that get dark, in here. Out there, nobody notices.

I smile. He smiles, and of course it’s beautiful.

January

I’ve settled on darkness. Where some cluster of lonely iris might climb through my tear ducts for solace, i empty space and time. 

She is on her way, like last years’ frost bite she brings her shards of cold. One year, I begged her not to go but some things are not always. 

Oh, she is constant. In her gray dress of mist and seasonal affection, she blends in with reality but time doesn’t stop for anything. 

Once her smoke blows over capped mountain tops, I turn away from him, wrinkled from exhaustion. This effort, this tremendous light encompassing mine – I am minimal.

Nothing. 

Untitled

two honey bees scribble
across Rupi’s milk
her tragic black paperback
blooms

on a blank kitchenette
empty plastic cup
waiting for a purpose
I tell it
“go”
but who am I to
say anything

Rupi says it all

if her grace has been missed
you should find it
gather up her past
in her shadow
and twist it
into purple origami

for me to dry
each drop
that falls because
of ways men
have touched her

for me and sarah

Your rage is inverted
a past and a storm
mixing, a cocktail
spiked by Her laughter
_____

a stork blocks Heaven from
any chance of Me
the courts
are eternal in
God’s eyes

so I am the sea now
I am green and
unstable
______

We move in calm procession
a block steadies our
thoughts – Her glass, Her great
fish jaws, and soon We are
lanterns floating high-tide

by every way the Earth breathes
We should meet with dead
shoulders, shrugged
off Each Other
______

I follow beauty like
a shadow, I live
miraculously hollow
waiting on lies
laying on My altar
______

You question every raw answer
a priest walking on
water, take My meteor!
Eat it.
Your world might
multiply if We feed it.
_____

We are Mighty brave
in a rotten state, two Wretches
hard-boiled,
crawling on the surface

They can’t see us as ants –
take my hair off
fate grudges
the snakes are coming
______

I have lost My ending
You beg cold against
the same heat in Hell
I ran away from

What are We then?
We chance ourselves
to nothing –

He crosses Seven
times despite
the waves of Our Ocean
_____

Let’s leave Him to His handsome
His misery is His to drown in

I Could Not Exist, Not For You

those words hang stolen

weeping willow feelings
a translation
so desperate

so sudden
a panic slighted by
memories that
only sleep can
bribe from
a hidden cave

i think
i thought of you
as love

a piece of heaven
dangling over
a crimson counter-top
tempting my
sensations

a reverberation
of a gift
offered only
by the Universe

you stole
them from another
love
that flourished
in a time
that I could not exist

not for you

Leave Me With The Echo

Here. I am black echo ash.
Resin. The aftermath.

Always, the beginning is fresh.
Sweet cream masked – naked
baby’s breath awakening
to the first day.

I close my eyes to find it.
Seven minutes –
heaven is just beneath
his collar.

One breath, we melt forever
bonded; a rush, a plunge,
a distance without measure.

Instigator. I break as quick
as silver, my tongue –
an anxious alligator.

He snakes back to a shadow.
Strike a fire, burn
his path to follow.

Catch on flames, catch the blue.
Beginnings start out hollow.
Torch the love, torch the pain
leave me with the echo.

I Saw It First

so the world curves in and folds
over bottomless
alto-cumulus like
a second cloud
thundering over a handful
of broken hearts
I mean for you to find
out first
but it’s always my eyes
that watch storms
rolling in

swiftly from cracks in old
dreams angrily toward
nights that cradle infants
softly

strangling sleep that holds
and heals
I am tethered to heavy
weather on one of those old
Sunday’s watching my body
drift silently into you
I mean for you to taste these
memories trapped but my
heart is pyrite and I
saw it first.

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.

The Passage

The dragon doesn’t wake with the sun.  It is warmed
through mock light, on an affected cove.  It looks
like it could be made of mopani,
but he cannot tell colors
what they should be
and what they are not.

I left him a note, this morning, by his glass house.
In his rest, he inhaled the pushed warm air
that circulates my blood each night.
I promised him Aspen and Cabbage and
my return.

I am late.  I am always pushing the clock
into my lungs, back to my cycle,
back to little hands and little
feet swirling around
a glass house,
tearing cabbage for a dragon that
constantly stares at me.

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.