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.

Old Memories Of Paris, Café Au Latte

Old memories of Paris, café au latte,
iron wrought on a kitchen sink
where she slimmed her figure
on a butcher block.

She dangled like a wind chime,
toes on pointe,
testing the winds and
the Gods on
Wisdom of Love.

Pretty little music box, my doll,
bathing in sunlight
through reflections of The Tower at
dawn. I asked her what she saw.

Her answer was as black as a widow
living off space between sun flower seeds.
I turned to her soul and spoke
to her in cotton,
she understood,
souls always understand what is next,
and why.
I led her to confession.

She rattled all the way,
dangling eight unworthy legs –
shooting silk like
it meant nothing,
because that is all she had ever known.

By sunset, she had dried up.
Everything that she had devoured
had taken over
and spit her spirit out.

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.

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

Copper Loaded Love

A green barrette, a gun.
Good-bye, my lady.

If I cut my hands off, my lucky gun would fit.

I gave three seconds and died
happy, life is just a lesson.
You are thirty seconds to the grave,
I am just a prison.

You’re Irish season swallows poison,
we terrified your liver. Good-
bye, my lady,
I am drowning in a river.

Everybody is looking,
I have your money here.
You cheat! You’re a cheat, painting courage over
with fear.

My white girl, I love you,
with a dark and heavy gun.
I shot you up, a million shots
with copper loaded love.

Drink your dark poison,
swallow your tainted love.
Good-bye. my lovely lady,
your green barrette, your gun.

The Box

My soul has hands that feed my mouth
delight boxes marked “poison”.
I have second hands that are language.

I gave up youth for silent lips that
spread too thick. Two plump
pulsating cream puffs injected
with secrecy.

The boxes piled up to a thousand acreage;
a still wall with a calm face,
sipping tea with the Queen of servitude.
I have become a slave to iron curtains
and black rods.

Once upon a decade ago, I slept with
meaty warriors with bull-dog ears.
They carried sturdy death machines that
slaughtered innocence.
I heard them slice my siblings
to hamburger, while my stable body hid
in a homosexual bed.

I bled out of my ears for one tight night,
then woke up to the funerals.
I faced a casket with strawberry frosting
trim, small china pieces laid across
the mahogany lid.

I tipped with warriors, drinking their poison,
swallowing fear in full, single gulps.
They offered me a butchering tool
and I pulled it in, deep through
tissue and cartilage, into the warm cherry
pie that was wrapped inside my body.

I melted with metal. I succumbed to
murderous beasts that carry
angry weapons,
and without useful hands,
or mouth,
I became a box.

Dinner With The Snake

Dammit! I’ve run out of talent.
My shoulder blades went with the
postman. He took the world
out,
to a yellow and green Earth.
Before he went,
he dusted my back, made everything possible.

So, I went, then,
to the bags and the boxes. I unzipped,
ripped,
tore in
to avoidance, packaged away
in the belly of a red snake.

Before I sliced him through his
happily ever after, I built a
midnight picnic
on a grease infused concrete.
We drank everything
red,
light,
collected.

We had beautiful words
through midnight and on
till dawn. The snake rolled
his yellow eyes to the back of his throat,
swallowing
any chance he may have had to strike back.

I leaned in with quick penetration,
slitting
the long, frail line of happiness

then,

misery was back. And with it….brilliance!

I Was Born To A Gray World

I was born to a gray world.
Void of sunlight.
Barricaded by ice.
Hunters have come for me. I watched them
gobble up
sisters, a brother,
and the woman who birthed me.

I stayed, under rocks, under dirt,
for sixteen years. I washed myself
in sin,
couldn’t come clean.
Stained with nights that smothered me
in the devils
chest hairs.

My hair grew to the length of
a woman. Sweeping me
out from
the dirt, standing me on
one foot,
then two.

Then, my breasts grew,
not much larger,
but wiser!

For some time, I lived out
dull
nightmares.
Screaming in sleep.
Silent during the dull day.
Grinding coffee beans
with quiet grips of rage.

I sliced each strand of woman from
my head,
became a man. I cut tears out of my arms
till I forgot how to
cry,
smashed my head heavy till
I forgot
everything else…

except that the world is gray.

My hair has grown back out
to the size of a woman
and my breasts haven’t grown
anything but heavy,
in a heavy body,
in a heavy gray body.

It Isn’t Just Injurious To Me

Each morning is a petal plucked
from precious
time.
Bright red petals painted in
fear, planted
right
side up. In sick sand,
death gardens
grow
thieves with love leaves,
drowned in
injury.

Each morning, I am a thief
taking,
taking,
taking,

one more petal,
one more bright red fear,

plucking at love to drown it in injury.

The Child Within

I promised a seven year old girl
that
sixteen years would never happen

“don’t be afraid of driving, it will never happen”

in her rancor,
she pissed off a ten
year old girl’s
silhouette –
it was a hollow
young thing
but

outlined in
potential

the young early version
stepped into her
vacancy,
thickening
throughout
the
void
angry
silhouette,

she ripened

in body,
in vocabulary,
in age.

Sweet,
sultry,
sinister,
sixteen,
finding small doors
leading to
thinned
ice,

crystal air
loaded,
ready to explode.

She picks at
glass plank
floors, pulling
strips
of her new tool.

That young one
so afraid,
timid,
playing hide-and-seek
with her
developing
womanhood!

Enough!

She clutches
on to
her
shard sticks,

carving away
at her pumpkin
arms,
her pumpkin legs,
digging her out…

that little
phobic brat,
quivering around
her
prime
poisoned internals.

I made a promise
to the little
one,

sixteen would never come,

now here she is;
butchering
my promise
and
my child.