I miss you in the deepest darkest raptures of night
in the bitter air and fog where only angels fear to tread
but junkies and whores roamed freely beneath your bedroom window
I was afraid too
waiting on the street below
in the sanctuary of that moment before your face appeared in the glass
there was always glass
my back pressed hard against it
bags dropping, clothes tearing, teeth clawing and desperate hands
fury brewing even then, we could not help ourselves
was it really all just a dream?
ever since the first cold snap
when the city was shortly after blanketed in snow
the crisp white winter landscape
made it hard to steal fact from fancy
how long will I regret, I wonder,
discarding out of hand those things I love
red silk flower reminiscence
and the sound of my name on your tongue
because I could not face the fear of losing them forever
if only there were a way
to take back the clouds I brewed in your eyes that night
I would swallow them whole
there's a gossamer haze been dancing off the snowdrifts
puffs of cold and ash swirling into my eyes
conceal my cowardice behind a mask
of coal-smudged lids and blood-black smile
and hide out in the world again
I dared to look from outside myself
saw us standing in columns of fire
star-filled galaxies streaming from your mouth to mine
and when you knelt over me that morning
the perfume of chimney smoke and bitters filled the room
and you said 'because my lady calls', I knew then
that it was only my fingertips
tracing patterns on a frost-rimed window pane
whispers disappearing in a cloud of breath
I'll never know what they said
winter pinched the sound clean out of the air
and one of her howling winds stormed me awake again
tracing figure eights on a frost-rimed window pane
(place it on its side and it's a symbol meaning infinity)
2005-12-08
ever since the first cold snap
when the city was shortly after blanketed in snow
the crisp white winter landscape
made it hard to steal fact from fancy
how long will I regret, I wonder,
discarding out of hand those things I love
red silk flower reminiscence
and the sound of my name on your tongue
because I could not face the fear of losing them forever
if only there were a way
to take back the clouds I brewed in your eyes that night
I would swallow them whole
there's a gossamer haze been dancing off the snowdrifts
puffs of cold and ash swirling into my eyes
conceal my cowardice behind a mask
of coal-smudged lids and blood-black smile
and hide out in the world again
I dared to look from outside myself
saw us standing in columns of fire
star-filled galaxies streaming from your mouth to mine
and when you knelt over me that morning
the perfume of chimney smoke and bitters filled the room
and you said 'because my lady calls', I knew then
that it was only my fingertips
tracing patterns on a frost-rimed window pane
whispers disappearing in a cloud of breath
I'll never know what they said
winter pinched the sound clean out of the air
and one of her howling winds stormed me awake again
tracing figure eights on a frost-rimed window pane
(place it on its side and it's a symbol meaning infinity)
2005-12-08
drowning in devotion
tears of sullen silken misery
see me
see more than me
what brain fever is this
sonnets spilling from my tongue like diamonds and rubies cutting my lips
and mad, mad emeralds slivering my fingertips
all the treasures in my soul for you
and nothing less
and no one else
and when my heart stops cold
love-sick and full of empty reason
that will be yours too
2004-05-26
tears of sullen silken misery
see me
see more than me
what brain fever is this
sonnets spilling from my tongue like diamonds and rubies cutting my lips
and mad, mad emeralds slivering my fingertips
all the treasures in my soul for you
and nothing less
and no one else
and when my heart stops cold
love-sick and full of empty reason
that will be yours too
2004-05-26
some of these guys have
true believer in their eyes
wide with peyote fascination
never doubting
and no less fanatic than
the fringe on the right
I like my thought critical
served up with a side of skepticism
and informed
not glazed over with the passion
of someone else's truth
scribbled down long hallways and
plastered over catwalk panels and
pasted on transformer boxes and
graffiti'd on subway trains
screaming behind me
flickering lights through the wise windows
whisper never stop searching for the
right of it because just when
you think it's in front of you
the babbling tongues of white-skulled pundits
lick it clean and leave it
shivering in the brittle air of
Times Square after everyone's
gone home
the look of the true believer
snug in black ski caps and thug tattoos
and wraparound shades
sharks that lead well-meaning sheep
on both sides
of the fence
crashing innocent timbers against
a fog-wreathed shoal
shattering truths on the reefs
truths
elusive and unconditionally
malleable
even those characters chipped in
stone wear away under the
loving caress of time
2003-04-30
true believer in their eyes
wide with peyote fascination
never doubting
and no less fanatic than
the fringe on the right
I like my thought critical
served up with a side of skepticism
and informed
not glazed over with the passion
of someone else's truth
scribbled down long hallways and
plastered over catwalk panels and
pasted on transformer boxes and
graffiti'd on subway trains
screaming behind me
flickering lights through the wise windows
whisper never stop searching for the
right of it because just when
you think it's in front of you
the babbling tongues of white-skulled pundits
lick it clean and leave it
shivering in the brittle air of
Times Square after everyone's
gone home
the look of the true believer
snug in black ski caps and thug tattoos
and wraparound shades
sharks that lead well-meaning sheep
on both sides
of the fence
crashing innocent timbers against
a fog-wreathed shoal
shattering truths on the reefs
truths
elusive and unconditionally
malleable
even those characters chipped in
stone wear away under the
loving caress of time
2003-04-30
In the deep, deep shades of bruise-purple sleep
I curl into my corner darkness
And free as a bird am I
And twice as lovely
And there he is
The voice that
charms the heathens and incites the revolution
stills the heavens from their feverish churning
draws the fire from the sky and cradles it in fists of ice
The voice of the struggle, the voice of the people, that
braces steel-eyed and rock-solid against the tyranny of hours and generations
gathers the light and swallows the darkness
draws down the summer rains to the parched, cracking lips of the lamb
whispers waiting and imagining and dreaming
will not rest until the last screeching propoganda minister has been draped
in the chains of his own lies and drifted to dust
along the flame-licked shores of the last wasteland
The voice that
pierces my veins with the sweet, lush euphoria of perfect loss and
certain knowing of what can never be
until a brick-hard burst of laughter at my elbow
reminds me yet to breathe
wraps my skin in thorns and iron and dares to push me forward into the fire
thrusts deep into my soul and steals my last shred of resolve,
and leaves me slumped, shivering, on a white tile floor
2003-04-21
Just the sound of your voice
And my heart began racing
Rushing, rushing
Plunging headlong into the bracing cold, clear aqua vitae
Of
Churning too fast towards an unexpected ecstasy
Too fucking fast
And before I knew it
My breath was gone
Lungs filled with a sweet cool fever
(Where did you come from?)
What a mad obsession this is
Sexless, but for the fire in my throat
and the black gaze hidden
behind a wall of revolution
2003-04-21
I curl into my corner darkness
And free as a bird am I
And twice as lovely
And there he is
The voice that
charms the heathens and incites the revolution
stills the heavens from their feverish churning
draws the fire from the sky and cradles it in fists of ice
The voice of the struggle, the voice of the people, that
braces steel-eyed and rock-solid against the tyranny of hours and generations
gathers the light and swallows the darkness
draws down the summer rains to the parched, cracking lips of the lamb
whispers waiting and imagining and dreaming
will not rest until the last screeching propoganda minister has been draped
in the chains of his own lies and drifted to dust
along the flame-licked shores of the last wasteland
The voice that
pierces my veins with the sweet, lush euphoria of perfect loss and
certain knowing of what can never be
until a brick-hard burst of laughter at my elbow
reminds me yet to breathe
wraps my skin in thorns and iron and dares to push me forward into the fire
thrusts deep into my soul and steals my last shred of resolve,
and leaves me slumped, shivering, on a white tile floor
2003-04-21
Just the sound of your voice
And my heart began racing
Rushing, rushing
Plunging headlong into the bracing cold, clear aqua vitae
Of
Churning too fast towards an unexpected ecstasy
Too fucking fast
And before I knew it
My breath was gone
Lungs filled with a sweet cool fever
(Where did you come from?)
What a mad obsession this is
Sexless, but for the fire in my throat
and the black gaze hidden
behind a wall of revolution
2003-04-21
brasil
I want to sit cross-legged on your living room floor
Drinking wine and talking until dawn
Drowning in softly spoken reason
Your voice converts me to the poetry in numbers
Your eyes lift me to the heavens, split me open and fill my empty soul with the light of God
(She's a dance dance
dance dance
dancing machine
Watch her get down
Watch her get down)
2002
I want to sit cross-legged on your living room floor
Drinking wine and talking until dawn
Drowning in softly spoken reason
Your voice converts me to the poetry in numbers
Your eyes lift me to the heavens, split me open and fill my empty soul with the light of God
(She's a dance dance
dance dance
dancing machine
Watch her get down
Watch her get down)
2002
thunderstorm
It was like the night I woke with a start, rain clattering the tin roof to shreds
Briny tears spilling from my heart, soaking the sheets that choked the last breath from around my neck
In greedy gulps I swallowed the grey bedroom air, so sharp it stung my lips,
so cold I could not hold it and desperately cried for more
My heart galloped over the moors
And the looming figures of wardrobes and hat stands eased into soft focus
But the swag lamp in the corner kept its glistening jet bead eyes and raven claws
Daring me to move, with its soulless gaze
2002
It was like the night I woke with a start, rain clattering the tin roof to shreds
Briny tears spilling from my heart, soaking the sheets that choked the last breath from around my neck
In greedy gulps I swallowed the grey bedroom air, so sharp it stung my lips,
so cold I could not hold it and desperately cried for more
My heart galloped over the moors
And the looming figures of wardrobes and hat stands eased into soft focus
But the swag lamp in the corner kept its glistening jet bead eyes and raven claws
Daring me to move, with its soulless gaze
2002
berkeley women/farallon women
Berkeley women, with your lattes
And Tibetan panel coats
Silver hair plaited
Kneeling in your left-wing gardens
Strolling down your moneyed lanes
Bearing the political sins of all
the world like crosses on your
hand-woven shoulders
Plucking disdain fresh from the vine
To roast with garlic and organic thyme
And spill across
The sacred steps of Chez Panisse
Kneeling in the poetry gardens
Where even the sunflowers
with their giant heads lolling to
the left smile down on you
Farallon women, with your frosted
nails and frosted lips
Crawling down from the billboards
in Union Square
Towering, towering metropolitan
consumer machines slurping
oysters and peppered melon
under the tiled canopies and
light of hollow sea urchins
Fondant blue eyes, empty
Giant, lolling tongues and greedy fingers
2002
Berkeley women, with your lattes
And Tibetan panel coats
Silver hair plaited
Kneeling in your left-wing gardens
Strolling down your moneyed lanes
Bearing the political sins of all
the world like crosses on your
hand-woven shoulders
Plucking disdain fresh from the vine
To roast with garlic and organic thyme
And spill across
The sacred steps of Chez Panisse
Kneeling in the poetry gardens
Where even the sunflowers
with their giant heads lolling to
the left smile down on you
Farallon women, with your frosted
nails and frosted lips
Crawling down from the billboards
in Union Square
Towering, towering metropolitan
consumer machines slurping
oysters and peppered melon
under the tiled canopies and
light of hollow sea urchins
Fondant blue eyes, empty
Giant, lolling tongues and greedy fingers
2002
...what emerges from flames...
and do you remember that bright smile that once was fortune's favor
raining down blessings up on your brow in streamers of celestial gold
do you remember the laughter like caramel thick and sweet with butter
the heat of her blood rapid firing kisses and cinnamon smells
the muted mahogany of her eyes and the light behind them
oh she of the magical eyes
the eyes that sparkle mischief
with a light you cannot possibly comprehend
who sees what others may not see
and dazzles from within
and the reflection of your eyes in hers
do you remember in vague moments of sobriety the warmth of a hand pressed to your chest
birdlike and delicate living for the rhythm of your heartbeat
legs perfectly fitted to one another while outside the screams of sirens
and inside the darkness and wireless dreams and warmth and safety and never alone
do you remember the curve of her thigh as she lay sleeping
you remember when she wasn't there surely the bleakness of a cold bed and stone dead silence do you
date unknown
and do you remember that bright smile that once was fortune's favor
raining down blessings up on your brow in streamers of celestial gold
do you remember the laughter like caramel thick and sweet with butter
the heat of her blood rapid firing kisses and cinnamon smells
the muted mahogany of her eyes and the light behind them
oh she of the magical eyes
the eyes that sparkle mischief
with a light you cannot possibly comprehend
who sees what others may not see
and dazzles from within
and the reflection of your eyes in hers
do you remember in vague moments of sobriety the warmth of a hand pressed to your chest
birdlike and delicate living for the rhythm of your heartbeat
legs perfectly fitted to one another while outside the screams of sirens
and inside the darkness and wireless dreams and warmth and safety and never alone
do you remember the curve of her thigh as she lay sleeping
you remember when she wasn't there surely the bleakness of a cold bed and stone dead silence do you
date unknown
ran away to join the circue
ran away to join the circus
life is more than just an endless stream of file drawers packed with to-do lists
it's the birds and dogs (you can't go wrong with birds and dogs) awake all night on snorting funny white headaches
rooms filled with clove smoke and black glycerine smiles and slave boys china white
the cafe noir and the men in their flying machines
safe from children but children just the same
the man with two souls and the racer who wanted to save me from himself
the damage goes so far back
but sometimes I remember them fondly
no one knows the saga in its entirety
my legacy will be snippets of memory pressed flat between the withered yellow pages of an old journal
date unknown
ran away to join the circus
life is more than just an endless stream of file drawers packed with to-do lists
it's the birds and dogs (you can't go wrong with birds and dogs) awake all night on snorting funny white headaches
rooms filled with clove smoke and black glycerine smiles and slave boys china white
the cafe noir and the men in their flying machines
safe from children but children just the same
the man with two souls and the racer who wanted to save me from himself
the damage goes so far back
but sometimes I remember them fondly
no one knows the saga in its entirety
my legacy will be snippets of memory pressed flat between the withered yellow pages of an old journal
date unknown
The summer air was stifling
Gritty with the prickling yellow brain fever of anticipation
Tossing and turning on my bed of stone
Expecting each day would be more death-defying than the last
Teeth bared against the world
It was a summer for teeth-baring
Lips curled back over a mouthful of anger or birth pains
And the heat
They always complain of the heat, the old timers, when speaking of summers passed
But this was electric, the asphalt puddles
And burning oil odors of traffic in the city
White noise and radio hum
Infant screams and occasional shattered glass
body electric balanced on a point
toes arched on a pin head and
integrity threatened
by the arc of white light love
glowing from her pores
head full of marabou and
candy red gloss dreams
fabulous
spinning straw to gold
beyond the obvious
insides into mercury
come with me
take my hand
how can I
breathe your madness
descend into spirals
spirals of pleasure
on another plane
go there weekend
it falls apart
sugar into gold
gloss cherry red
lips like candy
to outlive the manic episodes of the soul
because in this world we do as we please
and can do no less
when I look at you I see a puppet holding hands with God
Daisy
she had the look of someone who's done too many drugs
far too many poisons pushed out through that moist skin
sunken-eyed and crawling with not enough sleep
like a hash party in Tangiers
one of those lost manic episodes of the soul
stars in your eyes, she said, and on your cheeks
dripping from your tongue
and throat all full up with them
choking on the happiness
and all I want to do is spin and sing
paint your cheeks with kisses like fairy dust
a slick of red nail polish sanguine sweet confection
darting across my path and doubling back again
such perfect blue eyes cherub girls with gap-toothed smiles
dart across my path no more just stay
transfixed
stay
the epic unwritten that lost drama
with sailors and knaves and queens
and ribbons, lots of ribbons
and gold chains enough to fill the Caspian Sea
played upon a stage moth-eaten mildewed and strewn loose with straw
tamped down by the miles of footfalls
eyes peeking through the greenery
catching on rose petals drifting like snowflakes
bells dancing
and jewels, jewels enough to dress the nightingale's song
venom dripping from the dragon's teeth
that tastes like raspberry wine
stream stream through the water
sugar rush and honey breathing
through the nostrils hooked and
gulping hard oh the sweet air
veins pulsing drive me over
and across the living rivers
lines of black and gold threads
dancing across the fields of azure
the sound just before blood wells
to the surface and welts on the
skin is the life the skin is the life
and this epic one long rambling
stream ... a stream if images
cascading over the rocks sweet
and warm like copper confection
dancing on the points of my
toes and hoping to stay afloat
I'll play ... I'll play if only
you will stay behind in this
sadly sadly dancing with death
one long beaded rave dressed
in diaphonous cotton candy sheer
angel wings and fairy smiles
and treasures in El Dorado's halls
starlight shining down on everything
casting it all in a honey-coated
glow basking in the firelight
of burning souls and spinning through
the ashes kicking up a flurry like
snowflakes gently drifting down
it always comes back to the snow
and the storms its all about the
storms ice and fire sleet and thunder
biting gnashing with slivered teeth
the dragon's teeth - remember the dragon?
he leers across the lake his great
frost-rimed nostrils flaring
awakened from a winter sleep and
breathing hissing fire over the icy
shell that holds the fish below and
gives the terns a platform on which
to rake their nails but the flames
are hardly enough - it was a long
winter, stern and bruising, and
not a sound did the mountains utter
not a murmur from the ground no
whispering in the trees frozen solid
wooden stone blood like honey
thick syrup and brittle to the touch
until the sun struggles through
and a dragon's exhalation upon the
mist sends the hard shell crackling
volumes I could produce on the
precise nature of the fire its origin
and projectile arc temperature and
hue particularly in the morning sun
but far more vital and compelling
is the tale of the old man broken now
from years of guarding the mouth of the
cave, his bones fragile, brittle as that
honey and tree sap blood left to dry
on a plate of glass, his skin ashen
translucent milk and water but splashed
with a young boy's fading freckles
Daisy, Reprised
She had the look of someone who's done too many drugs in too short a lifetime
sunken-eyed and hollow licking ashen lips and rubbing the darkness from her fingertips
"You have stars on your cheeks," she said, and so I did, and in my eyes
and I was all full up, choking, on the cloying-sweet of sugarcoated raspberries and chocolate
and the tire tread taste of kisses from the tank
you can always get more high, I thought aloud
and for your birthday, a pretty handbasket trimmed in yellow ribbons in which to ride
It's all about the once upon a times
And the lifelong dreams abandoned, picked up again on the next go-round
Corporeal dancers
And conversations that make no sense
Pricking my thumb on the brambles of non sequitor
Mastering single entendre
It's all too beautiful, so full of the world am I
A shimmering ghost with white light spilling through my seams and burning in my veins
I know you
I know you, she hissed
Her voice like gas escaping whispering fading
To a fine line of dust across the cellar floor
Shaped by a draft in the outline of an open hand
Reaching out of the shadows
Towards the lone shaft of light
Spilling down to the foot of the stairs
Lonely sighs of the trees whispering across the water
Glowing affirmations scalding condemnations
The wrath of night when slipping from honor
Into evil insincerity and finding
That the darkness fits as comfortably
As a worn boot or an old leather glove
That the blackest heart is the purest form of luxury
An opiate in the bowl of the golden pipe
On cushions threaded through with silk
Surrounded by slave girls with jewels in their navels
That the wince of a drawn breath
The curdling scream half-caught as a whimper
Before it can spring into full bloom
Is a choir of angels, a seraphic chorus
Engineered in hell for the leisure of the mighty
Hesitate and count yourself lost
Strike first with the silver needle draw blood to well up to the surface
Look overhead
Quickly before all the shooting stars fall
Breathtaking as the dawn of a new pleasure
That first gulp of sweet air
To fill my lungs and send me reeling
Breathing deep of everything will be all right
When I looked in the mirror the morning after
The lines were gone and the first thing I saw
Was the glitter of my own smile
And it was a beautiful smile
That star field overhead is you
Especially bright in parts but sparkling all over
Scattered to the four winds - but that is as it should be
A handful of diamonds tossed across the sky
With the abandon nature intended
it was almost like touching the sky
here I stand face to face with absolute devastation
like staring down the barrel of a gun
all he need do is look through me once
glance past me and let the daggers fall where they may
sheer frozen stilettos to wound to wound
it could feel like making love
just running my fingertips over the contour of your cheek
brushing by with a whisper across the surface of your lips
while the bells of forlorn hope peal in the distance
and it could feel just like dying
should my only destiny be stolen moments
fascination under cover of night
hands passing in the shadows
eyes to meet over a crowded kingdom
eyes that glance across one another in storm-cloud dreams
I'll dance that dance and serve my time
mere knowing that smile sheds light on some dark corner
mere knowing is all to set the world to rights
that you are I have new faith in beauty and bounty
if not truth in this sad universe of ours
how horrific the bliss a bittersweet bower
how exquisite the pain of please more
turn to kiss the clouds and leave me
satisfied in your shadow
with my slave bells and tired drum
with the creaking rusted hinges of the old playset
nesting spiders and besieged by the swarm of autumn leaves and
handbills rustling across the barren park floor
for the circus has long gone, left town,
and with it my illusions
oh the years what they have wrought
a collar of submission links forged in the fires of time spent waiting
those few brief traditions
we misread as lasting kindness
and elements of truth
are but the habits of our cowardice
kernels of hatred buried deep
within the layers of sweet pretense that bind them
I was only ever half as gentle
to the child offering up his hand
into mine frightened eyes betraying
this novice of the world
as I might have been
as I might have been
we are molded hard on iron rails
our teeth plucked out by time
loons and women wailing weeping
in the long, deep desert of the soul
arid burning to the touch
with a life that only feigns vitality
torpid footfalls sluggish leaden
are the hearts weighted by so much loss
as the years drift by windswept
and scattering their grains to the four corners
with an omen on every street corner
the burned man staring through his scars
his hands like putty
his cheeks a ravaged leather purse
staring me away with golden eyes
I dare not tear him in two
if this be madness, then madness let it be
I can make a happy home with my lunacy
and furnish it with ravings
and throw brain fever upon the fire
May 1-June 20, 1999
Gritty with the prickling yellow brain fever of anticipation
Tossing and turning on my bed of stone
Expecting each day would be more death-defying than the last
Teeth bared against the world
It was a summer for teeth-baring
Lips curled back over a mouthful of anger or birth pains
And the heat
They always complain of the heat, the old timers, when speaking of summers passed
But this was electric, the asphalt puddles
And burning oil odors of traffic in the city
White noise and radio hum
Infant screams and occasional shattered glass
body electric balanced on a point
toes arched on a pin head and
integrity threatened
by the arc of white light love
glowing from her pores
head full of marabou and
candy red gloss dreams
fabulous
spinning straw to gold
beyond the obvious
insides into mercury
come with me
take my hand
how can I
breathe your madness
descend into spirals
spirals of pleasure
on another plane
go there weekend
it falls apart
sugar into gold
gloss cherry red
lips like candy
to outlive the manic episodes of the soul
because in this world we do as we please
and can do no less
when I look at you I see a puppet holding hands with God
Daisy
she had the look of someone who's done too many drugs
far too many poisons pushed out through that moist skin
sunken-eyed and crawling with not enough sleep
like a hash party in Tangiers
one of those lost manic episodes of the soul
stars in your eyes, she said, and on your cheeks
dripping from your tongue
and throat all full up with them
choking on the happiness
and all I want to do is spin and sing
paint your cheeks with kisses like fairy dust
a slick of red nail polish sanguine sweet confection
darting across my path and doubling back again
such perfect blue eyes cherub girls with gap-toothed smiles
dart across my path no more just stay
transfixed
stay
the epic unwritten that lost drama
with sailors and knaves and queens
and ribbons, lots of ribbons
and gold chains enough to fill the Caspian Sea
played upon a stage moth-eaten mildewed and strewn loose with straw
tamped down by the miles of footfalls
eyes peeking through the greenery
catching on rose petals drifting like snowflakes
bells dancing
and jewels, jewels enough to dress the nightingale's song
venom dripping from the dragon's teeth
that tastes like raspberry wine
stream stream through the water
sugar rush and honey breathing
through the nostrils hooked and
gulping hard oh the sweet air
veins pulsing drive me over
and across the living rivers
lines of black and gold threads
dancing across the fields of azure
the sound just before blood wells
to the surface and welts on the
skin is the life the skin is the life
and this epic one long rambling
stream ... a stream if images
cascading over the rocks sweet
and warm like copper confection
dancing on the points of my
toes and hoping to stay afloat
I'll play ... I'll play if only
you will stay behind in this
sadly sadly dancing with death
one long beaded rave dressed
in diaphonous cotton candy sheer
angel wings and fairy smiles
and treasures in El Dorado's halls
starlight shining down on everything
casting it all in a honey-coated
glow basking in the firelight
of burning souls and spinning through
the ashes kicking up a flurry like
snowflakes gently drifting down
it always comes back to the snow
and the storms its all about the
storms ice and fire sleet and thunder
biting gnashing with slivered teeth
the dragon's teeth - remember the dragon?
he leers across the lake his great
frost-rimed nostrils flaring
awakened from a winter sleep and
breathing hissing fire over the icy
shell that holds the fish below and
gives the terns a platform on which
to rake their nails but the flames
are hardly enough - it was a long
winter, stern and bruising, and
not a sound did the mountains utter
not a murmur from the ground no
whispering in the trees frozen solid
wooden stone blood like honey
thick syrup and brittle to the touch
until the sun struggles through
and a dragon's exhalation upon the
mist sends the hard shell crackling
volumes I could produce on the
precise nature of the fire its origin
and projectile arc temperature and
hue particularly in the morning sun
but far more vital and compelling
is the tale of the old man broken now
from years of guarding the mouth of the
cave, his bones fragile, brittle as that
honey and tree sap blood left to dry
on a plate of glass, his skin ashen
translucent milk and water but splashed
with a young boy's fading freckles
Daisy, Reprised
She had the look of someone who's done too many drugs in too short a lifetime
sunken-eyed and hollow licking ashen lips and rubbing the darkness from her fingertips
"You have stars on your cheeks," she said, and so I did, and in my eyes
and I was all full up, choking, on the cloying-sweet of sugarcoated raspberries and chocolate
and the tire tread taste of kisses from the tank
you can always get more high, I thought aloud
and for your birthday, a pretty handbasket trimmed in yellow ribbons in which to ride
It's all about the once upon a times
And the lifelong dreams abandoned, picked up again on the next go-round
Corporeal dancers
And conversations that make no sense
Pricking my thumb on the brambles of non sequitor
Mastering single entendre
It's all too beautiful, so full of the world am I
A shimmering ghost with white light spilling through my seams and burning in my veins
I know you
I know you, she hissed
Her voice like gas escaping whispering fading
To a fine line of dust across the cellar floor
Shaped by a draft in the outline of an open hand
Reaching out of the shadows
Towards the lone shaft of light
Spilling down to the foot of the stairs
Lonely sighs of the trees whispering across the water
Glowing affirmations scalding condemnations
The wrath of night when slipping from honor
Into evil insincerity and finding
That the darkness fits as comfortably
As a worn boot or an old leather glove
That the blackest heart is the purest form of luxury
An opiate in the bowl of the golden pipe
On cushions threaded through with silk
Surrounded by slave girls with jewels in their navels
That the wince of a drawn breath
The curdling scream half-caught as a whimper
Before it can spring into full bloom
Is a choir of angels, a seraphic chorus
Engineered in hell for the leisure of the mighty
Hesitate and count yourself lost
Strike first with the silver needle draw blood to well up to the surface
Look overhead
Quickly before all the shooting stars fall
Breathtaking as the dawn of a new pleasure
That first gulp of sweet air
To fill my lungs and send me reeling
Breathing deep of everything will be all right
When I looked in the mirror the morning after
The lines were gone and the first thing I saw
Was the glitter of my own smile
And it was a beautiful smile
That star field overhead is you
Especially bright in parts but sparkling all over
Scattered to the four winds - but that is as it should be
A handful of diamonds tossed across the sky
With the abandon nature intended
it was almost like touching the sky
here I stand face to face with absolute devastation
like staring down the barrel of a gun
all he need do is look through me once
glance past me and let the daggers fall where they may
sheer frozen stilettos to wound to wound
it could feel like making love
just running my fingertips over the contour of your cheek
brushing by with a whisper across the surface of your lips
while the bells of forlorn hope peal in the distance
and it could feel just like dying
should my only destiny be stolen moments
fascination under cover of night
hands passing in the shadows
eyes to meet over a crowded kingdom
eyes that glance across one another in storm-cloud dreams
I'll dance that dance and serve my time
mere knowing that smile sheds light on some dark corner
mere knowing is all to set the world to rights
that you are I have new faith in beauty and bounty
if not truth in this sad universe of ours
how horrific the bliss a bittersweet bower
how exquisite the pain of please more
turn to kiss the clouds and leave me
satisfied in your shadow
with my slave bells and tired drum
with the creaking rusted hinges of the old playset
nesting spiders and besieged by the swarm of autumn leaves and
handbills rustling across the barren park floor
for the circus has long gone, left town,
and with it my illusions
oh the years what they have wrought
a collar of submission links forged in the fires of time spent waiting
those few brief traditions
we misread as lasting kindness
and elements of truth
are but the habits of our cowardice
kernels of hatred buried deep
within the layers of sweet pretense that bind them
I was only ever half as gentle
to the child offering up his hand
into mine frightened eyes betraying
this novice of the world
as I might have been
as I might have been
we are molded hard on iron rails
our teeth plucked out by time
loons and women wailing weeping
in the long, deep desert of the soul
arid burning to the touch
with a life that only feigns vitality
torpid footfalls sluggish leaden
are the hearts weighted by so much loss
as the years drift by windswept
and scattering their grains to the four corners
with an omen on every street corner
the burned man staring through his scars
his hands like putty
his cheeks a ravaged leather purse
staring me away with golden eyes
I dare not tear him in two
if this be madness, then madness let it be
I can make a happy home with my lunacy
and furnish it with ravings
and throw brain fever upon the fire
May 1-June 20, 1999
How many nights can I dance in the afterburn?
Slippers on scorched ground
Smudges of charcoal and
Melted plastic smiles
It was supposed to have been decimated
But they forgot about me, the job was incomplete
So much for pipe dreams and all my arrogant faith
I'm left waltzing on spindles
Turning round and round like a music box dancer
Broken springs
Dangling loose
Over shattered ledges
Bells off-key, a carnival calliope
And the haunting laughter of the children
Whose blood now stains the streets
And runs into the gutters a little clearer with each winter rain
(It can rain all the time, and does)
Scissor-points and dagger-pains
And venom from forked tongues
Bitter to the taste and blinding
The screams of children never born
Stains my sheets and renders the dawn in shades of black and grey
She loved me she did
For all the illusions and beautiful lies
Monstrosities painted pretty around the edges
Promises of meanings, never meant to last beyond the dawn
It was supposed to be my last chance
But what do you do when last chances crumble?
And dissolve like incense smoke in the rain?
When the ground quaking so long beneath you
Shifts and falls away to grey, to void?
Cling to the inertia,
Or set the broken wing and leave it
Or dive into the darkness?
Ignore the voices and dive into the darkness?
Raven's wings
The gloss of new blood
Seeping from the devil's own smile
Chalk and ash and porcelain perfection
Framed in lilies
Dusted with bone powder
Damned by the righteous killers
And damned by the faith
That kept him alive for so long
Do not see me
See through me
And if you must remove my heart with savage hands
Sever the chords and steep your claws in ichor
Promise you will savor every sweet drop
It will never come back and never come back and never come back
And the emptiness echoes
Like walking down a city street
Brushing shoulders with automatons
Their mouths sewn shut with flat, black stitches
It will never come back to that
You thought yourself so clever
To pin it to a board, to put it on display
Part of a collection
When it should have been the only one
Cut my wrists and watch me bleed
Sew my mouth shut to keep the screams from waking you my darling
I've already been dead for so long
The wax in my veins, the inertia, is all too real
Remember to breathe, remember to breathe
If you don't come up for air
The silken strands will only hold for so long
Before the begin to ravel
Spring, 1998
Slippers on scorched ground
Smudges of charcoal and
Melted plastic smiles
It was supposed to have been decimated
But they forgot about me, the job was incomplete
So much for pipe dreams and all my arrogant faith
I'm left waltzing on spindles
Turning round and round like a music box dancer
Broken springs
Dangling loose
Over shattered ledges
Bells off-key, a carnival calliope
And the haunting laughter of the children
Whose blood now stains the streets
And runs into the gutters a little clearer with each winter rain
(It can rain all the time, and does)
Scissor-points and dagger-pains
And venom from forked tongues
Bitter to the taste and blinding
The screams of children never born
Stains my sheets and renders the dawn in shades of black and grey
She loved me she did
For all the illusions and beautiful lies
Monstrosities painted pretty around the edges
Promises of meanings, never meant to last beyond the dawn
It was supposed to be my last chance
But what do you do when last chances crumble?
And dissolve like incense smoke in the rain?
When the ground quaking so long beneath you
Shifts and falls away to grey, to void?
Cling to the inertia,
Or set the broken wing and leave it
Or dive into the darkness?
Ignore the voices and dive into the darkness?
Raven's wings
The gloss of new blood
Seeping from the devil's own smile
Chalk and ash and porcelain perfection
Framed in lilies
Dusted with bone powder
Damned by the righteous killers
And damned by the faith
That kept him alive for so long
Do not see me
See through me
And if you must remove my heart with savage hands
Sever the chords and steep your claws in ichor
Promise you will savor every sweet drop
It will never come back and never come back and never come back
And the emptiness echoes
Like walking down a city street
Brushing shoulders with automatons
Their mouths sewn shut with flat, black stitches
It will never come back to that
You thought yourself so clever
To pin it to a board, to put it on display
Part of a collection
When it should have been the only one
Cut my wrists and watch me bleed
Sew my mouth shut to keep the screams from waking you my darling
I've already been dead for so long
The wax in my veins, the inertia, is all too real
Remember to breathe, remember to breathe
If you don't come up for air
The silken strands will only hold for so long
Before the begin to ravel
Spring, 1998