SHALL I
Shall I only grow tired of breathing my last
And breathe my first
Sucking in air never before tracing lungs
Wailing it out in objection to death
Shall I only toss a dark crust upon snow
With a prayer mighty enough to summon dragons
Beathing that air towards me on mighty pinions
Mouths ringed in flame, nostrils glowing
Shall I only then sail the lasso
Around a silken-sinewed neck
The rope blessed by saints, not slayers
As the beast rolls jeweled eyes to me
A sudden captive, noting my shivering newborn state
Shall we only fall in love that moment
The shocking recognition we are meant for each other!
The careful & tenuous reaching of flesh to flesh
And the song become a whisper
Shall I thus become truly dead upon this knowledge:
We are all kin! The newness breaking my back with joy
That I crack open, my long, leathered tail so long upcoiled
Unfurling ‘pon the cold – barbed of tip & gleaming
Shall I only reach once, the points uprising
From arms of coarsened scales
To end in claws of lengthened crystal
Shall I brush off all the bindings
Uncaring of the danger
As he winds his neck so gently about mine
Shall we leap as one from beyond gravity
Into clouds too thin to hold us
Yet they do.
DONE
“I’ve been there.” Says the brain
With a snap.
Then closes
Leaving only senses
Expansive in the brilliance
My eyes binocular, drinking the horizon
My nose awake to the synesthesia of color
My fingers in scintillant discovery of wind
My mouth agape to oceanic morning
MIRRORS
There is no hope but holiness
Should I wander in this desert
Seeking others
For there are none about but mirrors
So I therein seek my answers
TALENTLESS
I am no artist
No font of beauty
To emerge from sticks or paints
I cannot work with plywood
Building houses for the homeless
My arms afford a pen alone
And paper
There words pour out like landscapes
Over which come sudden stars.
TOGETHER
The front of me behind you
Pressed in, curled around
My crooked arms enfolding
All that’s left me of love & light
The bones within my fingers
Never to be straight again
But somehow cradling
The heart they tap
In silent rhythm.
ENDS
There are margins drawn of boundaries
Beyond the edges of my vision(s)
Etched upon the stony fences
Built so fiercely from my love
They do not stir upon windstuff
Nor give to seas approaching
No expansion – no contraction
Unrelenting as the hardness of a mother’s heart
To a death-cry as she births her child.
LOST
The cave of words, of wonder
Where the morning never reaches
To alight its crystal walls
Where the stars shine on the hour
As the minutes race the clockface
As the seconds all crescendo
In a click.
I have lived here, seems forever
In a solitaire of nightfall
I, unmade by darkness,
Untold in prayer,
Unwept of tears
A forever of suspense
Undone by breathing.
Soaking in the sun-filled silence
Backed with blessing borne & birthed
Do I call your prayers in answer to my own?
I have asked the wind for succor
I am prostrate on the morning
I ask only – my eyes tear-filled –
Take me home!
SPELLS
There is a dance I dare not do
For storms would rise, surround me
Tornadoes all around me
Waterspouts confound me
So I stand & I am still.
Yet I feel the mighty rhythm
As my toes begin to tapping
As my hands begin to clapping
As my happiness is happ’ning
All my souls with music fill.
Riding the Light - 