Part II

I was here before the color blue.

Aglow on clear green waters,

Teeth sharp, ending all-over in claws

I snagged you, dragged you down

Into meaningful disarray.

Bitten & chewed, I have become invisible

My stories only cliché

Beginnings to a nowhere of endings,

Curled like a dog on a chair

Paws scrambling over dreaming prairie

Chasing  you down with a sigh

That is a roar

Making an ending a nonsense rhyme of need.

Don’t Fall Anymore

Just bounce!

One interrogatory sniff

One question & you may choose

A word not beginning with “w”

(like why or when)

A word affirmative in deed, an “l”

(like life or love).

Take my silence instead

Of the dull hum of passersby

With the “m’s”

(like malice & murder)

Writ on foreheads

Held in hard hands.

Lay me down: I bleed from my head

Begging others to scrape dirt from my wounds.

Time grows feral in guarding my

Unrealized future.

These Words Are Tennis Balls

Tossed down stairs

All over yellow in a panic of gravity & insincere footing

I follow them down, no need to juggle anymore.

My arms will not turn from discipline

Tho they no longer turn upon it.

My Words Are Vampires

Clamping with an unholy snarl

Those lovingly professed, pre-formed.

The time will come to shine

Anew

Encapsulate the neonatal future

Now gasping on life support

Inhabited by the unholy present.

The tubes will fall away,

No longer needed,

Crusted with blood, flaming edges

Allowed & allowing, enforced

By specks of former selves

Now stilled & stalled:

Kinetic.

To Be With Me

You must believe as I believe

The imagination of life

Groomed for alignment.

Or you will meet me in years

That do not mesh with my need

And we will grind each other to

Nothingness again.

To start from coming forth

The unicorn horn

Midheaven on our skulls

To peck away the shells

Uncovering that which is not ours

That the world may view.

There is a wish to follow

Imprinted on the very souls

Meant to fly so straight & true

The air of joy invisible.

The Heart Thrives On Order

I age from the outside in

The edges dry & wrinkle

Back from plump health

In silent desiccation

Desertification

Curling patterns losing moisture

A sacrificial offering

To gods with sharpened teeth

Smacking peeled lips

Ringing a knife against a fork.

Yet somehow the moisture of Grace

Nurtures every soul:

My heart will be the last to sand.

Muse Flies In

On the coattails of a dream:

We wrote upon a wall

A typography of words

In letters ordered & bold

Laid out in neat rows

Of not-rhyme.

A countdown to Eternity

Blooded, salted, torn unequal

By love & beauty

Heart attack & repair

I am on the countdown clock now

The last long hours

To spring from scars & stars

To write the Name of God.

All The Songs Are Anthems

To wherever I might march

The drummer with a broken arm

Still rolling the sticks, still tapping away

Smiling in effortless effort

Sweat pouring from my shaven head

A monk of sound

A nun of noise

Living in the profound silence

Of Echo

Blackened & burned –

Once unmarked, unscored, unscarred.

Parentheses

I once was black & white

But strained to beige

By filters of a closely-led life

The colors vibrated, psychedelic,

Blinking out to buzzing purple neon.

Attention with bring me the Aurora Borealis

Waving to the earth unbridled

Old renewed upon this backdrop,

Against a life of living alone

To light another’s way

Awhile.

I Once Belonged

But fierce & fleet, I fled the herd

To wander desert dunes

To dodge the wild dogs

With flashing hooves & teeth of pearl.

Now I wish to settle in,

To have the circle facing out about me!

But I belong to no one

And less to nowhere…

I limp the trails where I once galloped

I fold in the fields where I once foaled.

The straight path spirals

The crop circles broken in beauty

A mysterious perfection

The future cast in runes & reeds

A hieroglyphic in a world

No longer reading Mystery.

Meant for other times & climes

For flashing eyes & virile swords

For the heavy gallop of destriers

A sweep of veils, a flame of jewels:

I sit za-Zen

In silence.

I Have Met The King of No

Many times

I’ve even tried to live in his skin for a mile

Before I shucked it off, that dry husk

Of pain.

I aim to be the Queen of Yes

Insatiable for life

So juicy with

Mist & mint

Freshened upon each day.

October 3, 2020