Your lovers arms are a phantom shadow
As you cross the bridge
Cold wind’s caressing needles
Through gaps in your jacket
Wrapping you up so alone
Nothing will do you harm
Only the whispering sorrows
Beneath the humming drone
In your ears as you trudge
Over fallen leaves greyed by winter’s breath
And wet from the rains
I made a circle in the sand
All unburied was dead
My throat so dry
Words fail to rise
Beyond the reach of my fellows
Ocean’s sound
Louder than any cries
The waves crash into the earth
And I am the smooth rocks
And sadness
Remembering a starfish dancing across the bottom
Of a warm tide pool
After you released it from your hand
I died quietly watching the moon
Through the River’s wet veil
Feeling no longer warm nor cold
Sinking back into the nothing of One
Below the roots of the bridge
Long after I was never recovered
The Fugitives of Light pulled my body
Into the Boat of All My Dreams
Lovingly wrapped me in silk thread
Where I hung under the Rainbow
Peacefully gone until I found my wings
I hear the echos of coyote through the cinder block walls of my cabin
Louder than the constant hum allowing me to deep sleep wrapped in the coolness of season change
I saw a comet coming home
Earlier, the moon a nail clipping tossed up to the sky
No shadow just the slate blue of the atmosphere
I crawled down the hole to the rats with no fear
They are smart and want nothing of me
Through the tunnel I found a courtyard
Lemurs watched me with dozens of eyes above the hydrangeas
My hands were sticky weeds entangling three babies as small as tree frogs
I wanted to keep them like a silver dollar but I returned them to their own
I can’t swim here anymore
Under the lacy ash on the ridge
It brings me emotions that
Only unravel my fate
With no hope for repair
And I walk until I crumble
Under the weight of the clouds near the peak
Where the air is thin and my head splits
My guts puke up the emptiness
Of all my starvation
Dreaming of the mirage I created
As I wrap my body in cold blankets
Burrowing my head in a lumpy pillow
I have 8 skinny legs
Fragile as feather hairs
In a light breeze of a hazed sky
Migraine hangover
Lost connection
to my solid self’s guts
Heartbroken for Glory’s moment
I held the wand and the sword
Before dropping them submerged
Under domestic dishwater
Startled again by smirking threat
Retreating to imagination’s dystonic web
Where dew collects in the fall
Of the sweat of a summer dream
Under moon boots on a pond
Wiser than any stack of bones
Solid unmoving hulks
Demanding more command
Than coyote dogs howling
In near distant darkness
Summer leaves rustling
So gentle gentle whispering
Of Mama Moon to Baby Saturn
Within the warm breeze
Still you arms reach out
For your rubbing blanket
As you sit petrified
Beneath the trees
The sky is violent
The sky is violent
The sky is violet
It’s raining hard now
I’ve run too far from home
It’s been 1000 years since I lost my star
And watched the moon burning down
The words for who I am
Are all the feelings missing names
I’ve begged for just one memory
This doesn’t work anymore
Not with my kind
Ask and you shall receive
But only on my terms
I’ve found the pore through which to infiltrate
Now you are mine but I am not yours
I never was I never will be
That’s just how it has to be
My rage has caught the floor on fire
Down goes the forest to black
Real flames but an imaginary sanctuary
I’m choking as I gasp
Tears of fury stunt my vision
The memory was so good
Even more than if all the fairies of the world would kiss me deeply and wash me in a magic stream
A fresh red wet sweetly tart strawberry
The best any ever tasted
My tongue is still in my mouth
Now all I’ll ever taste again is the nothing of the air and water
For which I must be grateful
Lifted until my hips cracked
Cut off my arms and placed
Them neatly on the shelf
Next to the honey and ghee
I climbed high kneed into
The ice bath made for two
Post vaporizing in the wet sauna
Listening to the electricity
Betwixt my ears
I can’t rise up from the drop
Without proper aftercare
Biting my lip for rust
Wait for numb I’ve failed
Saying I love you so easy
So so easy
Now shut the door
The roaring in my ears
Blue smoke flecks of white fire
Ladle my lungs with dry dirt
It’s too painful to say I don’t
Too painful too too hard
Close the door
Shut out the light
My feet feel unsteady hiking
No matter I focus on breathing
It’s too late
Frustration sinks in his choke around my neck
I can suppress sound
As hot tears fall down my pharynx
No drama; it’s just my mind
No one is doing harm
No one sees me
The fae living among the miniature vegetation
Covering the boulders and logs with a soft pelt
Beckoning my hands like a cat
Captivate, guiding my roots
With invisible thread
Back firm to reality
It’s just my mind
No drama
The vibration is just in my imagination
Why to do this alone
Is my heart slow and air like waves in a cove
I’m trying; I’ve been devising solutions
Letting go of control
Trusting science of energy
Is bigger than us
I drove to the bridge three times yesterday
To count the Asian carp
Shadows emerging under the surface
Smuggled in like a mystery they invaded
Claiming what was once native
Unsure how high a dive
Water mesmerizing another time
Making it lately too plenty
The sunlight catching her flow
Damn, I love to swim
I’ve put meat in a zippered bag
Inhaling the fresh smell of plastic
Hints of blue and green
Over the hue of a banana
Startled by an agonal gasp from chambers
I hear flack for pulling out my brain strings
There’s 1000 and more ways to survive
To breathe into the belly
Instead of restricting my breath in presence
Falling down below past darkness long
Where my head hurts with the morning birds
With joy and pain I accidentally uncovered
A warm storm shelter shipwrecked
Where I returned to the stars
But only ripped in quantum fragments
Legally unmine sunk into erasure
Looking back at these pictures
We did the best we knew how
I’m so tired now
And I’m so tired
I didn’t have time to fret or define
I’m so tired now
I’m just gonna lay here in the sun
And ask the grass to eat me
From the inside out
So those who love me
Won’t hurt if I become invisible
We were trying to fly a kite
With too many wires in the sky
Found a tent we could pop up
By the rocks and ticks instead
That was always good enough
I’m sorry I can’t make myself
Feel like I could
I hate myself for my dark mind
Staining such a bright day
In this wide country
I ask you for help
You say I shouldn’t need it
I’m so tired now
Just gonna sit right here
Close my eyes
Learning to pray I dream instead
The Universe is funny with timing
And I am impatient
Like a primrose patch blooming in the curbside
Rut of a holy rolling Southern city
Where my seeds landed
By way of blaming the winds and rains
Before I learned for what to wish
Wearing the Pride mask of renegade whimsy
Abandoning my barefoot babe forever
Running and skinning her ankles to bleed
Trampling the blades of the glacial plaines
This abandoned gravel road
Was once freshly laid
Ends at the root of all the everlasting rainbows
You walked upon me barefoot and strong
You brought the rains thickening the mud
Holding the lilies steadfast in a deep deep ache
Below the beauty of their show
I remember the long tendrils cool sweeping
Across my face and bare arms of the willow tree
Hair dragging in the puddle under the swing
I close my eyes and your fluids on my belly
Are a water snake skating across the still body
Like a dark shimmer cutting through the light
Holding still the trance
When my father-in-law passed
He said it’s freeing in a sense
I found the black and yellow
Feathers on the ground
And at that moment I knew
I was connected by the invisible
Threads of all of time and space
All the minds electricities of
Every sentient being past present and future
It was calm like the gather of
Bees collecting pollen when the garden is purple
That was years ago
I squint my eyes watching the road out the window
Where did that content go
The content of the unknown
Always her hand on my elbow as
She leans on her staff
Humming the drone of
Infant days on my mother’s chest
With her heartbeat and her ribs
And the smell of a summer rose
It’s kinky
Exciting
Missing a piece of the puzzle
Taken up by the vacuum off the carpet under the table
I want your face near my hands
My nose only minute distance from your changing beard
Its black today with a crisp line near your throat
Our skin soft and wet
Like the lumbar curve under the
Horse’s saddle, sweaty after a
Long ride through the woods and
Among the cattle with their young
Freeing in a sense
A release from the real world
Always I’ll come back to that
Through the spaces between
The fence rows
Today we threw out a bureau
A whale carcass taking up space
Drawers never functioning in our decades
After third hand ancestral retrieval
Responsible for compounding frustrations
Kicked and slammed still unable to shut properly
Making a mess of splinters buried in the carpet
Or on the hard wood floor waiting to snag
Any tender prey underfoot
Such a shame thin wood boxes
Doved together smooth and seductive
Regretting to make waste of valuable fuel
Of past wars’ sieges
Ours feels so trivial
Everything is digital now
Clean and sanitized hands off and visually smooth
Easier now, no need for executive paper
Nor to lug around a slide carousel
That is why my heart drops now below my diaphragm
When I recall your fullness in my mouth
Nothing digital remains of these moments
No dirty footprints left on the mat
I’m hastily stapling the memories to the bulletin board
In the selfish corner of my mind
How many more of these thoughts will pull at my toes
While I watch a movie lying unsuspecting on the rug
Burn on my lips tasting hot oatmeal fresh from the microwave
Or trick my brain into feeling your postcoital perspiration
As I finger the condensation on the seltzer can
What else is haunting quietly
Only to surface and perpetuate relinquished longing
Listening to piano chords to torture myself
Mourning a loss of something nothing
Yet I can’t turn my ears away
Repeating again the new piece
Purposely chosen for my ride home
By the gods ruling over my music system
The very moment my son closed the car door
Turning away to walk through the winter grass to the school
Easily as that without a goodbye
Had I not spoken first
He turned away shutting out one life and motivated in the other
With pain and envy I took a notice
I was unable to even cry no more than a few ticks on the watch
Sobs remained dry without tears
It’s better this way to squeeze out every drop of feeling to only feel numb
Which is not really numb
Instead real pain like mud and algae at the bottom of a shallow dark pond
Where my foot finds broken glass or bottle tops
My eyes caught them into focus
Seven deer standing in the glen
Where the soybeans grew
At once, the comfort
Of Great Lights pinched my heart
I asked for them to be there
Which they obeyed
My cherished family of deer
Appearing always when I’m most Yearning the recovering love
Of the Great Lights
The longer I pierced the air
The clearer they became
And I counted again seven
Standing in the cut beans at dusk
Looking at me, for I was still here
Watching a childhood friend die
The one you first met as a new infant
All the memories of your personal Guru
Wash over your entire perception
Everything that ever changed
Becomes connected within the network
Of roots beneath your present feet
And the monarch butterflies covering
All the trees of your past lives
It is one what was once many and unknown
Too difficult to capture at once
Is a purple wash with orange pulsations
In the tune of the heartbeat
Of a sunburst behind your eyelids
Hot from tears of a sticky reminder
We are all mortal once each instance
Returning to the oak reborn
Haunting our lovers’ dreams
I walked into the wood a bit
To lose you off my mind
Too much stirring in the way
Of meaningful tasks must be done
Darkening my demeanor
Continuing a longing for torture
And pain off logistic’s flow of stream
Red ferns were all I found
And clear songs of morning birds
Somewhat satisfied I left the wood
My fur boots covered in burrs
Driving the car how do I run away
Through that empty field to the edge
Of nowhere filled with no one
Before I fall down begging for strangling
Arms of the entity daring and bold
Who is unafraid to hold me down hard
Shutting me off erased with no pain to any
Jarring me loose from my stupid dabbling
Lost in romantic idealist dreaming
No one ever really lied to me, quit crying
You’ve read song writers studying philosophy
What scholars repeat in memorable lines
Young and naïve able to face anything
Wasn’t easy; it would be so hard this hard
Cheap life like Russian roulette in Saigon
Bloodied foam and rocks on every shore
Scattered bones and skulls and lost letters
Black mamba killing children in the cane
Since the beginning of human cohabitation
By chance or design we were made man
Not crepuscular prey on twilight’s horizon
When I touch you I love you
Even when I hear you yell as I press
With four sharp fingers your bleeding vessels
to the blade of your pelvic bone
I do it from natural call to duty
Virtue makes me guilty privileged and trite
Please don’t let children see my mess
Lock this nonsense in the basement
With stale hay and old urine and spit
With the imaginary weak and pathetic
Rise awake to reality clear eyed and focused
Determined to be immune
Doing what is necessary to spread
Remaining Hopeful for the day
