In the belly of the whale
the coal-black night conceals me
and your glance quells my breath
and you rise and rock me gently
and the stars circle the moon and
my pupils seek the light,
my soul siphoned by
your headlight gaze.
Your wild November eyes and
swollen lips like figs are
wine-sweet and terrifying
The tower within me quakes
but the impact has been
a long time in arriving
And my body involuntarily
concludes that this is it-
the last ship out to sea
the lone crow to be
cherished and buried
a fortune born in despair
a convoluted riddle for the telling
I am incapacitated, hair
turning to wire and teeth
to shell and limbs to
mahogany as you soar, a
lithe sparrow, or stronger,
a hawk bound in leather and
braving the storm
And then we are both teeth
and pursed white mouths as
the fog settles on us and
we somersault, waltz, gracefully
erase preoccupation in order to
find that which we sought in
our prepubescent daydreams
The beating heart is a warm mother,
the chaste morning, a white witch
3 December 2010
The King of Marigold
Your eyes were closed
as the sighing traffic
tumbled by below my window
and from where I lay
beneath the golden shroud
of your hair I did not fear
the icy cold nor the chaos
even as my lips
quivered under yours
and the bronze bell rang
and the tablets fell in pieces
and the proud thunder applauded
the torrent of my tears,
rising like the tide and
reminding me that
I am yet nothing
but a child
3 December 2010
as the sighing traffic
tumbled by below my window
and from where I lay
beneath the golden shroud
of your hair I did not fear
the icy cold nor the chaos
even as my lips
quivered under yours
and the bronze bell rang
and the tablets fell in pieces
and the proud thunder applauded
the torrent of my tears,
rising like the tide and
reminding me that
I am yet nothing
but a child
3 December 2010
On Feverish Dreams
In the delirium of my
infantile joy
I cannot awake
even as you seal
with a click
the door of our
momentary refuge
consummating a slow beginning
even our mothers
did not foresee and
in the dimness of
my humanity
I grope for your
glassy eyes and their
salty confusion
trusting wandering time
to carry you
my fledgling
back to me
20 August 2010
infantile joy
I cannot awake
even as you seal
with a click
the door of our
momentary refuge
consummating a slow beginning
even our mothers
did not foresee and
in the dimness of
my humanity
I grope for your
glassy eyes and their
salty confusion
trusting wandering time
to carry you
my fledgling
back to me
20 August 2010
A Militant Duality
This land is vast, woven of pine and grass
sustaining and swallowing hope.
I spin life on the wheel, churning legs and
shouting hollow words and I am
by my intelligence beguiled.
I run, flee in haste, scamper as my cowardliness
swallows my pride and words make a poor excuse
as I burn the land from here to the sea,
making righteous women into whores and
folding my arms as I survey the damage.
But that would be too much, to comprehend
this havoc and the rabid sea of tears.
For a disguise I would pay anything
but visibility is my sustenance.
My life is my foe's debt.
So I tear asunder the esteem of my colleagues and
my falsehood is a shield from woman's wrath and
the reality of who I have become, a mouse
fleeing from the riot he began as the
valley prays that his subtle terror will not come to them.
Please, do not burgle my innocence, my strength,
the burnished core from my chest.
I am sick at the sum of myself
ill-invested and bound to be
frittered away, the ultimate exercise in futility
painting my heart black, plastic and
degenerating and useless in time.
This debilitation infuriates and discredits me and
I cannot even begin to grow.
4 August 2010
sustaining and swallowing hope.
I spin life on the wheel, churning legs and
shouting hollow words and I am
by my intelligence beguiled.
I run, flee in haste, scamper as my cowardliness
swallows my pride and words make a poor excuse
as I burn the land from here to the sea,
making righteous women into whores and
folding my arms as I survey the damage.
But that would be too much, to comprehend
this havoc and the rabid sea of tears.
For a disguise I would pay anything
but visibility is my sustenance.
My life is my foe's debt.
So I tear asunder the esteem of my colleagues and
my falsehood is a shield from woman's wrath and
the reality of who I have become, a mouse
fleeing from the riot he began as the
valley prays that his subtle terror will not come to them.
Please, do not burgle my innocence, my strength,
the burnished core from my chest.
I am sick at the sum of myself
ill-invested and bound to be
frittered away, the ultimate exercise in futility
painting my heart black, plastic and
degenerating and useless in time.
This debilitation infuriates and discredits me and
I cannot even begin to grow.
4 August 2010
Tortured Lexicon
In the murky light
your words drift like
litter inside me
And I dreamt of
duplicity, a scene
kinder than our reality
Your hands had the
blood on them-
though you protested
and I wagged my finger-
even as you defied-
I exiled you
and that chosen loss
forged in me
a restless fear
It’s a torturous survival
One must treat
others dismissively
and oneself, too.
Such thoughts,
such reckless thoughts
Bemoaning this
insatiability, I
clasp your forgotten palm
siphoning my
love with the
richest grief
It’s as if one could
exist only for
pleasure's sake
A stumbling
caller at a
dirty door
25 July 2010
your words drift like
litter inside me
And I dreamt of
duplicity, a scene
kinder than our reality
Your hands had the
blood on them-
though you protested
and I wagged my finger-
even as you defied-
I exiled you
and that chosen loss
forged in me
a restless fear
It’s a torturous survival
One must treat
others dismissively
and oneself, too.
Such thoughts,
such reckless thoughts
Bemoaning this
insatiability, I
clasp your forgotten palm
siphoning my
love with the
richest grief
It’s as if one could
exist only for
pleasure's sake
A stumbling
caller at a
dirty door
25 July 2010
Born to Roar
You shrank from me as
suddenly as you owned
my sallow love
Remember? I gave it
stingily, with angst
to be nurtured
I am not selfish
but petrified, an
infant orca under the ice
While we drink, we are
beautiful and kind, all
fresh lips and stale words
And you’d do anything, and I
could stand to cry, swimming
in the promise of it all
Perhaps we are a
pair of simple egos, born to
roar and not to care
In sleep, your weight died
composed and in heat and
I smiled at our regression
But then you barreled
though the streets and
the stained glass
Turned back, holding
hands and steeling your
teeth against the rain
You are vacant, an
abandoned maze and I have not
the wherewithal to walk you.
7 July 2010
suddenly as you owned
my sallow love
Remember? I gave it
stingily, with angst
to be nurtured
I am not selfish
but petrified, an
infant orca under the ice
While we drink, we are
beautiful and kind, all
fresh lips and stale words
And you’d do anything, and I
could stand to cry, swimming
in the promise of it all
Perhaps we are a
pair of simple egos, born to
roar and not to care
In sleep, your weight died
composed and in heat and
I smiled at our regression
But then you barreled
though the streets and
the stained glass
Turned back, holding
hands and steeling your
teeth against the rain
You are vacant, an
abandoned maze and I have not
the wherewithal to walk you.
7 July 2010
A Spark in the Blackout
The hours were white like
a smile and my retinas
reflected only the emission
of your own, and you smeared
the garbage in neon, the
rising ceiling without exertion
My needs were folded, neatly,
and stowed, and I lingered
in the ruins, shuffled and
answered yes, I was honest
in treason as each breath of
the percussive stars quickened
I could not produce joy nor
efface the emerging
sorrow, the darkness was
artificial, the light knocking
on the blinds and we were
changed by our mightiness
As I drifted, my mind lay in the
shower, the moment swollen in
misery, saturated in your
monologue, and I fastened my
shoes as the undulating sun
called out and shook us
Even now the pillar of anxiety
looms large, time is a pressing
want, your greatness drowns
my insignificant hands and my
folded needs have come undone
27 June 2010
a smile and my retinas
reflected only the emission
of your own, and you smeared
the garbage in neon, the
rising ceiling without exertion
My needs were folded, neatly,
and stowed, and I lingered
in the ruins, shuffled and
answered yes, I was honest
in treason as each breath of
the percussive stars quickened
I could not produce joy nor
efface the emerging
sorrow, the darkness was
artificial, the light knocking
on the blinds and we were
changed by our mightiness
As I drifted, my mind lay in the
shower, the moment swollen in
misery, saturated in your
monologue, and I fastened my
shoes as the undulating sun
called out and shook us
Even now the pillar of anxiety
looms large, time is a pressing
want, your greatness drowns
my insignificant hands and my
folded needs have come undone
27 June 2010
My Darkened Door
In this stone cold I am water
I cannot own the ageless earth
or contain beauty in my words
I can only sing with soul
when I have none left
Roses fade to amber
and have nowhere left to turn
This fury burns me dry
and you may win again,
a thief and a bankrupt hero
You kiss me and cry bitterly
gun to my head, the sun at high noon
The whole town waits in the dust
I am shaken, but I am no conquest
I am a queen
I drive in the night, leaving you
on the side of a busy street
I dance with something to forget,
with a name to be made but
daylight has begun to feel strange
Unshakable faith in my capacity is
nothing without decisive action
My heart is whirling 'round me
assuming love and scaling heights
a watery forest for the plundering
I shout into the void, but
empathy is long-dead
I am the faster draw of us, and
you have given me no choice
I must claim this ground my own
The sun is a false prophet
The moon but a following child
The bullet sails and
all is still
12 May 2010
I cannot own the ageless earth
or contain beauty in my words
I can only sing with soul
when I have none left
Roses fade to amber
and have nowhere left to turn
This fury burns me dry
and you may win again,
a thief and a bankrupt hero
You kiss me and cry bitterly
gun to my head, the sun at high noon
The whole town waits in the dust
I am shaken, but I am no conquest
I am a queen
I drive in the night, leaving you
on the side of a busy street
I dance with something to forget,
with a name to be made but
daylight has begun to feel strange
Unshakable faith in my capacity is
nothing without decisive action
My heart is whirling 'round me
assuming love and scaling heights
a watery forest for the plundering
I shout into the void, but
empathy is long-dead
I am the faster draw of us, and
you have given me no choice
I must claim this ground my own
The sun is a false prophet
The moon but a following child
The bullet sails and
all is still
12 May 2010
A Case of Divergence
Here's to the final pretender
a moth buried in her silky dust,
a lady with wings of crepe and
a thorax riddled with scars
An adhesive sticky as tar
pins my feathery bones to these
escaping thoughts and my skull
tacks me to the table
And upon this day of departure
I am softened, my grip unbound
Strip the terror from my gauzy limbs and
set me on the emerald air
In the dustbin of this world,
scrambled chaotic with refuse
you fed our wavering mouths, easily
We slept on the floor, palm to chest
I am the proud vessel of
such debilitating fidelity,
such an all-consuming joy
Please, bind me to quell the shaking
10 March 2009, 10 March 2010
a moth buried in her silky dust,
a lady with wings of crepe and
a thorax riddled with scars
An adhesive sticky as tar
pins my feathery bones to these
escaping thoughts and my skull
tacks me to the table
And upon this day of departure
I am softened, my grip unbound
Strip the terror from my gauzy limbs and
set me on the emerald air
In the dustbin of this world,
scrambled chaotic with refuse
you fed our wavering mouths, easily
We slept on the floor, palm to chest
I am the proud vessel of
such debilitating fidelity,
such an all-consuming joy
Please, bind me to quell the shaking
10 March 2009, 10 March 2010
Exhale Fortuity
I send up a breath in the cold
for I am not the praying kind
and the air is thick as a blanket
but the cold abounds in the core
of me, never to be smothered
I love in a rough manner
marring skin as I caress and
clawing my way to the warmth as
I harbor my own softness in a
frightened, splintered nest
And though I fortify you,
endow me unto the spruce and the
mossbellied fir, we worship the north
with howling mouths of chaos,
defeated, prostrate in the snow
Eight lifetimes below your feet
a fortune lies quietly-
Forgive me this knowledge, that
you might be complete in your solitude
In your poor homestead, forever dying
Our shared heart, a wordless
place of decaying promise,
has been left unturned like a
grand boulder in repose amid
settling mist like God's breath
In my beating brain
we are a fluttering eaglet
traversing the cerulean sky and
joyfully weeping from blind eyes
I exhale in haste
Let this hour of flight be enough
for I am not the praying kind
and the air is thick as a blanket
but the cold abounds in the core
of me, never to be smothered
I love in a rough manner
marring skin as I caress and
clawing my way to the warmth as
I harbor my own softness in a
frightened, splintered nest
And though I fortify you,
endow me unto the spruce and the
mossbellied fir, we worship the north
with howling mouths of chaos,
defeated, prostrate in the snow
Eight lifetimes below your feet
a fortune lies quietly-
Forgive me this knowledge, that
you might be complete in your solitude
In your poor homestead, forever dying
Our shared heart, a wordless
place of decaying promise,
has been left unturned like a
grand boulder in repose amid
settling mist like God's breath
In my beating brain
we are a fluttering eaglet
traversing the cerulean sky and
joyfully weeping from blind eyes
I exhale in haste
Let this hour of flight be enough
Sever Me
With gaping neglect and
plastic mirth, he stays
where the light dies quickly
My words dart across the fence where
the shadow is just beginning
The moon is no mirror and my sight fails him
Comfort has little part in this creature
a fearful miser, recoiling at himself and
bathing in his own aged wine
He who burrows in prosperity's soil
he could chase the wind to see the sun
He was born to revel in the lake
Instead, in the wake of eclipse, he
fashions his cradle in a coward's shell,
a capsule of ringing isolation
I kneel with a startling crash and
my blood rings my heart's bell as
I offer to you the ivory key
Here, take, my breath, my rough palm
the offspring of my womb
and of my weathered soul
27 February 2010
plastic mirth, he stays
where the light dies quickly
My words dart across the fence where
the shadow is just beginning
The moon is no mirror and my sight fails him
Comfort has little part in this creature
a fearful miser, recoiling at himself and
bathing in his own aged wine
He who burrows in prosperity's soil
he could chase the wind to see the sun
He was born to revel in the lake
Instead, in the wake of eclipse, he
fashions his cradle in a coward's shell,
a capsule of ringing isolation
I kneel with a startling crash and
my blood rings my heart's bell as
I offer to you the ivory key
Here, take, my breath, my rough palm
the offspring of my womb
and of my weathered soul
27 February 2010
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