Spindly fingers like piano keys

Long, strong and I see them

stretched tight across my

Ribs, counting

Quiet

but I know what songs

Your thoughts dance to deep

in the night.

And today

it finally rained.

my peace brought the sky

down

down, in pieces

from your strange heaven-

what a ride

Fireball of reckless

Joy

And I felt you here, with me

Roaring

on the wind

and emptiness.

In those moments

you feel so alone, so far

you don't know,

you don't know

how beautiful.

Today I was lost in

my own head again,

Driving slow

Enveloped

in the imaginary touch,

the hypothetical end result

When suddenly a little

gray bird fluttered

to a standstill

on my front driver's windshield.

He stayed there and

sat with me,

together we sat

in knowing,

knowing where

my thoughts had

led, once again

and

These days you are with me,

always.

I can feel your autumn from

Waves and echoes

Too far in the distance

creeping, burrowing

In gorgeous lines of melodies

Along my skin

Too close for comfort,

Mesmerizing and rich, dark honey

Like the clang of childhood windchimes

Like the pull of the moon tide

You come to carry me

Away.

Along the months like

Falling leaves, like old lovers

We have walked so tall and proud

But within us lies that same quivering

Each fall that sweeps our breaths

Along the ever stretching ground

We are both waiting, it seems,

For different things

But in the night we become

The same shadows

That unfurl like sleepy vines

Of longing, of creation

Or maybe

The destruction of that distance

That called to us before.

In my dreams last night

I touched your face,

I found the violet sky laid bare

In those beautiful, music-roughened

Hands, Fountain

of eternal youth.

Ranier Maria Rilke said so many things of value, where to begin?

“The deepest experience of the creator is feminine, for it is experience of receiving and bearing.”

"Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night."

"For one human being to love another; that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation."

"The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things."

This time for us is beautiful and I am spilling gratitude, we have come so far, but I stand in the lingering shadows of the morning's first breath of light and I am full of a fire I cannot share with you, a need that you will not feel for an unspecified, unlabeled amount of months, weeks, years (because timelines are for people who can't embrace seizing the day) and I will learn to let go, because that's what you do in times like these. That's what you do as a human that loves another. I have been defeated--you will say, that's not the attitude to take, but the night has fled and I have left my bed and still I feel a shrieking ache that is my own to keep and grow into. You cannot take that from me. Behind these walls is a fortress that needs protecting, and you cannot take that from me, even in the most bloody of battles when vulnerability is a warrior lacking armor barreling into the line of fire with a shit-eating grin on his face. This fortress is my solitude, it is a home built for bearing and receiving, and as I learn to let go you will learn to accept and scale the stone as another challenge, because that is what you do as a human that loves another.

Winter does not want to unclench her talons from our bones, not yet. She howls in protest at our doors, shaking them with fury as her fists find their way into soft-shelled hearts of stone and wood and brick and wool. From miles away i feel you here, i feel your cry in her, your eyes flung wide open in the dark, recalling a metal roof and solitude sleeping next to you-in the emptiness your mind spirals out its fingers and sleep slides from our body cavities a distant memory. You become Black Oak and i am touched by your rage, your sugarcoated depth of despair like a well in the earth swallowed by a mysterious bloom-covered moss. I know with the morning will come your poetry, because deep within you i live, like the coyote, like a crystal in snow, like Colorado, live alongside your deepest fears as a call to the wild and a call to arms.

Ministry of Home Security

We are not as impressive
as we would like to think,
Make like hands and toil, tremble
over cloudy cold glasses of alcohol
Picking at fat and open
Pores like whores laid wide open
For the world to take a crack at.
Go on, take your best shot,
Cowboy.
You have no idea what I am
Really
made of.
You haven't a clue
how old I really am.
You will never know all
of what lies in this
Possession of a heart
Dirty, wretched thing.
I stare into the mirror until
Nothing but smoke breathes back,
Breaths and breasts and
Beasts of burden.
I blame my cold bath on
Your absence but really
I can only blame my own denial.

You can call the shots in the dark
when no one is watching
and you can call yourself
Less than a man for me,
But I would rather fool myself than
Let go of what I know
In these cold nights as real.
Speak not and I may
Hold it against you
But tomorrow those sockets
Will hold the safety of new eyes
and your fears will be
Nothing but
True grit to grind into
the dust of
Only loving one another.
Because that's all we have,
right?

I can feel the altitude in my stomach as the wind wraps tight around the mountains, my bed sparked in the night and colorado is coursing through my veins. All i want is for you to lie here with me, before my head explodes, before i float away.

Eggs for Breakfast



I just want to love you,
he said
And make you eggs for breakfast
Louise smiled and believed him
And as she sat
in her car still running,
she knew he did love her, really.
Really: a love so real it
could not really be called merely love
but something much closer to
Emptiness,
a hole that swallowed her whole
as the wretched cradle of night
enveloped her like
the ratio of exhaust to oxygen.

He said a prayer she got home safely
but when she sat in the darkness,
in the driver's seat,
the driveway unlit
(unlike her cigarette)
she swore to herself
she would never sell out to hopes
of marriage or kids,
She sat alone
and in her mind saw his teeth
Flash like metal.

As she uncorked the bottle
all she could think of was
the time her father fell down
the stairs, drunk,
When she was a child,
riding on his shoulders-
a Bitter reminder
of what it really means
to aim for the top.
She chased the little pill
with Bitter memories
and heard his echoed warning,
Let go of the past
only the past wasn't the cause
of the burning in her gut
or the oil-slick stains
on her cheeks.

Stop brooding,
he told her
don't ruin a perfectly nice evening
and when he went home
to a warm home full of old friends
and a quilt Mamaw wove
just for him
She let go of her faith,
Watched it slide, scurry away
Quickly into the cold like a tiny,
lost puppy.

No one is around to assign blame,
or guilt
for expectations
that are futile in the wake
of life's open eyes,
Sleep now,
her mother said
and forget
that the only one
Worth depending on
is scrutinizing your
trembling hands in the mirror.

Dec. 1, 2010


Today is my dead grandmother's birthday
But I found myself not feeling much like her
In my car, this morning,
I reminded myself much more of my father.
Instead of bringing coffee from home,
poured purposefully
into my "eco-friendly" travel mug,
I stopped to buy cheap black coffee
from the little Mexican food joint
on the corner,
the one with authentic dishes and
a small fire burning in a
miniscule wood stove in the brick wall.
I drank from a white styrofoam cup
that contained far too much coffee for
one individual in one sitting,
even on such a cold morning.

Days like these I am painfully aware
of the time that passes,
before our
very eyes like the lives
of loved ones
or the breath between our lips
as children blowing out
birthday candle flames,
still unaware that wishful thinking
is only prolonging the inevitable.

I tried to materialize

you singing to me,

tonight

in my mind

Only to realize my imagination has

lost it's touch

and become more old maid

than mermaid

or maybe

I just can't remember

what that's like,

anymore

Sinking into the softness of

devotion

the lull of Trust

like sleep.

Slowly the rain,

the wind the wine,

slowly

Breaking off in pieces,

this is how I come to learn

Myself again.

And in the mirror

the bruises bring me back

to the

Cycle of existential love

that turns its back

each time I bear my

Boiling blood.

And if I could pick up a guitar

right now

and play you what's inside me,

You would understand,

you would

love me right until

both our eyes were red

with it.

Eat Drink and Be Merry

Raise your glass, he said

Because all our worries

Tonight, their meaning is empty

Dreams like dying stars,

Memories fading into grayscale blurs and

Most importantly

Tomorrow is nothing because

We may never make it there.

Life is short but sweet, yes

Like a summer dress or

The hope love brings.

When you were young,

Everything felt much softer

Home was a lot closer and

It all looked a lot more like

Jesus.

Tomorrow, we die.

by the knife

help, i'm alive.

I'm still alive in here.

I want out.

this suburban war beats hotter

when the weather turns its cheek

something unspeakable

and we've started a war

neither of us can win.

so I stumble

only the wall here to

catch my drift

can you hear it beating? crumbling.

like (beneath) a hammer.

my liver is crawling with

the toxins of a past

holding tight enough to choke,

but it's okay.

It's okay.

lack of breath keeps me going.

the hard-edged touch

of my own hand,

not the caress of another

to bother with now, never.

the distance is nothing new,

me and you

we got this down just right

tight and tighter

until it snaps and we

fall away. apart.

the insatiable needs

crawl inside me and vomit

stale pleas,

mutual self-destruction at best

and now i select my future

from a pile of dusty closet cards

that remind me of false hope.

false prophets that smell like

my father

and run faster

than these dry eyes can blink.

the puppy sleeps and inside

inside i am screaming for nothing,

just screaming to hear myself

make noise

so i know

i am still alive.

we swallow hard such harsh words

and i never told you but

that night

i was testing your heartbeat

by the knife.

A White Winter Hymnal-

Is that so much to ask?

I was following the pack

All swallowed in their coats

With scarves of red tied around their throats

To keep their little heads

From falling in the snow

And I turned around and there you go

And, Michael, you would fall

And turn the white snow red as strawberries

In the summertime

lyrics by Fleet Foxes

Tonight

Wine sours in my stomach

and I finally see it clearly,

We are all the walking dead.

When Love is Not a Song

I have found myself

In this place many a time

Before today-

Sipping peppermint tea

Too hot to soothe

a cantankerous stomach

Incapable of ease,

Watching the chemicals

From my faucet pool into

Oleaginous patterns

Atop the steaming surface

like translucent age spots.

I am so tired

of getting myself off

Simply because I crave

the release of endorphins,

Holding my breath until

I become lightheaded,

Disoriented in pretense

of being a child again,

Weightless

Careless

Breathless

On the trampoline instead

of an old woman

Impulsively seeking

Some sort of repletion.

I come back to myself

In shame

And recall those words

From such a strange movie

to relate to:

I just wanna feel good.

Here again, it seems

Vicious cycle of lost

Mouthfuls of desert sand

Parched

and craving something

No longer recognizable

as real or right.

These stones once built villages
and kingdoms,

Impenetrable fortresses that

Offered protection

or the guise of it, at the least.

Today we cannot even

Afford the luxury of

A facade-like strength.

Now we are living in metaphors,

Living in wait

Or vain

Or because

We have no choice in the matter.

1~October

The Cage

I wipe the dust from your skin

Map the points,

Thumb and tongue

You push me down and

The bed swallows us then

Spits out

A disheveled, tangled

Thing

All sweat bared and raw to

The touch, as one.

Light will one day

Split you open,

Even if your body is

Now a cage

The metallic warmth a lot like

Skin, Beneath my hands

Smooth and endless,

Strong.

The Sex of Self Pity and/or My Cursed Writer's Cock Crock of Shit

I am not that kind of writer.

I am not one to sit around and dream up

Witty phrases, all smart-ass half smile

And punctuating gestures

Sarcastic, extended metaphors like

Riddles that make the whole room

Cackle and take another swig.

You drag your cigarettes in the dark,

Light the pipe and hastily scribble

The next snicker-worthy verse about

God or Jews or being drunk,

Such flamboyant enlightenment you bestow

Upon these ears with your wisecracks

Of justice or Symbolic thought,

Societal cultivation.

No. That is not me,

Although it is easy to pretend to be

Something so supposedly seditious

Yet utterly and unconsciously trendy.

I can use big words too,

You bastards,

I can slam and roll my words around,

Cradle, Stroke them in long strides

Like eager clitorises

Awaiting the right moment to explode

All over the face of a beloved.

I, too, come home with a head hard-on

Full of inspiration,

Wine drunk and ready to rage or rumble

Or move mountains and shit,

But instead of

Furiously finger fucking my keyboard

Or typewriter or pen and legal pad

Moleskin or leather bound journal

Full of cocktail napkin dribble

Or whatever the fuck you jerks

Use these days,

Instead of rubbing my

Cunt of unconventional creativity

I sit around and brood,

Feel sorry for myself and

Eat junk food until I make myself gassy.

Yeah, it's true, I'm telling you

I wish I was more like you jokers.

If only I was capable of trying

That hard at being effortless,

If only I could stop being such a

Pansy-grazing fool,

Maybe even take things

Less seriously, learn how to laugh

At myself and poke fun, Hard,

Over and over and over

At everyone else in the world

Until they scream in protest

Against those ticklish ribs

And kick me, Hard

Right in my tight,

Puckered,

Asshole.

An asshole,

Yes, I can be that too

Just like the rest of you,

But I still, for the life of me,

Cannot write like you.

2~October

A Jesus Poem

This day was made for you,

He said

And when he placed his hand

Over mine in the car

The warmth of it against the

Cold of my own startled me.

I suddenly knew this was

Symbolic of our entire relationship,

Me being unexpectedly moved

And healed, Saved,

By the steady glow of his

Infinite compassion.

He has never ceased offering

Himself up, Sacrificing everything

For the sake of others

His huge and heavy heart

Bears the excruciating weight of love

No matter the cost.

He is the only man

Who has never let me down,

Who has never abandoned me or

Wounded me with harsh words,

The only one to see and cherish

Each and every

Sliver of my beauty

No matter how fragmented,

Regardless of the haze of life's

Aching endlessness.

He has supported and encouraged me

Unquestioningly

And he is the only man

I have ever loved so fiercely

Yet never touched sexually

Or called my own.

For years this man

Has been my savior,

Not in strappy sandals

Or a robe of white,

Nor with hair long and flowing like the

Water that he was said to walk on

And a beard made of gold,

But in brown scuffed boots and a

Matching thrifty jacket,

With a singing voice that would

Make any right-minded woman swoon

And fall,

A stoic and sarcastic nerd

With the capacity for more wisdom

And skill

Than he could begin to know,

With soft ears that

Go on for decades,

An unprecedented benevolence

That knows no bounds at all.

This beautiful man,

He is not an integral subject

In a revered Book of myths

That people around the world

Have relied on for centuries

So that they may believe their

Lives are right,

He is not the Son of God

Nor is he a holy Jewish prophet

That may or may not have

Performed miracles

Ages and ages ago.

He has believed in me

Even when I did not deserve it,

And his loyalty and devotion

Are something I find to be

Quite worthy of the maintenance of

Blind faith,

Far more so than eternal salvation.

This man has taught me about

My own strength,

And to me

That is much more powerful and

Substantial

Than any crucifixion or resurrection,

And to be quite frank

I do not believe Jesus died for me,

For my sins,

But I know this man would

If only I asked him.