ownership

she lays across the bed
ceiling fan murmuring
skin singing an off tune melody
and thinks of him
her hands feel restless in their glide
her mind full of spaces where words
confuse their entry to hearing
her, a singularity awaiting to know
just a bit better
where to be
she lays across the linens, sheets capering
storm outside threatening
heart beating just as loudly
and thinks of him
her surface a memory, pinpricked like a map
her thoughts a tangled bit of whispers
that revolve and reverberate
him, a singularity awaiting to know
just a bit better
where to be

slip

skin becomes a map to the initiated
of places travelled and yet to be visited
on your body I pull up a pen and write
X marks the place I last left treasure
small little kisses spaced like footprints
to follow through the hollow bits of neck and hip
crawling soft with intense intention
looking for the lost connections of mind and body
I slip down.....
eyes appraise the drifting changes
we are laced from one experience to another
and I pull on yours to tether my own
hush this heart, or let it sing out
to follow through the shallow and unknown time to come
journeys are meant to be taken

to find the soul we must find the mirror in the other
I slip down....

dimming

sometimes I am rocked by my awareness
of being alone, singular, sufficient, capable, and bereft
light dims by day's end normally
but what then if the light doesn't seem to also brighten
when breath quickens and the sky blooms
I no longer have answers
I can say today is
today I will be and strive
and at the end if yet still
day is only dimming
another day will yet come
in this I must believe

Inside

seriously
intimacy is not the slice of skin that glances across mine
or the scent of your body inside my linen, as nice as that might be
its this inside
view, of my regrets, my hurts, my hunger yet
my child bouncing around with impatience
my old woman hobbling like a taxi bound nowhere at all
my right here, right now, asking you to
just look
deep
and be still validated as worthwhile
by what you see
on this inside
where I see your
heart too

halves

heart just lay down on this plate
I've already prepared
the knife is sharp
I can divide you and all your intimacies
until all that exists is halves
until you know not one self
but many
with different kinds of eyes, seeing
aspects of unnamed things
blessings and curses mingled

mind just sleep here now in shade
I've already setup the blinds
the dark inside is perfect
I can promise you will know even less than nothing
until all that exists is extraneous
and heavy
with diffident ways of being, allowing
dreams of what could be
simply slip away

body just forget how you used to be
I've already erased the music
the silence is complete with pain
I can seperate your dependence and expectation
to nil, and then you will be
only empty
with the essence of tragedy imprinted like a song
eternally echoing
halves of living

not titled as of yet....working

I lay down
and then
I get back up again
I walk the room in circles
the walls gathering their corners even tighter
working chants, working their gossip
I walk further
out into the darkening day
birdsong muted to tree limb embraced
I am nothing to them
and to myself
a murmur

Skinning

low deepening
growl
but in the expected places
gullies broken before
rent across now soundlessly
the lines where the mutilation
moves
are the familiar
I ride against them
breathing in and out
oscillating
fractured
between those two points
sedimentary
dark
waiting for the pain
to receed

Dark Wait

You glow here in my middle
when the night breaks
undulating just in the corners
where my perception rests
breathless
there is no appeasement in
this luminescence
I can only wait
singing to myself impreturbable
rhymes of no reason
or substance
in an attempt to sleep
my skin is a traitor, charged with
these impeachments
it whispers
it moans
it breaks in a sweat
casting me dark in midnight
anticipation of
things yet to come

Old Pain

My soul learned early
to wander soundlessly through
picking carrion

This familiar pull
moves no longer sharp slashing
its secrets deadened

Scarification
can be also beautiful
gentle reminders

Solemn circle now
not having been garrulous
calliope spins

Now my old pain dreams
lonely and abandoned, aged
infirmities split

Perwinkled

today I will listen to the surf
play for me a love sonnet
to be beached and quiescent
my skin blurred against the sand's nakedness
the sky full of this poetry where the water
creeps with cool caress to the inside of my thighs
dragging more of me away
this I will let
for what beautiful trouseau it as placed
on my womb
opaled mirrors that sing quiet melodies
drowning out the clash of seabirds all around
I listen with my eyes shut
as the wind plays gentle over my ribs
soft collarbone kisses that I will taste
and then ask for more

Ravel makes me tired....

Ravel makes me tired
This concerto should be played in the rain
where fallen angels hide their tears
trembling, new converts against a browning mist
that slips its canvas beneath the mouldering sky, dripping
all those collected things we hold up, supports-
a catheter to dreams....
yes, I walk under these trees that assume me
into their bark
but from the horizon's vantage you would never know
this, a coupling that pierces thorough
particulated and raw, how can I stay sane when
amber, I bleed, memories
and can't seem to stop their flow, there is no sleep now...
I wander an insomniac in these strange woods
to be pulled to that place where the ground heaves
spitting out hallowed pieces of my time
and then
challenge me to deny them-
what would you do as Ravel is playing
and your feet sinking fast
to lay my head down and close my eyes
with a muttered goodbye to the world
is so tempting
to wrap myself in death
and in those piano chords

Hadith

Hadith
with this rejection Muhammad will be free to write a new set of sonnets
as he moves through the dust and heat, waking each martyr from his bed
we should have offered caveats instead of armies that are not allowed to enforce security
but did I really expect to see democracy hanging around these statesmen's hubris
I guess the illusion was easy to add to my thoughts like a noose
24/7 is hard to ignore when it beckons, it has no modesty
in securing rogues, and no dignity when recording death
do you have a shroud for this grief that can be worn when the penance is demanded
there will be no amnesty then for that implosion that threatens us with new pain
this is not a benchmark, it is a breach I see no hopes of overcoming
when I look at the faces of families who will now lack the continuity they had expected
at 2,500 dead, whether proud or resistant, enough has been leached to fill a city
Mr. Snow your compassion is missing to lump this next one to, as all of the rest
skeletons to be limed down, how can you stand there straight and say
it is all for the greater good when the contributions continue to be paid
subscriptions to this war, our new circus forum cemented with oil and greed
I've had enough bodies wrapped in a flag, poured into the ground, to be memorialized
with two minutes airtime and some boots in the sand
you are only encouraging another Saladin to arise....


from June 15 2006 ...a reaction to the Senate's refusal to create an endline to the involvement in Iraq....

Winging

hold this crazy heart like your honor close
be that rhythmic obsession time unfazed
separate isolations danger makes
unless a strict awareness is imposed
between us years weep compelled variants
completed though without the passion true
shall history write us a new honesty
can you author this unconventioned page
each embraced moment races far ahead
lay there with me and rest our futures well