the secrets of the sea
The leaf is caught on the tide of the sky, dashed against a sea of green treetops, lost amid these streets and fields. I count the hours, I count the miles, the dull report of the mystery you seem to cherish most. The light that clings, the light that clashes, the light that rises from somewhere within. Your eyes aglow with that hidden fire, burning away my reasons and my will. The secrets you keep so you know how this all ends.
The years steal by with swift abandon. The days they linger like stones beneath a stream. Bright and dull, lusterous or sodden, the weigh beneath this consciousness. Reasons turn out to be excuses, beliefs turn into alibis. Words wind up next to useless when they can only carry you to someone's door. No amount of knocking can guaranty they will admittance. No amount of talking can tell another so.
The wanderer learns to read the weather. The mendicant learns to see through hearts. The apostate flits from branch to branch, each perch alerting all to the revelation of its latest truth. You learn too young to hide the things that everyone can see, your secrets a story you hide to fool yourself. The tide is wild, the tide is gentle. The waves may lift you up and bear you safely, the wave may break you upon the ruthless rocks. You love with all the abandon of fire, taking it with you with every touch. I love as one who knows the many ways a heart will shatter, knowing so few ways to make it mend.
The leaf is caught on the tide of the sky, dashed against a sea of green treetops, lost amid these streets and fields. I count the hours, I count the miles, the dull report of the mystery you seem to cherish most. The light that clings, the light that clashes, the light that rises from somewhere within. Your eyes aglow with that hidden fire, burning away my reasons and my will. The secrets you keep so you know how this all ends.
The years steal by with swift abandon. The days they linger like stones beneath a stream. Bright and dull, lusterous or sodden, the weigh beneath this consciousness. Reasons turn out to be excuses, beliefs turn into alibis. Words wind up next to useless when they can only carry you to someone's door. No amount of knocking can guaranty they will admittance. No amount of talking can tell another so.
The wanderer learns to read the weather. The mendicant learns to see through hearts. The apostate flits from branch to branch, each perch alerting all to the revelation of its latest truth. You learn too young to hide the things that everyone can see, your secrets a story you hide to fool yourself. The tide is wild, the tide is gentle. The waves may lift you up and bear you safely, the wave may break you upon the ruthless rocks. You love with all the abandon of fire, taking it with you with every touch. I love as one who knows the many ways a heart will shatter, knowing so few ways to make it mend.
blue ice
The ice rings out as the glass perspires, desperate shadows flung from the TV light. All the ghosts have gone to their graves, their dead hearts the sound of footsteps leaving. The street outside the window so busy and dark. The moths beat out the essential rhythm. The light left on is all that's waiting. The song that says she's coming home.
It isn't hot, but the heat is out there. It sticks in the shadows as hungry as a spider. The tires brush by singing like a river. Somewhere the music finds the heart it needs. The memories crowd like worried horses, all sweat and muscle and the twitch of panic pressing on the gates. The longing fills the empty hallways. It hangs in the cobwebs around the doors.
The ice is gone, the glass all empty. The TV mutters in thrills and wan delights. The voices carry though no-one's speaking. The haunted hearts that glut the night. The clock grinds on as traffic's passing. The porch light burns its dull refrain, dusty wings fluttering against the bulb. The stars are there but no-one sees them. The distance is rich with her absence. The light left on the one belief. The switch flipped once the most expensive. Hope is momentum, she must come home.
The ice rings out as the glass perspires, desperate shadows flung from the TV light. All the ghosts have gone to their graves, their dead hearts the sound of footsteps leaving. The street outside the window so busy and dark. The moths beat out the essential rhythm. The light left on is all that's waiting. The song that says she's coming home.
It isn't hot, but the heat is out there. It sticks in the shadows as hungry as a spider. The tires brush by singing like a river. Somewhere the music finds the heart it needs. The memories crowd like worried horses, all sweat and muscle and the twitch of panic pressing on the gates. The longing fills the empty hallways. It hangs in the cobwebs around the doors.
The ice is gone, the glass all empty. The TV mutters in thrills and wan delights. The voices carry though no-one's speaking. The haunted hearts that glut the night. The clock grinds on as traffic's passing. The porch light burns its dull refrain, dusty wings fluttering against the bulb. The stars are there but no-one sees them. The distance is rich with her absence. The light left on the one belief. The switch flipped once the most expensive. Hope is momentum, she must come home.
gone with heaven
The day arrives an awful blur of bent shadows and dirty windows. The wind makes shapes in the shadows on the wall. I wake without warning to the absence of her call. I wonder what color I am painted if I'm never seen at all. The glories that abide in passing, the intractable kindnesses that can not endure. I cast myself against the light, blinded by it day or night.
Yet she calls, and I endure these vast slabs of sorrow, these ages of accumulated ache. Her gracious touch rings down through my bones, it sounds bells from the blue firmament. She heals the tatters of my mind with gentle kisses, holds me gently with implacable resolve. I love her past all these letters and balcony scenes, and her love is a mighty tide that carries me back to shore. It is that line from Roethke that clings to her in my mind, "she moves and I adore." She thrives in my mind like rhyme, her kisses I feel in my heart like Neruda's ocarina. She brings hope like fire to this bleak and bitter world.
Oh the ways I am defeated, oh the course of fallen stars. The spark as if the lamp of heaven, then the burning down the abyssal path. The clockwork truths at you deem clever only the wheels that turn as is their wont. The prayerbook alibis only golden in your guilty eyes. She shifts the play, she changes the balance. Would she redeem these chips and fragments, piece my heart as whole again? I love her from beneath the rubble of disaster after disaster shaped by my heavy hands. The broken roads and burned bridges, the rails that no craft will ever wright again. I love her from amid my ruins, though I am wrecked, and still less each day. I will follow her star until it is gone with heaven. Then I will follow its memory until the darkness is all.
The day arrives an awful blur of bent shadows and dirty windows. The wind makes shapes in the shadows on the wall. I wake without warning to the absence of her call. I wonder what color I am painted if I'm never seen at all. The glories that abide in passing, the intractable kindnesses that can not endure. I cast myself against the light, blinded by it day or night.
Yet she calls, and I endure these vast slabs of sorrow, these ages of accumulated ache. Her gracious touch rings down through my bones, it sounds bells from the blue firmament. She heals the tatters of my mind with gentle kisses, holds me gently with implacable resolve. I love her past all these letters and balcony scenes, and her love is a mighty tide that carries me back to shore. It is that line from Roethke that clings to her in my mind, "she moves and I adore." She thrives in my mind like rhyme, her kisses I feel in my heart like Neruda's ocarina. She brings hope like fire to this bleak and bitter world.
Oh the ways I am defeated, oh the course of fallen stars. The spark as if the lamp of heaven, then the burning down the abyssal path. The clockwork truths at you deem clever only the wheels that turn as is their wont. The prayerbook alibis only golden in your guilty eyes. She shifts the play, she changes the balance. Would she redeem these chips and fragments, piece my heart as whole again? I love her from beneath the rubble of disaster after disaster shaped by my heavy hands. The broken roads and burned bridges, the rails that no craft will ever wright again. I love her from amid my ruins, though I am wrecked, and still less each day. I will follow her star until it is gone with heaven. Then I will follow its memory until the darkness is all.
metaphor, and then some
You linger on long past your welcome, holding on for dearest life. The long hallway grows dark and narrow, crowded only with pain and ghosts. The heart swells, the heart sinks. You flip the switch, though you know there is no light.
Waiting by your bedroom window, waiting like letters on the line. The words you say, the words you send. The way you hold your breath and watch the light bend, broken by the surface. The stars just ripple in the wind, the heat clinging to the walls and your flesh. You are broken and it's getting worse. You are broken and the end won't come.
Every breath is tears and gashes. Every breath is swarms and swelter. Sweat glistens upon the frayed and weary flesh, constellations of salt and glimmer settling like fever on your brow. The words don't work, the sounds don't matter. Wings suddenly take to the sky. Your heart is wild, something startled in the long reeds. Your heart is wild, a caged bird throttling the bars. You know this is bound to happen. You know the metaphor only eases the strain upon the bones, it does nothing to stabilize the structure.
You linger on long past your welcome, holding on for dearest life. The long hallway grows dark and narrow, crowded only with pain and ghosts. The heart swells, the heart sinks. You flip the switch, though you know there is no light.
Waiting by your bedroom window, waiting like letters on the line. The words you say, the words you send. The way you hold your breath and watch the light bend, broken by the surface. The stars just ripple in the wind, the heat clinging to the walls and your flesh. You are broken and it's getting worse. You are broken and the end won't come.
Every breath is tears and gashes. Every breath is swarms and swelter. Sweat glistens upon the frayed and weary flesh, constellations of salt and glimmer settling like fever on your brow. The words don't work, the sounds don't matter. Wings suddenly take to the sky. Your heart is wild, something startled in the long reeds. Your heart is wild, a caged bird throttling the bars. You know this is bound to happen. You know the metaphor only eases the strain upon the bones, it does nothing to stabilize the structure.
incur
You are at once the severity of the wound and the precision of the stitches, your love the only thing preserving this vapid flesh, the crawl of even the worn and wingless towards that perfect light. This steady drift of intermittence, the flicker of the one light that seems real. I gaze and gaze, craving something other than feeling. The kiss as a connection to this scant permanence. The kiss that lingers with-in our trembling limbs.
You reenforce all my restless habits, linger where there would be touch. You sparkle when the light can find you, you glow in the darkest moments as if lit from with-in. The red ribbons that tour and tangle through your limbs, the breath and clasp of your blood reaching for me. You are the eyes that fix, the hands that wander. You are the antidote to the desolation of waking, you are the fecund sustenance of my every dream.
You are the bloom in each flower, the ardor that seethes in every love letter's ink. The promise of a rich harvest in any season, the fields tamed while the woods grow wild. The pleasures of the table, the appetites of the bed. The flesh blessed with a sheen of sweat, glistening tiny diamonds as you flex and reach. I feel the breeze drift across my ashes, cooling my brow, clearing my eyes. Three thousand miles away, you are still skin and bone and flavor. The impression left casts its spell over the senses, you linger on my tongue and lips. I kiss each comfort, I kiss each craving. Your absence just the penalty that being bathed in your blessing incurs.
You are at once the severity of the wound and the precision of the stitches, your love the only thing preserving this vapid flesh, the crawl of even the worn and wingless towards that perfect light. This steady drift of intermittence, the flicker of the one light that seems real. I gaze and gaze, craving something other than feeling. The kiss as a connection to this scant permanence. The kiss that lingers with-in our trembling limbs.
You reenforce all my restless habits, linger where there would be touch. You sparkle when the light can find you, you glow in the darkest moments as if lit from with-in. The red ribbons that tour and tangle through your limbs, the breath and clasp of your blood reaching for me. You are the eyes that fix, the hands that wander. You are the antidote to the desolation of waking, you are the fecund sustenance of my every dream.
You are the bloom in each flower, the ardor that seethes in every love letter's ink. The promise of a rich harvest in any season, the fields tamed while the woods grow wild. The pleasures of the table, the appetites of the bed. The flesh blessed with a sheen of sweat, glistening tiny diamonds as you flex and reach. I feel the breeze drift across my ashes, cooling my brow, clearing my eyes. Three thousand miles away, you are still skin and bone and flavor. The impression left casts its spell over the senses, you linger on my tongue and lips. I kiss each comfort, I kiss each craving. Your absence just the penalty that being bathed in your blessing incurs.
when I come
You will know me by the caress of my shadow, you will find me stitching up your tattered dreams.It helps that it is always love. It helps that it hurts your heart this way. All your devils worked into dreams with a kiss and a clasp. Your fingers entangle the cause of your hopes and so the dance is at last a-whirl upon the floor. You will know me when the wind reminds you of my whispers and my wants.
I hold onto the light of the candle left burning, the flicker and the drip of wax. The cat stretches along the ley lines, the stilted dance of wind and flame. The breath amid the uncoiled essence. The warmth of so much waiting flesh. The window turns its back to the open night.
There is a clarity in this dense tension. There is a blooming in every cell and vein. The hush of skin so close against yours. The story of my touch told in the strain of breathless flesh. You gasp my breath and speak my name. Your room so tight and telling, my kiss so near and real. You will know me by the press of all these weathered constellations. You will know me when I come.
You will know me by the caress of my shadow, you will find me stitching up your tattered dreams.It helps that it is always love. It helps that it hurts your heart this way. All your devils worked into dreams with a kiss and a clasp. Your fingers entangle the cause of your hopes and so the dance is at last a-whirl upon the floor. You will know me when the wind reminds you of my whispers and my wants.
I hold onto the light of the candle left burning, the flicker and the drip of wax. The cat stretches along the ley lines, the stilted dance of wind and flame. The breath amid the uncoiled essence. The warmth of so much waiting flesh. The window turns its back to the open night.
There is a clarity in this dense tension. There is a blooming in every cell and vein. The hush of skin so close against yours. The story of my touch told in the strain of breathless flesh. You gasp my breath and speak my name. Your room so tight and telling, my kiss so near and real. You will know me by the press of all these weathered constellations. You will know me when I come.
sea legs
Before the first gray words begin to gather we know we're out to sea. Before our gait began to rollick atop the bucking deck we knew the oceans closing in. At once awake from that dream of your arms, the glow of morning gleaming in your gaze. Now the world without you, the shifted wind blowing straight through. Now the day dragged like that slain albatross, the old forms always bewilderingly near once the words give way.
It is that gasp of blue, the brittle reach of green dazzling the sun into rolling sparks and shimmering fire. It is the tangle of the tall weeds below the rancor of the sky. The wind splits into swift infinites, tailing and toiling without end. Here there be dragon, here there be grammar, beyond the limits of this poor defense. Still amid all this tide and light, the count and the converse, the starlight and the stride.
The day is still, though the tall grasses bend and sway. Always your name there near my lips, always each breath bent on saying. This press of familiar kisses, this rush of ebullience and froth, the words each now found as they unfold. This spell so sudden upon your tongue, every line your favor. Such a dull pronunciation, this reel my stale report.
Before the first gray words begin to gather we know we're out to sea. Before our gait began to rollick atop the bucking deck we knew the oceans closing in. At once awake from that dream of your arms, the glow of morning gleaming in your gaze. Now the world without you, the shifted wind blowing straight through. Now the day dragged like that slain albatross, the old forms always bewilderingly near once the words give way.
It is that gasp of blue, the brittle reach of green dazzling the sun into rolling sparks and shimmering fire. It is the tangle of the tall weeds below the rancor of the sky. The wind splits into swift infinites, tailing and toiling without end. Here there be dragon, here there be grammar, beyond the limits of this poor defense. Still amid all this tide and light, the count and the converse, the starlight and the stride.
The day is still, though the tall grasses bend and sway. Always your name there near my lips, always each breath bent on saying. This press of familiar kisses, this rush of ebullience and froth, the words each now found as they unfold. This spell so sudden upon your tongue, every line your favor. Such a dull pronunciation, this reel my stale report.
chimes
The afternoon spills down wild from the sky, scattering dust and petals. The season pitches and unfurls, caught in e snap and drag of this unruly wind. The rings cast by refraction, the ripples shuttering the water's skin. I cough and sputter, my lungs caught in the persuasive draft. I shrug beneath the green horizon, the mantle of shadows settling slow as the sky just grays and grieves.
Every word's a runaway, every breath an extinguished star. The fertile dust of dreaming scattered in spittle and salt, prayers turned fetid lashed to these masts of flesh. Forget that I know not the days or the reasons for my dreams. Forget that I am only dust and teeth in need of filing. The story arrives from somewhere dressed like someone else. The story is stripped and fitting with our bones and breath and blood. What of names, what of riddles? Today is only always here. You are the only I you know.
The star will strike, whether star or not. The atmosphere will compress and burn, the world will split and shake. We will die or we will tremble, a thousand dire prophecy always just arrived. Someone will read aloud some long dead utterance as if spoken for the first time again. The arrow loosed, the bell tolled, the sign at last revealed. The end will come, and every reason will be equal. The end will come, eternity at last.
The afternoon spills down wild from the sky, scattering dust and petals. The season pitches and unfurls, caught in e snap and drag of this unruly wind. The rings cast by refraction, the ripples shuttering the water's skin. I cough and sputter, my lungs caught in the persuasive draft. I shrug beneath the green horizon, the mantle of shadows settling slow as the sky just grays and grieves.
Every word's a runaway, every breath an extinguished star. The fertile dust of dreaming scattered in spittle and salt, prayers turned fetid lashed to these masts of flesh. Forget that I know not the days or the reasons for my dreams. Forget that I am only dust and teeth in need of filing. The story arrives from somewhere dressed like someone else. The story is stripped and fitting with our bones and breath and blood. What of names, what of riddles? Today is only always here. You are the only I you know.
The star will strike, whether star or not. The atmosphere will compress and burn, the world will split and shake. We will die or we will tremble, a thousand dire prophecy always just arrived. Someone will read aloud some long dead utterance as if spoken for the first time again. The arrow loosed, the bell tolled, the sign at last revealed. The end will come, and every reason will be equal. The end will come, eternity at last.
impotent
The measure of my incompletion is the unsettle of your gaze as it weaves and as it wanders the jungle of this disarray. There is no blow that could hurt further, no strike or wound that will injure more. You lie and flirt with calamitous abandon. You reject me with each heart beat, betray me with every breath. There is nothing left to feel from you, either too cruel or clumsy to allow access. You take from me this name and number. Leave me like your soul, bereft and desolate.
Still I shall always light a candle. My window all aglow at night. While I ache and crave your smile, knowing I am only filler and you are only mirage, you toil away with other hearts and so can never have my own. Go away, though I love you dearly. Go away, though I love you true. You are only born of lies and pleasures. Go now before all you are is this evil you pursue.
I know at last that I am nothing. Your whole world a carnival. Paper tickets and words like honey. Nothing but breath to keep you warm. Time undoes as it devours. The truth some sound like teeth grinding bone. My life bereft, my wings at once shattered. Dream your dreams without my witness. Live your life with someone else to humiliate and mock. I love you, but I know now how little that ever meant. Love someone true and without ruin.
The measure of my incompletion is the unsettle of your gaze as it weaves and as it wanders the jungle of this disarray. There is no blow that could hurt further, no strike or wound that will injure more. You lie and flirt with calamitous abandon. You reject me with each heart beat, betray me with every breath. There is nothing left to feel from you, either too cruel or clumsy to allow access. You take from me this name and number. Leave me like your soul, bereft and desolate.
Still I shall always light a candle. My window all aglow at night. While I ache and crave your smile, knowing I am only filler and you are only mirage, you toil away with other hearts and so can never have my own. Go away, though I love you dearly. Go away, though I love you true. You are only born of lies and pleasures. Go now before all you are is this evil you pursue.
I know at last that I am nothing. Your whole world a carnival. Paper tickets and words like honey. Nothing but breath to keep you warm. Time undoes as it devours. The truth some sound like teeth grinding bone. My life bereft, my wings at once shattered. Dream your dreams without my witness. Live your life with someone else to humiliate and mock. I love you, but I know now how little that ever meant. Love someone true and without ruin.
incarnate
All at once you're flesh and bone, spared no ache or spite, harboring all the fields of paradise and the corridors of hell. The brittle cup of undue potency fueling the wild inferno of sentience. You always reach deep into the feeling, always stretch further into the burn. My hands just manifest to your containment. My kisses just so hungry and so hard. You tilt your head, you lean your hips. I fall upon you like blessed night.
This is the spell of distance, the writhing fascination, the incantation kissed with bated breath. These thoughts I write upon the whispers that spill from your fevered lips, this ache that is so overwhelming it's answer is your all. The long lonely nights where my hands can only wander for the want of you. The thick delicious twilight that smolders in your eyes, this flavor of wishes salting each savored breath as you call my name, and I find your answers everywhere you touch.
I write it all down as if a voice could save me. I write it all down as if the words could mean the same. Letters lost to the indifferent systems and brutal efficiency return again to be recoded, my heart my only hieroglyph, your heart my Rosetta stone. These poems that come from the unweaving of this broken ruined world, these ways that linger in the literature while their purpose drains away. This is the blotted parchment and the crabbed and clumsy hand, straining to reach your touch. This is the dream that descends in shadows while you are sleeping to become my waking life.
All at once you're flesh and bone, spared no ache or spite, harboring all the fields of paradise and the corridors of hell. The brittle cup of undue potency fueling the wild inferno of sentience. You always reach deep into the feeling, always stretch further into the burn. My hands just manifest to your containment. My kisses just so hungry and so hard. You tilt your head, you lean your hips. I fall upon you like blessed night.
This is the spell of distance, the writhing fascination, the incantation kissed with bated breath. These thoughts I write upon the whispers that spill from your fevered lips, this ache that is so overwhelming it's answer is your all. The long lonely nights where my hands can only wander for the want of you. The thick delicious twilight that smolders in your eyes, this flavor of wishes salting each savored breath as you call my name, and I find your answers everywhere you touch.
I write it all down as if a voice could save me. I write it all down as if the words could mean the same. Letters lost to the indifferent systems and brutal efficiency return again to be recoded, my heart my only hieroglyph, your heart my Rosetta stone. These poems that come from the unweaving of this broken ruined world, these ways that linger in the literature while their purpose drains away. This is the blotted parchment and the crabbed and clumsy hand, straining to reach your touch. This is the dream that descends in shadows while you are sleeping to become my waking life.
