Collections

I've collected
                   dolls and spoons, thimbles, books, and
                                                   men like you.

I've collected thoughts to
recollect when collected dreams have failed.

I've collected flowers and presupposed power,
wills and wants.

I've collected art and verses, colored vases, bottles of wine.
I've made all things mine.

I've collected yearnings, and letters, confessions and sighs.

I've collected pride and prejudices,
                     piousness in the confines of journals and poetry brimming with pomp, anthologies of literature, archives of looks.

I've collected glances cast my way and all who've walked
                        away.

I've collected locks to guard my heart.

I've collected valentines and sentiment, keys and answers, questions and demands.

I've collected tea cups and
                        antique dishes, wishes, hopes, inhibitions, failed promises and lies.

I've collected unwept tears
and emotions, unspoken,
motions and motives of every kind.

I've collected years and months of trying, plans and
 feathered, weathered freedoms., prayers, petitions, indulgences and guilt.

I've collected these for me,
for you,
 for times past and times to
       come.

I've collected nows and thens.

I've collected these and more, and I've collected
nothing that I'm keeping.

I remember the moment

I remember the moment I knew you knew my heart,
 when finally I perceived the plainness of your phosphorescent shine,

                                                                          how till then,

                                                                                   I'd

                                                                                     disguised it; shoved it up my sleeve,

                                                                                                       thinking you wouldn't see .

  I

made a maze, hard for you to follow - or so I thought. 

 But you packed up supplies and started trudging

                                            through bricked off conversation.  

You saw the end.

                                                                                    Each

giveaway.

                                                                                            I was the one who 

                                                                                              was lost,
thinking it was all fun and  games.

                                                                                                                                   So, you waited, biding so much time while I traced meaning, lavished language

      and worried I wasn't able.  

Stone-blind to the

                oh-so-

                obvious. 

 In the business of creating the beau ideal,

                       I said too little.  I said too much.

But so much more

                                 than a well-wisher, you picked up my call.  

When did I fall?

                                                       It was a delightfully rangy plunge.
Maybe that day driving, talking miles, smiles, gabbling seeds.  Or when lights glittered in my house and I laughed.  Or when you were up for it

  and it was clear I couldn't lose, cause you were right there

             waiting for your turn.

Somewhere in the merrymaking and the 

       elsewhere fireworks, I met you where you were but the

                         first day of the

                                               end began and

                                                             after

that,

 I knew, too.

  I needed quiet so you gave me calm.  I came with nothing but not too late because that night or day, that one is where I circled and where I write.

Write at the Merge

Inside a motive within a moment,
                     three words, said, moving like they were.

Monopolizing no end of eye.
                                   
Sheets
                                          spread lies
 and whisky, rumors. 
Fragments of fiction
become truth in times like these,
 and space closes in tight so lips give up fight.  Insecurity
                          imitates importance.
                                       Shiver,
                                       shimmer, show.  This
                                          is how it’s done.  The method, the mind, the martyr. But believe it, unvarnished in the classified. 
Always unprecedented so therefore factual. 
                                                                 Fragrance thick with longing; it doesn’t matter what kind.  Allow,
it’s all they had to add, to aid and
     the world is long practiced at hands like these.  When the vapor clears and the vision
                                                              names another, refuse
                                                                                  to doubt
                                                                                  the prior, just looking skyward, see the bones and know that all things being equal,
         aren’t.

History of Induction

Your skin calls and mine
                  crawls.  The morning birds are warning in two beat refrain. 
They know how to name this. They know
     what free is
and I discern their undersong of logic.  I should flee
            this cell of human bones, this hell of flesh.
                   Charged with
                                      the knocks but charmed
                                                        by the art.
 I’ve stayed too long on your veranda.  Your
words fall like
           filaments,
                        surround me,
and I’ve been quoted,
saying I would not say this.  The rage of glee flashes sticky
                                         and I’m stuck,
housed in the hall of all
you didn’t mean. 
The walls moan in aggravation.
                                           Swine and foul, strung out
                                                              on my
heart of pearls.  You mistook their sparkling taste but stones deceitful do
                                                                                            not blush so.  Clear
                                                                                                                   cut is clear cut.  These beads
blazed but
still could
        calm.  I should have
held it in..
Beware the air
             that beckons, the
wrinkled
wondered whereabouts,
  the Ishmaels
      in procession.
When it skips- you know defeat, then sinuous
linen covering, far too thin.

The Sunday Whirl

En Face

EN FACE

Confession: 

This

         fanfare,

an utter failure.

                   I resign.

                   I hereby rescind the nonexistent offer for profession as director, which I before accepted.

                    I’m quite unqualified.

  Fair maiden role, as well,

        I retire –

and vixen, too;

creation not for me. 

                              My motives

questionable,

You and I and you and I and you and I collide.  Dim the lights, Je ne regarderai pas en arrière.

Yes, all the world’s a stage and I’ve produced nothing but confusion.  Slave to my own delusions and master of mendacity, ill at best and cruel at worst. 

Falling

                                        fool,

fouetté,

against

 a stale sort

              of scenery, rotting. 

                               The slate clean, now,

    the circus is leaving town,

                                       without me.  I’ll steal no more the show.  I am slowing to a walk, a child

            chastised,

breathing hard. 

Convictions galore, handed over with the drama. 

                                                                Molded new and humbled by hands not my                   own.

I’ve harmed enough.  

The curtain closes.

Old-fashioned Happiness

My will will

 bend to make room

for

     You.

     Your arms have interfered with my resistance. 

                                       Tired

              And

                    Diminishing,

                          my

Art still takes Your form.  Lend me your  Eyes.  Fill me with Your wish, Your

Poetry. 

Wash me.  I’m sick of striving in this wildwood.  Your voice,

When

                      At last I hear it, silken milk and honey…soul warming articulation.

Give to me, that old-fashioned happiness that once, I knew.  Away, I’m uncompleted. 

                 Every

Intention breaks, my drunken heart,

    Thirsting and misguided.  If I

                      Need the desert,

                                 Then carry me there, the

                                           Comradeship to satiate.  The impossibility

                                               Of Your ways absolve me of my sin-

Guide my steps, closer, closer. Take me home where secrets of the palace belong to me and crystal contemplations  lead to virtue.  Chaste in union, your coloring-the design,

Without

                                                                                                   Which, I have not the

                                                                                                        Health for this.

The Sunday Whirl

Maybe

Your colors are bleeding 
                   and I'm completely undone, here.
                         I want and I want.  More and more.
                   And I can't.
 But when you move this way, eurhythmic, I see something I didn't before.
The world stops,

 and now I'm
                                in a movie
where love is real,
                 so where can I go?
                                     I feel as though, in these moments, I've been here before, though I haven't.
Our bodies know each other and I don't talk
           this

way.
Maybe I could leave the fear behind this year.  Start with the belief you're teaching me.  Maybe  the girl I was
                    is coming out when I'm with you
 and you are new
but
then a friend of old.
   Enlivened in the flush of flesh,
            I will die.  How could I have missed this?  I'm waiting for the end but reveling in the gush of dawn.
I'm going down with you.  I am drowning in the constitution of your song, singing too.  Your words remind me of what I'm unaccustomed to and you're weaving a brand-
                    now story and I'm wearing it around my neck.
                                           I want to
 cheat
         the surface scrivening -
learn your longhand instead.
                                  See, I have this one eye
         that glazes,
but it's the one that apprehends.
         The angry facts glare, so I must consent
                and I'm alright till
       I touch your face where it's
                                                soft
and then
where it's not-
then I'm using terms like perfect and grouping words like fingers, tracing and beneath.  I'm recalling
                                                                                                               body moments
 like arms and the wide curve of your back and the juncture of belt loops tugged
                                                                        taunt my memory.
See?
 Racing, mind's ahead but heart is catching up
each time our hands lace like
                                         that.  When I'm content and still, I'm shocked.
                                                                                                     Stay and forever and please.  The wings of your whispers have found me out, collecting
tender twigs
of sentiment.  Carve from
            me
 a novel for the ages.


Imaginary Garden With Real Toads
Carry On Tuesday
The Music in It

To a Boy (About a Girl)

She's a contradiction,
 walking in,
                     in tattered jeans and heels, cross
                                        nestled safe between her cleavage and you want her.
Perfect makeup and ratty hair, she bums a cigarette,
 inhales the way you'd
like to.
Her hands
             shake, but her legs are strong and she's
                a girl who could
                                     do you in.  She knows it.
                                                     She doesn't blush but
                                                                    the

sun hints and you see the blue in you enflaming.
She's tired and giddy, a black mountain breaking into bits,
                                  ballooning and
you're soaring high now
                             with her.

Her car's a mess but her life is perfect and soon your dreams are her's.
       Away
       and a
ways.  You're in
and she feeds
the poor
while she starves you.  Friendly with the lamb and familiar with the
                                                               lion,
you find her tongue-tied in the flesh.
Adorned in jewelry but fingers, bare, she lets you read her
                                                                                 heart.   Her red
lipstick cracks, and it's then,
     the tenebrous
                  rings begin to fade and
when her mascara runs, her mouth turns pink.
                    She worries during yoga, stressing
                    stretching.
                            Coffee-her drug of choice, because
                                                                              she's addicted to caffeine and free of you. She'll
                                                                                                       cuss like a sailor then make you pray at dinner.  She's
waiting till she's married but in theory only, because she vowed,
                she would
 not wed.
Pure ice and soft flesh,
                                  she melts in different types
of fire.
And she's long gone but right here, weak descending and
                                   rising strong.
                                       She's begging and
refusing, a finished puzzle needing solving.
     She talks fast and listens
                               long but your words are slow and
                                            you cannot hear her.
                                            You found her where she wasn't hiding,
                                                                                    and now it's up to you.  She won't go looking.  She'll never tell you of her tears, in case you wonder and the only thing
                    that makes her mad
is silence.
You know she'll know long before you but she
                shakes her head
                   and smiles.
                         She's soothing
you with all she's got, saving venom for another
              and when
you finally get an earful of her
                 eyes,
you'll lose
                          your voice.
She's walking in
                                                                 now,
careful.

Write at the Merge
         

Amber's Angle

Amber's Angle


The slant of sepia vision
 steals reality
                                            right out from
                                                     underneath me, and the light simulates transcendence.
                                                                             I walk one way, you
                                                                                  another,
                                                                                  waking with
conviction,
falling straight
                                                                                                                                        through.
Plant me tall where they've cut you out.
       The plane swinging, I'm reaching, noisy,
 up once
more, talking
         toppled over, waxing jagged, finished.  Shaded lines in unison embrace me
                               and diamond
tailed, you dive down.
                          We meet,
                                      texture upon texture,
                                      the thatch
now crowning and
                      angels fling us far above the throbbing
pulse of rain.


Imaginary Garden

Instruction

Step into the fire and breathe.  Listen, Awake, sleepers from your sleep, and slumberers arise from your slumber!  Hear the still of the lion's roar. 
Venture within.  Stop to practice.  This
                  is the way; walk
                  in 
                  it.  Subdue the flesh, in quiet.  Nest here, 
                            beneath the ray of clarity, away from the tumult of mind, the mire of the bitter roots that strangle.
                                                                                              The uncertainty, unrest, behind,
 here, you find a new
                                                                                                                                      sort of giddy.  Here, the vacancy is full,
 permeated
in presence.  More and more.  Visit often, let
your skin dive in; sink down past the
                 deep 
                  divide.  Craft discipline in solitude.  Arise
                                   and be satisfied.  It's for 
                                                     the asking.  In the impossibility of a kingdom, upside down, you will give yourself and not
know how or why.  The song moves you and you're enticed, inclined, called and
                              yielding, softer.  Crystal clear,
                                                    the circle
                                                           closing in.  Clay and clean.  The faithful rise.  You were made for this.


The Sunday Whirl

Zoetic

I have wiped the slate clean;
a lie,
every single time.
Another friendly tale I tell myself,
good enough to sleep on.

I hear her
voice
saying this
is old shit
and her song looks like
a girl
I knew but don't remember.

She's
shaking
her head-

hooking
her hips-
and they're eating cake

while I try a new
prose,
moistening
my lips.

Reptilian waters make me
come alive
so while the sky rolls in,
pour me a gin.

Test my temperament,

just drink with me
tonight.

Carry On Tuesday

exposure

Nerve fraying, killer of my resolve, unspooling strength. Achromatic, candy-
                                                        perfumed tonic snuffing out my will. This
               is dangerous. The blink of licking
heat, so quick consumed.
               I'm unable.  Unstable and unsteady here beneath your talent.  Suicide, this
                                      time.  In these doting hours,
                                       I'm well aware, confounded later.  Like
straight back out
                   of passages from her diary,
the alpha-girl's new addiction. This
               isn't good.  The wild wonder,
sparing moments, rare it's been and then told, golden.  Soon, I'll be sifting through debris of fractured disposition.
                                     But, oddly raw, unprecedented tragedy houses inside my stomach, though
                                        the
drama and the drivel have never
                                                                        left me.  My
                                                                           twin's deceits
                                                                                   still haunt,still live,
gush indulgent, endless riches. Accompany me, then-
        innocence aside.  The war of blossoming begins to
                                                       shrug silver
petals of what I haven't yet said.
      Spring flaunts her crocheted motions, taunts what she knows of bittersweet promises but
                                                    this winter, I'm here among the perfect chill of captivation and the trademark point of wind descends.
    Desire
      escalates as contradictions end.


Imaginary Garden With Real Toads