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Sunday, May 26, 2013

Untitled 2

Scars that kiss you back
Like open, hungry mouths

***

Tonight I am an open scar
And each word and breath 
Peels apart the wound afresh
Tonight my tongue is a whip
It lashes off the roof of my mouth
And the back of my teeth

Tonight 
My veins pump napalm
I am the oncoming darkness
A face turned away from the sun
The searing cold of perpetual shadow

Tonight 
I am a cemetery of empty graves
Tabula Rasa tombstones
Waiting for a brush of your lips
So they may etch its memory into stone

So color me iridescent with incessant kisses
I want to make love to you with all my pain
I want to hold you the way dry land soaks in 
That first drop of rain after a drought
I won't ask you where you come from
I won't ask of past deeds or your beliefs 

Because even as water recedes to the lowest point
I know, you will be gone by the morning
Resurrected by the heat of the sun
Back up into the open arms of the sky
A passing cloud 
Reminding me of our next, reunion. 

Saturday, May 25, 2013

confessions p 29


The poets in the old country say
"You are that which makes your heart tremble"

Beloved
Please grant this shaking leaf fastness

Any light in my life is due to the illumination of Love;
The darkness is due to me

Any good I do belongs to the grace of Love;
Any evil I commit belongs to me

Any truth I may speak is due to the mercy of Love;
Any falsehood I utter is due to me

Any generosity I display belongs to the generosity of Love;
Any greed I exhibit is mine


Thursday, May 23, 2013

Confessions p 28

I know of no more beautiful a thing than a heart
That does not cling
But is still
In love

I remember you

Perched on two hills
Overlooking Loretta avenue south
Just off Beech street
I sit on the porch smoking
Watching the oak
The tree beckons
The wind brushes through what will soon be
The green locks and foliage of her curls
It passes instead without a whisper
Through skeletal arms reaching heavenward

It has been Spring for days
There is still snow here
And you can't tell the difference
Between 10:00 pm or 3:00 am

You are here with me, I know
No matter where you may be
No matter who you may be
No matter the great distances between us
Because when the soul recognizes itself in another form
The keeper's of those hearts become traveling homes
Carrying each other in one another everywhere they may go

If love should find me worthy

If love should find me worthy
Should you find me worthy of love
Love is my Mecca, my Ka'bah 

Love, may the flowerbed of my actions 
drink generously of your waters.

Truth, may the house of my soul
be unlocked by your key.

Beauty, may the light of your moon 
illuminate the darkness of the unknown.

Mystery, may I be more than a plaything to your mistress
May she find me worthy of her secret shores
May love lead me gently out this labyrinth of mirrors
and half-lies into the obliteration and annihilation of truth
 

What is poetry?

It is a twist in your gut
It is knowing by feeling
It can be heard in the varying tones
of a heartbeat, or a breath
It is laughter, and often tears

It is alchemy
It is the mother tongue of the heart
It is a secret passageway
Through the gated walls of reason and logic

It has countless lovers
But it does not always get along with words
It can be as loud as thunder
Or as quiet as the distances between galaxies

Hell, Gravity is poetry
Planets and stars suspended in a rippling reflection
Over the surface of the ocean is poetry

A poem can be as harsh as nature and the cosmos are unforgiving
A poem can be a storm of asteroids, poisonous gas giants
And countless black holes in an uninhabitable desert
The size of God's imagination
A poem can be a tiny blue planet hanging in the middle of all this

The unrelenting vibration of the smallest building blocks, poetry
Electrons that have forgotten how to stop dancing, poetry
The way you look at me, poetry