Your Troubadour

Candy hearts crush against the teeth
…but I can never resist a bite
Truth be told - I devour my own
And cuts in my mouth burn deliciously
Cherry sweet, and sharp

Your faithful Troubadour, truly now,
Sings alone, composing with broken strings
I always meant to fix this (promise)
Just like me, to offer a fistful of drooping notes
Wilting flowers for my lady

Oh, slippery beast of a muse
If I find you again, beloved
We’ll end each other - finally...finally
Gasping, glass eye’d, purple beyond purple
Garroted by the laces of our own purple prose

Lord of Arcadia

Herbaceous, lush green as spring
Sun basked, ruddy, dew sheened
Tangled, bramble snagged
Vegetal musk and black soil
Here, the Lord of Arcadia
Gamboling, wet earth patterned - cloven and burled
Run, run, gasping, drinking clear air
Hide, hide, white stalks sunk in rich mud
Teasing, swaying -
Tantalizing - catch as catch can
Matted curls dampening, wading into warm water
Succulent mouth, rose hipped
Tongue like ripe fruit, sliced and dripping
Finds one reed in seven
Music issues from her throat
Shrill and sweet

Collision

Foolish I am, writing love notes
to place amongst dusty flowers
a makeshift memorial from a long time ago
a roadside shrine in my heart

but - something happened here, on this spot
this is where the collision happened
Unintentional, accidental, cataclysmic
this is where it occurred

and I was changed forever, deformed
my heart wrenched in twain, cleaved asunder
and I cannot go back to the way it was
the pieces don’t fit together the way they did

a jagged rib bone knitting crooked -
the thought of you catches in my chest
blood from a scar long healed, tearing
I drink to remember the taste of your lips

Embers

Your hand is a key
against the cage of my breast
The door open at your touch
I am alight with flaming birds
Free, they carry my petitions
like fire and smoke
drifting embers, wind swirled

I don't need to set lights for god to see
god already knows

Every whisper against your cheek
is a shower of sparks, soaring heavenward
New burning stars
For god to arrange in his diadem

Corbeau

Some night you will find me,
under the stars
my hands clutched - claw like
palms pooled with rubies.
Clever corbeau, my eyes will say,
this was the only treasure I had left.
You need not scavenge what was given freely -
plucked out to guard against your breast.
Though not an unkindness,
you and I, are murderers by nature
of the kindest sort.
A flock not of angels,
or carrion crows,
but here still, there are feathers -
brushed over my skin,
and a crush of velvet blackness
to find my hand in the dark.

-For J

Dawn

Here in the night beside you,
may I be lain to rest.
(for a thousand small deaths exhaust me)
with nothing regretted and nothing left undone,
my spirit sated and inclined to slip
like white silk pulled from a medium's mouth.

Here, pressed against you with cooling skin,
(salt tasting from spent passions)
I could follow the rhythm of your breathing
deep and hypnotic
and drift into blissful oblivion; quiet, endless

Wavering between planes,
I may flicker there in the inky dark,
the azure flame of a low candle guttering -
until the comes pale dawn
(when for your sake, perhaps) - I will rouse.

Come shake your sister from her moribund state
and warm her corpse cold lips,
mon frère soleil -
for a rapturous moment stolen
an entwining of my errant soul with your flesh
and a thousand more deaths to die amongst the living.

for a friend
1/30/14

Eulogy

Let it never be said I was not dedicated.
Let it never be spoken of - my passion impaired
There was never an instant the waves didn't hit me -
There was never a time when my soul was spared.
There was never a second that I was not present.
There was never a moment my eyes were unclear -
Don't let me fool you, I had always been watching,
Don't let me convince you I never had cared.
My desire was pure, and fine, and constant -
I filled in the gaps that were left behind.
You will never see the flame of my being -
The light and the color, only heat to the blind.
Let it never be stated, I was less than devoted -
I gave all I had, till my spirit was bled.
Let it never be said, I was not dedicated -
and let it never be proper, speaking ill of the dead.