Nothing resonates like that last kiss
in a dream forgotten moment
lingering on lips like
I love you
when she is walking out the door.

And so my love...

This heart that beats
dark against the night
for freedom
cries less and less
for the blue sky beyond
my back yard
but sometimes still
I hear you call
like a faint whisper
Come Love
Come away with me.

This, My Heart Eloquent Never Speaks

This, my heart eloquent never speaks,
because it is easier not to say how
the way you smile easy and laugh softly
sets my blood boiling fingers poised
held back to keep from touching your
thin lips; I like you too much.
Your easy way of taking space
as if you negotiate with the universe
so that it accepts you and incorporates you
instead of forcing yourself into its fabric,
makes me stutter and fail to tell you
how I long for your hands in my hair
red ribbons between artists fingers.
No, this my heart eloquent, will never
speak; because I love you is a trap.
Yet today as we tangled thoughts
over sustenance I found myself wishing
that your eyes found me an apple
to be devoured on a Thursday afternoon.

Faded Lines

My fate etched deep in these palms
I find no longer seems to worry me.
It will happen as it must.
No hurry, haste, or careful wait
will change a probable outcome.
I let them worry and wonder
at why my silence is no longer
sedition red and violent;
a daily syncopation of the heart.
Age wears its subtle smoothness
across my mind, unfolds its crags
of worry into Everest proportions.
I will keep this peace.
Nothing, not even your prying
will change that.
I want nothing of yours so do not
seek to destroy this Tibetan retreat.
Fate cannot be circumvented, you
may only stuggle in your bonds;
useless, growing older.

So Once We Were in Love

April love fades into the heat of of June
and I wonder how those candy hearts
on the floor with their invitations have
grown lame and lamentable if not
all together sorrowful in their garish
dyed pink witticisms.
So Once we were in love like everyone else
until something changed that I could not
quite figure out. Couldn't place my
finger on it because it was happening
out of sight in hotel rooms where
conversations not stilted like these hearts
these damnable hearts were echoing
against curtains. A stranger introduced you
who was my friend, yet it is I that sits
tattered red and pink heart in hand
throwing these hearts
these damnable hearts
away for fear I might read one
that promises you love me
when I know you love me not.

Penny Dreadful

She says have faith
over a phone line
as he lays sleeping
on my chest
this child of ours
miracle
madness
and bliss
as I try to unravel
the difference between
hope
faith
and the truth.
The beautiful mexican
sits watching a film
about faith
love
and hope.
He sighs and she
calls me your name
because I
seem caught
in the perception
that this life
is out to break me.
But she doesn't know
how hard it is to keep
getting up
going to work
coming home
to miss you
miss me
hate what Im not
hate what I am
wish for the will to
be anything
that this sleeping angel
can use.
I have held a lover
as he lay
dying
and I hold you
sometimes
and I feel it
that same
bitterness
though I cant say
which of us
is dying.
I say goodbye
swallow my inner
dialogue
of heaven and hell
and hold him closer
I am still alive
I did not die
not this time
and I wonder why
I never thought
I would.
Faith.

Pop Culture Heart Attack

I tried once to follow from my mind the path
the pulsing grotesque chambers
the shining valves electric
anode, cathode, diode
power of life itself.
Cold logic would stop my breath
hang as I looked for where love
hate and all those unspoken
ideals pressed against
xyphoid process.
This cathedral of viscera and calcification
a cave, a canyon, a tomb
for the ideal that we profane
with our plastic heart's
pop music requiem.

Conundrum

Self mutilation could not resolve this crisis,
nor still the heart whose Benedict Arnold beat
flies like a raven darkening my sight
with obsidian fringed feathers.
Lord, I cry to you for comfort, surcease of sorrow
a bulwark against his smile careless tossed,
subtle weapon that leaves me gasping
hours later; bilious poison swallowed
in polite company.

For the last time...

This breath I take before he sinks me down
will be the last time I will think of you
call you mine and covet you because
this is not what I was called here for.
That almost kiss in a midnight parking lot
something sweet became corrupt
and you and I were twisted by the pain
until we were thorns of sin nailing
Him, how could we have known it then?
This breath I take
This breath I take
will wash it all
This breath I take
will wash it all away
This breath I take before he sinks me down
will be the last time I will go through
every touch every kiss every moment of bliss
the last time I will think of that doomed fall
wasted days of wanting what wasn't mine at all.
Nights when I waited in darkness for you
body burning bright with the last of my
misspent youth given without thinking to you
Oh, but with this breath I take, I will be new.
This breath I take
This breath I take
will wash it all
This breath I take
will wash it all away
This breath I take before he sinks me down
Like a newborn child my life is finally found
Cut the losses take the gains and wash
the bitter taste of regret that remains
Let me forget and forgive who we were
Let me give these dreams I once wanted to her
Fall beneath the bloody feet of my Lord
My love in service forever to His Word

Lord this breath I take before he sinks me down

Take this breath
Take this breath
before I drown
Take this breath
Take this breath
before I drown

Valentine from Camus

I scribble this out
knowing you will never read it
but I hope
(don't we all)
against the obvious
you will find
this red heart
black ink scrawling
impossible love
on a Tuesday
buried in the pages
of your least favorite book.
And in that hope
is buried a midnight
conversation in which
the phone rings
and your voice almost
remembered from a dream
recites the litany
and this time
this time
it will be different
just enough
to be different.
You smile at this, don't you?
I am like this letter
that I do not believe in.
All the same I write
I love you
hoping like you that one day
the rock will hang
suspended until something
like love pushes it
quite the other way.