Hard Truths

The world shudders to a halt

Its a difficult swallow

Before hot breath

And cold words

Blackness and apathy

For another day;

A life time of this?

Love requires falling

But if you break

You may never walk again.

Yet here I am 

Trying to stand against

This velvet siren song

Calling me home

Away from all the hurt

Scars that burn me

Tears unshed for all the things

I will never get right

And you

After it is all out

Smile

Because you know me

Better than anyone else.

And I smile

Because I know 

I can't live without you.

Broken Promises

I can still feel your cotton white shirt 

beneath my fingers

against my cheek.

Your smell of spice and metal

lingers years later.

No matter how many days pass

I will always know you

always wonder

why the story sent you into her arms.

His eyes so like mine until he smiles

break my heart

over and over

a thousand times daily 

because that glint 

is you.

I wonder often if his eyes

bring me into your thoughts

or if I have been erased

completely from you.

Do you ever miss the feel of me

or the sound of my voice?

I cannot say why the world is cruel

or how strangers always gain

what you covet most.

I cannot say how this child will ever

feel safe or home.

I only know that when it's late at night

I still hear you talking in the dark

hot breath against my hair

your arms like safety circling me;

a memory or a dream.

I miss you even though I swear to myself

I will never dream of you again.

I hate myself for the weakness

I hate you for your absence

and then I love you

all over again

when his angel face rests against my cheek

telling me good night.

Division

It is a mathematical equation
whose solution escapes me:
Division
of the heart.
How can you hold two loves
three
four
and still love more?
How can something divided
be undiluted?
Why can a smile or a word
after years
bring you to your knees?
How can your name be carried
for days after it was last said?
Why now, love?
Why does your voice still whisper
'give me you' in the dark
when my life has stumbled forward
to an unfamiliar place?
Maybe it is you whose hands so familiar
I long for in all this chaos.
Sanity against the slipping sands of time.
Nothing,
not even division
seems to reduce your effect
on my heart.

Danae

Beneath skin,
movement;
something breathes
my life.
Faltering
this feels like
a sweet struggle
to keep you
sheltered
when my arms
long for you;
silence gives
no hugs or kisses.
Will you remember
my life in your veins
years from now
as you lay beside
your lover?
Will your child's face
bring to mind
my smile?
When you sing
in the dark
your own Halleluia's
will my memories
bring you to tears?
Bell jar hush
the beginning to all life
until the seal broken
sends waves of air
to wet lungs;
we are no longer
Atlantians.
Danae on the water
waiting must have
dreamed too
of hope
of home
of hands
that were kind
celebrations
with family.
No, I am not Danae
but I feel as if we are
alone you and I
left to some fate
yet undecided
set adrift
only your skin
beneath my skin
to remind me
miracles await
on a shore distant;
home.

Missing Parts

Your fingers, love, are missed.
The way they find purchase in copper
hair as you kiss me
or how they follow hollows
curves and mounds
delicious skin prickles
shivers
shudders
where they journey.
Your lips, love, are missed.
Their moist breath against neck
traveling slow
a sojourner of truth
unravelling my secrets
one by one
delicate
disastrous
until I am undone.
Your voice, love, is missed.
Its timber in the dark resonates
against my mind;
like a catechism
my soul echoes
I love you
need you
want you
in this dark night.

Something for Orion

We are in the shadowlands Orion

and your bow here seems drawn

but useless against this foe.

The world turns and your position

changes as Draco seeks to devour

the hope in our hearts.

Tonight your arms long absent

encircle me safe and warm;

I do not fear this with you here.

Breath against skin as fingers

dance in the fire of my hair

longing only to love me again.

Hubris, perhaps, was our tumbler

into this unfamiliar forest whose

night is never ending.

Or, maybe, like most stories we are

subject to nothing more than chaos

before the carrion crows gawking.

Yet, your breathing stills my own

struggling breath to a steady 

dithyramb of blessings for life.

Just two more months.

Just two.

Our hearts hanging on a thread

with the Three Crones whose

silver scissors poise to break them.

Oh Orion I do not want you to go!

I would have you hold me 

to keep Hades face from my thoughts.

You hold me tighter knowing, as do I,

that I am fragile as flesh and bone;

your light a ward against the dark.

--Artemis

The School of Athens

Once I marveled at the bright blue sky
as philosophers gathered in geometric halls
to argue reason and balance.
I never could abide reason.
Instead, I was lost in false perspective
pigments whose splash sent my heart
soaring past do or do not.
Have you ever once just stopped asking why?
Just once became a conductor for the universe; removed
the rubber casings of our soles (souls?) to feel
grass green and cold between spring toes or mud
slick like a child from a womb give birth to amazement?
Socrates asked us to balance our souls without ever
not once explaining that our soul is not the shadow
but a spark that throws shadows into darkness
creating a world electric wrought, each our own.
Mystery is an experience, not a puzzle.  Solutions
are dead things with no hope for growth or change.
So tonight I listen to the mystery as it grows
subtle beneath flesh and bone like a prayer
praising, not reason, but awe for what can be
when so many reasons tell us that hemlock
will stop our breath.

Cassandra

Once the sun kissed my skin;
my eyes half lidded
I kissed back.
I did not know it then
I was forever marked
scorched
scarred his own.
Apollo you come again
predicting ruin
your snakes bound
in my brain.
Hades cool ebony eyes
level headed stare me down
and I sit still waiting again
for this fire to burn
a brazier in my soul.

Discomfort

But, there are no endings, are there?
Only one more day,
one more day
and another
to drink the bitter draught down
Prometheus bound in this
hell you have made of me.

Discomfort is a word for polite
protracted visits from those
who come to poke the cage
sharp sticks and notepads;
documentation of a mad
dissent (decent?) or a foray
into mindless echolalia.

Yet, none can compare to your
hand on my cheek
with the word
goodbye
each morning.

Something For Comfort

The storm passes
leaving crystal drops,
a sparkling disco,
under a breaking beam
through dark clouds.
I dance to pass the time
until the next squall
with its techno beat
cold and cleansing comes.

Ennui

Once my heart sang alleluia.
but now it simply hums it
because I am not who I am.
No, I am something of a thing,
a third copy of an original,
who will do in a pinch.
How does it happen, that
ever so illusive gradual decline
into mediocrity?

Yes, I remember those nights
driving over mountains in snow
from some adventure to the next
how alive I felt, in control,
destiny my copilot.
Now, I look unsure out windows
thinking rain is coming and I have
seen too many rains.

I hear Eliot in my head broken
stops and starts in a much too
reserved voice telling me that
'I grow old.' And I do, I do
malinger and stir coffee spoons.
What now?  What then?
Was I only fooling myself that
youth's promise is a promise?

Trousers rolled, today, I wait
for fate to find me instead of
throwing off shoes with toes
buried in warm grass running
to grasp it like an absent lover.
When did I cease to care about
my own outcomes I wonder?

Ennui was once a funny word
said in haste to make friends laugh
but I know its syllabic monotone
and wonder when my heart will
again rise like a phoenix, fly
away with my dreams forgotten
in texts and laundry soap.

I need to feel the wind on my face
see blue so startling my heart
skips a beat to remind me to breathe
because this world is a dream
and the hell is only my mind
playing white linen tricks on me
as I finally learn to please myself.

Technicolor Yawn

They say that the world came about

With

'Let there be light'

Still, it is nice to think

That God once stretched in darkness

Opened his mouth 

Yawned

As his toes curled and unfurled

Opened his eyes

Like Dorothy opened the door

To Oz;

A technicolor dream.

Nothing and Nothing

Nothing and Nothing
Sometimes it is
Just what I wanted
And too much to forgive
I think of you often
Not often that way
But sometimes
Oh sometimes
My heart leans into this
Shouting I love you
To the stars in our bliss
Just like the first night
Just like the last one
Until time is over
Or it has begun
We are one

Nothing and Nothing
Repeating your name
On an empty door step
Where your shadow remains
Like Nagasaki you
Are burned in my brain
Ashes in the wind
Returning each day
Nothing and Nothing
Nothing again
Forgotten love faded
Where once white hot
It branded your skin
Just like the first night
Just like the last
Until we are one
Unbreakable past.

Sleep Sedition

I am not sleeping, as always,
waiting for the world to shake
and turn its cloud covers
that I may see something new.
We grow too old here
we are not brief candles
but instead we are LED
lamps that witness the world
until we beg for darkness.
I scream lately for an end
to laundry
to eternal same same same,
maddening same!
For the code to change
For the world to see
For God to wake us from
this safe sleep.
Sedition takes energy
and my hands shake
my teeth gnash until
I finally do fall
dreaming into tomorrow.