Christopher Ford: Collected Works

Christopher Ford: Collected Works.

{ 79 }

{ from 8( ; from Night Driving ; uncollected }

- although below

oh god

cry crystal tears as they

fall gently

rivers down mountains

to rest atop

(although below) curves

infusing

moistening flesh

sadness

needs the company of water

so as not to be alone in wetness

- all i

all i know is meaningless

second-hand knowledge from a used-book store

passed on by rote from generations long dead

no experimentation beyond those fantasies of the mind

logic and reason subordinated to my pen

as it dutifully transcribes someone’s transcription of the

summary of the textbook of a man

who has spent his life reading the books of men

just like himself.

all i need is infinite

raised by a culture orgiastic in consumption

saturated in currency and overflowing with

incessant demands, the mind realigns

food and shelter come packaged with existence,

a constant already mentally rendered meaningless

my mind has developed a tolerance to the dollar

a tolerance to the goods permeating my daily life

i move beyond the simple, expecting the beautiful

all i have is meaningless

this pen and this paper have no more substance

than these words, which are but interconnected

lines and curves, arbitrary, all the innumerable

immaterial mementos of a nascent life are

devoid of inherent splendor or inner meaning,

my thought ascribes life to the lifeless

brings the inanimate to animation so violent

and profound it splits adjectives like

the razor does air, cleft and discarded

all i love is infinite

above all things i love the beautiful and

this beauty permeates all things, as air,

flowing silently and gracefully in those empty spaces

my love will not be restricted by others’ love,

or fear, or hate, my loves are my own,

all things are mine, for i love all things–

all i want is simple:

to wake unafraid, to fall asleep assured i will have someone to wake up for,

to know myself, knowing yourself — all i want is to be wanted by you.

- Again Came the Day in my Life

Again came the day in my life

Where I chanced across a fork in the road

And stood in my lonesome pondering

Which path would be the worse to take

When, by chance, an old man appeared

Beside me, a kindly soul behind his eyes

And asked me, in a voice of tenderness that matched his years

If I knew the road that I had traveled

To which I could only reply “Of course

I know the road that I have traveled

It is the path before me, stretching to

Meet the horizon, of which I cannot be sure”

And he: “My child, you cannot know

The path from which you have come

For if you truly did, your experience

Would impart knowledge of the paths ahead”

With this, he smiled gently, and turned

To walk back along the road from which he had arrived

And I understood: I could not be bothered

To walk the road I had already tread, my fear was of the known

It is a contradiction for one to say

They are afraid of the unknown: they know not what they fear

So they fear nothing

The wise man fears he doesn’t understand

What he already knows

- all but yourself

I don’t think you realize that you hold my heart

Suspended in clouds of vapor, held aloft by

Hope and unconditional desire, for you and your delight

And I don’t think you realize that you control my breath

That you can, with simple turn of phrase, or cheek,

Leave my gut as numb and violated as were it to explode

I don’t think you realize that you obscure the world

Let loose grey foaming smoke, obfuscating all but yourself

And leaving my entire world behind in the wake of your beauty

And I don’t think you realize that you matter more to me than I do myself

That your simple smile and tiny delights reaffirm my life

Providing me a reason to expand my lungs once more

But, above all, I don’t think you see yourself as I see you

And I don’t think you see me, as I see you,

And I don’t think I hold your heart, or breath, or world, or life,

As your slender fingers keep tight grips upon my own.

- At One Week’s End

I am merely

an explorer, seeking you.

I have searched for you deep within

my mind,

unearthing long-forgotten thoughts

and memories, reborn in shards.

You are a ghost here,

an angelic mirage inside my

desperate, starving mind.

I have tried to find you

inside myself, a misdirected quest:

what small pieces of your life

have you so gently planted within me?

Your roots

do not wish inspection.

I have looked for you in

photographs, your suspension

in this dimensionless medium

so painful to behold.

These fleeting sightings

do nothing.

I will not be the slave

of images and dreams;

my body can no longer

bear this searching,

the cadence of hope that

rises and falls with every

shadow.

- Azure Rays

I stand enveloped in streaks of gold woven into

Yellow strands of sunlight falling outward

And into the windows I keep flung

Open and inviting to all the world and its

Azure rays falling into and around

Atmosphere and gently swaying clouds

Falling through me, into me, around me

Dancing everywhere in colors madly swirling

Shining through and into and around

Everything, and

Nothing, and

Everything

And I likewise fall with my azure rays

Outward and upward three hundred sixty

Infinities of glistening pinpoint stars

Sparkling with the steady glow of

Undying internal fireflies dancing with my

Hands out flung toward the endless expanse of

Everything, and

Nothing, and

Everything

- because you were accused of tending to the past

“La vida no es la que uno vivió, sino la que uno recuerda y cómo la recuerda para contarla.”

- Gabriel García-Márquez

My future lies beyond the invisible horizon

of Time: I am blinded by the rays of

tomorrow’s sun glistening upon yesterday’s

moon

I bear the past as lead

upon narrow shoulders unaccustomed

to weight

Caged by forgotten thoughts

I am left helpless before Memory

the gleaming steel bars warp

This life, what I live

what I have lived

and what I remember being:

strands of Memory commingled with Time

as Past takes on the mantle of life,

newly emergent

- Birth of a Poem

I. Conception

It seems a touch dramatic to say

That the inspiration for a poem

“Comes out of nowhere”

For if the muse truly springs from Nowhere,

How did she ever escape from that void?

And where in Nowhere does she reside at night?

Instead, it seems poems prefer to arise

From those simple turns of phrase, softly whispered,

Ultimately judged worthy of a Poem.

Even the most superior combinations, however,

Must endure the fiery trials of Memory –

I wrote three poems today; not a word appeared on paper.

These stillborn poems, explored but unseen,

Only enhance that great fabric of unexplored Beauty,

All the lovelier for its transcendence of adjectives.

Still, I have managed to drag forth

A few simple phrases, resplendent, from behind

The translucent veil of my imperfect memory.

These I set forth, though they mold me

Far more profoundly than I mold them,

With the intensive labor of delivery by pen.

II. Infancy

Now, with my little phrase

Nestled deep within a beautiful poem,

Beauty abounds, melodious syllables dance

Through my ears and onto the tip of my tongue.

My, that was a most pleasant fiction…

My phrase, instead, fights for its infant life,

Trying to keep hold of that naïve simplicity,

That unencumbered perfection, which made it

So alluring and inviting when my paternity began.

As the poem tries desperately to take form,

Guided by my apprentice hands,

A lone phrase sticks out, more conspicuous

Than a lone crimson rose before the Gates of Hell.

III. Adolescence

I have, via the savage rites of experience,

Learned that it is suicide to try and insert

Two nigh-perfect phrases, as though

Twin beauties could coexist in peace…

When they do nothing but quarrel unto the final period.

By now, I have covered a once-elegant

Clean page (with a side of Poem) with

The blue fire only the author’s pen

Dares leak to mar and taint the surface

Of this most indolent poem’s waterbed.

It seems, at times, that I shall be left

With a hopelessly ugly, mangled poem,

A wooden shack built to house a

Lone magnificent Monet, hanging crooked

Within a twenty-dollar wooden frame.

IV. Maturity

Comparing my sketched phrase to its final,

Meticulously crafted older self, my ultimate opus

Bears only the faintest resemblance to its

Youthfully exquisite ancestor, and while a

Debt is owed to this forbearer, I laud my final work

Without mention of its troubled childhood.

- Borealis

Upon my heart dance the lustrous embers of

your love

Just beneath my skin streams thin oceans

of blood, hysterically crying such crimson

tears of my love, as if their passions could

free me from your absence

Behind my shuttered eyelids dance many vibrant colors of

your love

which unfold and resonate with bright and

unashamedly clear songs of this love

as they tease my heart with the

ephemeral shades of

your gleaming light

- Coming Home

My jacket carries with it

The residue of this evening’s rain;

Its smell still lingers, the

Soft whiteness of it, the familiarity

Of the passionate. These rains,

Born of darkened clouds and sunset,

So beautiful in their melancholy, these

Sleepwalking orphans of unmoving sky.

How these teardrops fly, to glaze my face

In loneliness, in desperation.

- Control

Tonight fills the void

between your masked nervousness,

before I arrive,

and your first upward glance, body falling,

relieved.

Anxiety is my only master now;

I don’t want to believe in truth.

You fall into me, all softness

and warmth, and I understand what

will come of tonight; I know from your smile:

small, satisfied.

We surround ourselves with

passing seconds, frantic with

stillness and silence, as we wait within

our potential.

The first kiss,

my mind warns, is dangerous.

The miles of hidden turbulence swelling,

pouring over me and into you.

(We’ve already fallen

asleep, intertwined.)

I draw back, and woven

into these fleeting moments

is your answer, still hidden from

my sight, eyes trembling.

I could not find you until the morning,

wrapped in cotton and sunlight,

as you push upward,

the rising of the sun lifting away

the density of evening.

- Courtyard

Silent air, drawn from the

clear heart of eternity,

preserves the stillness of

the tiniest leaves. Within,

my memory rejects this

fleeting visage of inert

existence; tranquility will

not attain immortality

by my subtle powers.

Without some breath of

movement, the world is

only thin dyes, strewn by gods

across an immaterial canvas.

Without some current

flowing through the world,

inexhaustible, one dares

to consider reality complete:

the supple warmth of life

extinguished in quiet frost.

The world of activity

exists in open defiance

of mortality; the survival of

movement is enough to

vanquish the armies of

death itself.

- Dream of the broken circle

At first, it was like waking

into darkness. Surrounded by black,

the inescapable quiet

was all that persuaded me

I was still asleep. Before me,

you appeared in the form

of a broken circle; you are

the whole that dares not close.

Softly, you spoke in the unknown tongues

of the places we had never been.

I tried to bring you together;

you resisted. When I awoke,

the rain overshadowed my solitary tear,

falling as curtains upon my

windowless glass body.

- droplet

Suspended at the faucet lip, held trembling above

With anticipatory ^qua_ver

heart tense,

waiting for—

the fall

eternity

half-second

drop

blink

heart caught

between

moments

Time unfolds

core of clear silence

and smooth

crystal

teardrop

falls

gently

air diver

to land

my mind still trapped

within those seconds

unable to tear free

- Echo Lake

warmth of summer,

uninterrupted by the tepid breezes of late July;

the silence of movement: cars driving

slowly past, a boy fishing with his father

as wind moves the unbroken surface of the lake

we were there because I dreamed it,

because I selfishly wanted to live

in the utopias created by my mind

walking along trails of brown earth,

holding on to each other (our

unrecognized desperation) as we walked

onward, and onward, until returned

to my car, coming back to where

we began so long ago, when the sun

was more distinct than the red-orange

haze it has silently become

as soon as we were back inside,

having returned from living nature

to the safe confines of glass and metal,

we scrambled for connection: reaching

for the phone, igniting the engine

which came alive with a shattering roar

the earthly stillness fell away so quickly.

realities collided: the halcyon greens

were overwhelmed by twisted metals

and sculpted earth, the subtle pressures

of the world we created, the world we have chosen.

- Elevation

Open in darkness.

A cold, sterile, heartless black,

Which seems to openly defy warmth of sun.

In forceful rebellion against the tender love of nature,

Rough and abrasive to the touch of flesh,

Lies black asphalt road, unprotected yet defiant,

Fearless in the face of all Natural might,

Tying together the vast expanse of humanity

In a silent, sinister black web.

Elevate to grey.

In this transparent ashen air are born

Long and slender trunks ensconced in rugged bark

Dotted with the white of night’s snowfall,

All stretching out into the finite horizon

To merge into a clean grey line, as though

The world were simply sheared in two

Separating the grayness from stark white.

Close in white.

As trees divide innumerable times,

Branch born from branch’s branch, and upward,

Eventually there can be seen but a glove of snow

Cleanly enveloping each lean branch with

Innumerable pinpoints of frozen white.

Further upward, the snow-branches meld effortlessly

Into the infinite expanse of clear white sky,

Unmarred by neither gray nor blue, simply a

Fresh linen blanket ’cross the sky was lain.

- Enough

It cannot possibly be enough to

write these words endlessly in your name.

There is some craving of the spirit,

a cruel ache unyielding within my chest;

so centered is it upon my heart I could

never question the organ’s dominance

over the sphere of love.

This ache is all I know

of my love for you:

I know you can drain me,

you can strip me down

beneath this fleeting cage

of bone – it is your force

creating these pressures

that will slowly unmake me.

- entropy

My words pour forth, unfurled

Released unto the world

In a tidal wave of night

Black ink scarring perfect white

- Fires

Strip away everything:

Draw back the curtains

Of solid matter, throw

Away the sheaths of liquid

And tear through all

The insubstantial gases.

Light the flames inside all things,

The fires of beauty and mystery

Burning through all the layers

Of life and substance; do nothing

With tempered heart or mind.

Live within these ashes

As all the cages of matter fall away, leaving

Behind the powdered residue of existence.

You must draw your strength from this:

These halftone grains of death and memory,

The irreversibly passed. Travel forth, concentrate

These fragments of yesteryear within yourself

And continue. Always continue, push on, drive

Your flesh and bone into another second. And

Never, never, never stop the burning; smoke

Embodies everything we know of death.

- Forsaken

I cannot sustain

immortality.

I wrap myself tightly into

the folds of time, drawing comfort

from silence and memory.

Your body lying

asleep, writhing in

the throes of some imagined tempest.

Your body lying

next to mine offers no measure

of completion: I far too quickly

recognize your temporality.

You began your departure at my greeting.

I cannot recognize my own suffering,

nor understand yours. You exist

both present and absent:

I scream from within my emptiness.

I would drown

inside you,

the repentant, the forsaken.

- Fragmentation

When we are born, we are for the first and last time

Ourselves. That first breath, body soaked through

With the bloody amniotic residue of birth, is our surrender,

The body’s capitulation to a life never truly its own. It is then,

As the first exhale cedes to the second inhale,

We have become inexorably tied to so many others. Our path,

In infinite ways unexplored by Time, immediately impacts

Upon so many others, and is never again a life only unto itself.

That connection drives us, it sets us free,

It brings forth the whole world of other minds

And puts them within arms’ reach,

Even the stubby arms of a newborn child,

Which, having flailed about, now has firmly caught hold.

- genesis unearthed in the light of my love

on the First Day, i saw you through new eyes,

tearing through darkness into rose’s light.

in my Second Day, lifted to the skies,

all the glory of Heaven in your sight.

through the Third Day, bodies yielding life-fruit,

between newly crafted sands, waters’ lip.

in the Fourth Day, of sun’s lyre and moon’s flute,

i live freshly new, from light’s cup you sip.

all throughout the Fifth Day, rendering life,

my love inside you grew, divided, spoke.

during the Sixth Day, in god’s likeness, rife

with light electric, your hair, love, awoke.

and on the Seventh Day, our skins rested,

with creation and silence, untested.

- Glasses

I never liked glasses. Thrust upon my face when I was seven,

They may have cleared the unfinished halo

Alive at the fringes of my vision, but my face rejected their aid.

Unnatural and uninvited, I left my glasses behind

For their less obtrusive cousins at the earliest possible hour.

I did not like the idea of them, the feeling of helplessness

And dependency. I wanted to see unfiltered,

To view the world as my body wanted to see it, not

As a white-robed doctor decided it should be seen.

I have, since, renounced my glasses. They live on, tucked

Neatly within a case on my bathroom shelf.

Now, my older countenance prefers to hide itself

Behind the reflective opacity of sunglasses, which only

Deepen the world and lay a blanket of fine ash

Upon every tangible thing. They do not seek to distort the world,

My sunglasses, only to dim it slightly, make sight less painful,

Comfort the eye. And I can hide behind them. I can flee

The constant probing of others’ sight to freely, carelessly

Explore the world. Grown older, none the wiser,

I have sought comfort in my tormentor,

Sought freedom in my captor – though the world will never know,

For only I can see my eyes.

- hollow

Love, a hollow word.

Hear the world echo within

Its cavernous shell.

- I am alive that you might

My words cannot produce the

Faint electric shiver which races

Deliciously down my arms,

As can your softest caress.

They cannot capture the spirit of our love,

Emotion was never meant for neat packages, for tidiness,

For words. These simple phrases cannot render my heart

So helpless as can your beauty; the simple sight of you

Is perfume for the eyes.

These words will never give you substance,

Could never entice your body to manifest before me;

They fail to draw you any nearer, they cannot

Give you life. You fade before me, many wisps of memory

Entangle as I try to find you amidst the ruins of my mind.

I am alive that you might wait there, within me,

Radiant in the perfection of combined memories;

I perfect you within myself and softly whisper

All my words, the strongest force my frailty can bear.

- i come alive within a chrysalis of love

beyond all Time,

my love has eyes,

set pearls in pools of black ocean

within your enchanted saccharine soul,

i unfold a silken white rosebud,

angelic petals enshrined by

mysterious softness

liquid tendrils arise from your lips of polished silver

and they entrap me, spinning a gossamer web

undying beneath the starlight

out past remote expanses,

where white tendrils of breath recede,

i come alive within a chrysalis of love

for i have stepped through my heart’s tear in space

and i will swim through this delirious velvet unending

- i dance

stepping through a blockade of air into

the bejewèled blanket of the night sky

aflame with the deep crimson of the fallen sun

i dance through cascading liquid ice

between fire and the stars

- i feel my love for you the most

i feel my love for you the most

caught in that aching second:

timelessness and anger wrapped

in the cloak of mortality, perpetual

forward motion

i am the broken subject of Time;

my imprisonment is bearable only

with you, love, i am only free

from him with you. i feel my love

for you the most when i am captive

once again: naked and alone

before experience.

why do you leave me,

force me to return to

the faceless terrors of the living?

- i find you more

i find you more beautiful because

this poem could never explain your

beauty ,never illuminate what lies

behind the veil of shadows

hiding your face from words–

never draw back the velvet curtains

of smoke your lips find shelter behind

,letting words sneak out ;beauty remains

for all eternity ,preserved in my memory–

even your lips ,which mine have never known

,i allow to live undisturbed in the heart of my hearts

- I have never before felt so removed

I have never before felt so removed;

I look out my bedroom window to gaze upon

The same silent roadways I have traveled since

My more youthful days, unchanged and unscarred

By the ravages of combat and laser-guided hellfire

No, my streets hold their silence, a vigil to

Peaceful days and lives spent secure from worries;

I can lie in bed and pity myself my insomnia–

My adolescent worries are but vestiges of fear.

You tell me war is evil. Such conflict, blood-soaked

And atrocious, has no place – how can the most

Advanced of all breathing creatures be the most

Self-destructive? Above all these thoughts hover – why?

I, however, cannot understand your words of wars

Of suffering, of anguish, of loss, of the dreadful carnage

Battle brings to both the fortunate and the ill-fated.

I have never seen a body lying broken and bleeding

Never seen the severed finger of a neighbor amidst

The now-smoldering rubble of their home

I have never fallen asleep and wondered if I will

Awaken as no more than a statistic, to be recited

By a nameless correspondent, promptly forgotten…

I have never felt so impotent;

My voice, drowned out by the chants and rhetoric

Of the politically correct, protestors and politicians alike,

Loses all potency before this archetypal debate–

I can not slip so easily into the folds of others’ ideologies

Where is the refuge for the confused? For the overwhelmed?

What safe harbor, what comfortable anonymity can pacify

Those unmoved, uncertain, unconvinced?

I know that all of humanity has lost

The second the first empty shell casing clatters,

Smoking with the fires of Dante’s pit,

To the hostile bosom of the unforgiving earth.

- i have seen that silence

i have seen that silence, most infinite in sound,

can be a vessel for all noises, thoughts, minds

in the stillborn quiet of darkness, and darkness thereof,

sing two slowly rocking bodies, cohesive,

pale faces and hands stave off ink of night as,

cradled within stifled fabrics, dance

twin bodies magnetic housing hydrogen souls

as, through the pealing cry of translucency,

springs forth into unmoving eardrums (

from lips quivering,

yet still

nestled within faces shining,

yet enshrouded

atop neck swaying

to darkness’ rhythms

above a body

charged with love electric

) the eternal, unquenchable sigh of love’s tempest

- i have told you(in

i have told you(in freeheart dreams)how much i

love you many times more than my fingers

which dare not touch you for you

are much too beautiful my dear(what matters

to you the love of myself?)even standing

idly by while my lovetumor ravages my flesh

mankind will never know womankind(for these

two exclude and juxtapose beautifully;mysteriously)

and yourkind, veiled, will never know my heart,

devoted.

- i will never love you(i loved you too much

i will never love you(i loved you too much

altogether)for your heart overwhelms

harpoons and drowns ,oh ,my heart in endless

infinite oceans of lovesblood – consume myself

you ,oh ,with all yourself(lips,eyes,hair)laughing

i sacrifice my life(each second passes,yours)

at your temple but you ,oh ,allow but

sacrifices of the soulflesh(i satisfy my

bloodlove,appease yours)may your innocent

ignorance to my lovedeath prayer

thrive,your(virginsoul)self

raindrops unfold

stubborn rosebuds

- if you would give my fingers their

if you would give my fingers their

freedom of an hour, that they might

explore the curves and lines of yours,

tips grazing lightly over pale and warm

skin, specked with fine and colorless hairs,

oh my hands, dreaming of knowing you,

of feeling you, for while my mind devours

yours and drinks deeply of your life,

my hands want only this hour of

silence and breathing, that they might

devour, in their way, the tactile self

you have kept from me and these

fingers, left impotent without

knowing you

- In Liquidity Overwhelming

far beyond remote expanses, where white tendrils of breath recede,

lies your caged, glistening teardrop, in liquidity overwhelming,

defining your enchanted saccharine soul, beauty’s epitome

beneath the slender saline sheath, i unfold a silken white rosebud

angelic petals enshrined by mysterious softness

- just a poem for you.

I don’t know what it is about you that

Leaves me lying helpless, a fragile blossom,

Untouched by morning’s dew, opened up,

Thin petals exposed to nature’s furies.

And I don’t know what lies behind your words,

That breeds such casual familiarity between

Two strangers. And I don’t know why,

With you, I can stand with my eyes shut

To both the future I spell out nightly upon

The whiteboard on in my bedroom wall,

And the mysterious past I leave behind

Its splendors lying untouched in my wake

As we sit here, looking backward, in your parked car

Breathlessly reliving the minutes before

Of a friend’s brush with romance, or more…

(Or nothing, as we are to learn in the Second Act)

Each of our eyes ensnare the other’s

For but a brief second, a silent eternity

And, for once, I am only seventeen

- Lincoln’s Gate

In the middle of a summer’s day I found myself

Opening first a flimsy screen, then the rather sturdy

Blue-painted wooden door at the rear of my father’s house.

As I tread softly over freshly renewed grass,

Making my way to the splintered wooden gate

That was but two years old, barely that,

But had been worn to appear crafted by Lincoln himself.

The shiny metallic latch betrayed its youth,

A perfect masterpiece of mass-production,

Behind which stood all the complexities and genius

Elevating man far above Nature’s second-best.

As my pale, smooth index finger unlatched the gate,

In a practiced motion repeated once more,

I felt a wave of celerity jolt each fibrous cell in my legs,

To propel me from my petty, cagèd flowers,

Into the vast expanse beyond my infant gate.

Helplessly I watched as the distance grew near,

My legs flying above blades of grass,

Towards a patch of golden dirt in the field of natural greens.

Yet strangely, now, looking back, I can’t remember

If I ever made it to the diamond at the end of the field.

But I remember being thrust forth on wingèd legs,

Through a field bordered in infinity.

- love dances electric upon my body

love dances electric upon my body

coiling through my spine, skeleton afire

cleansed in the potency of

amorous intentions

corrupted by the impotency of

hesitation’s delay

although vestiges of you alight my mind,

give flight to my ever-capricious imagination,

you seem to prefer waiting for me there

you know, of course, that in my photocopied thoughts

you are forever beautiful and beloved

so live on, sweet and gently,

for i carry with me your flower untainted

- mind’s words aren’t lips’ words

i can’t write it. i can’t.

when i look around, everything i see is poetry

everything.

but i can’t write it. the words don’t come

and when they do, i can’t write them.

mind’s words aren’t lips’ words.

i love poetry.

love is poetry.

there’s so much beauty in the world.

so much poetry

there’s so much beauty in the world.

such beauty

everywhere

i can’t touch

can’t feel

as though it’s so fragile

this beauty

as though it’s so fragile, so disconnected

that my fingertips would shatter everything

and leave only fragments of what was

- moonlight, lips

My arms fall to lie

Comfortably on the curves

Of your hips, as your fingers

Intertwine behind my

Head, I pull you gently towards

Me; your body draws closer to

Mine and I can feel the dual

Rhythms of lungs and heart, in

Imperfect meter, I tilt my

Head down to watch you

Lightly-reddened lips slightly

Parted, your eyes refocus up

And meet mine but for a

Second—I glance away, pulling

You into me and matching the

Rhythm of my breathing to

Yours, I feel your head drop

And nestle up to my chest,

I brush your hair with my

Cheek slowly, carefully brushing

Wavy strands with my dry
Lips, you tilt your head up and

My mouth accidentally grazes

Your soft, slightly moistened

Forehead, and I pull away unsure

If I have gone too far, but you

Smile lightly and draw still

Closer into me, bodies swaying

Quietly to forgotten notes, and

You tilt your head upward, close

Your quiet eyes, and dance your

Head up to meet my own, lips

Brush against my newly–

Shaven chin, I lower my mouth

And our lips meet, sweep past

Each others’ only to return

And join, as close as your dress

Pressing into my jacket,

Locked together in the

Afterglow of unspoken longings

- Mortality

I am, at times, unaware of

this accumulation. Constant but gradual,

silent layers form, mysteriously coating

these surfaces with the ghostly residue

of a thousand memories. At times,

the past realizes its abandonment and,

smoldering with the knowledge of its rejection,

rears its head in retribution.

- My Mind Flys Free

Though these thin walls imprison me

My mind, it still flys free

And though you seek to curtail

My free-roaming thoughts within this jail

I refuse to submit my mind to you

Although my body may be captive, true

My thoughts fly free as clouds

From vaguest tendrils does my mind arouse

And gaze in wonder at the stars

You never may imprison with your bars

- my mind is

my mind is

a very lonely place –

an isolated entity driven to explore

all the infinities in the world,

to change something,one and

gaze upon the forever-altered world

and know –

this is mine.

this, this i say explains all evil.

that i and all mortals are

driven to reshape the world

in their images, in defiance

of the gods, to shake the

granite foundations of civilization,

strip humanity to its core,

and mold men like soft clay.

- My Silent Vigil

(for j.s.)

fantastic:fantasy realized inside

her & around(distance can-not

hold us apart,together

[ourlipspressedtogether])that

smile reformedinto laughter

(i am the slowly melting rose)

you slowly,stealthily destroy me

madly (un- &)twirling infinite

strands of hair(stopitican’tthink)

just to stretch forward(nownownow)

why are you[lipshaireyestaste]so far

so close,right here now right now

next to me hereandtogetheralways

dont you understand cant you see

you boil inside me(beauty)&

i am only[kissing]you nothing more

than yours always(you have me

use me take me wantmeloveme)

for years my silent vigil;youralter

& now with release and violent

throwing open windows &

finally breathing[you in]

where do i stop&you begin

you defy me,love and

understanding,deny

myself of yourself &

undo my existence

slowly,quietly,you

(dis)quiet & i cant

live without this

without your

kissingtwirilinglaughing

(smile,love)

- Night

Curling in the tendrils of a shadow

Whispers of faint emotion manifest

As wires of grey nothingness

Coils of time and timelessness

As death approaches so quickly after life

So follows smoke and ash

As fire yields itself unto eternal night

- Night Driving

The night is aging fast, my dear.

Flaring sunset has quietly yielded

To the gentle, cooler colors

Of the night.

The spring moon, full and white,

Casts its ghostly shadow upon

The hazy sky.

I draw back layers of night as petals, darkness

Unfolding from beneath fairer shadows, each

Pale sphere more mysterious than any revealed before.

The beauty of night driving is the pure tension,

The clear, unfiltered view of single slices of earth,

Full, yet empty; present, yet invisible. These twin heralds,

My surrogate eyes, spread open curtains of

Piercing black, illuminating the closest layers

Of vaporous forest, as they shape shadows

Which encircle and obscure all else.

I live as this– faint sketches drawn

Over thickets of shadow; clarity only within

These twin envoys of my perception, the fog

Of darkness envelops all else, untouched.

I drift through an obfuscated world;

All the soft colors of existence grow dim

Beneath this quilted night, even as I filter my

Worldview to save my mind from drowning

Beneath the tsunami of reality, infinitely vast,

Overwhelming my soul.

I hold back the night,

I shove light into darkness,

My muscles tense and strain against the impenetrable

Mist. I demand clarity, I crave focus,

i love the unseen

And we drive. Wandering

Up hills, coiling through

These murky side roads, a lonely beacon

Forever circling a glass-lined track.

From above, we must appear an agitated sight,

The frenzy of our flight nearly as

Enigmatic as your eyes, wearing their

Mystifying makeup of shadows

And secrecy.

And all I know,

Down here,

Breathing next to you,

Is how the coarse gray asphalt of this road we travel together

Will never possess the allure, the soft radiance of your skin

Beneath my palm – my mind as been pulled into this dream –

I dare not shatter your mirage, break free of your nearness,

To feel the chill of night air cut into my skin.

When we come upon the manifestation of your memory,

The paintbrush of your recollection comes rising forth to pull

Us into this luminescent cityscape, a vast ocean of lights

Just past the riverbed. Your eyes try to recapture the feeling of wonder,

That unripened awe before the majesty of lamps and streetlights.

Your breathing slows to a gentle murmur, your pupils swell,

All of life is subordinated to this single pure drive, the sheer will

Of your eyes to contain, to devour, this image. Your mind demands

Absolute understanding, demands the totality of experience.

I am content to stare forever at a single light, tracing back

Many miles of days and lives, this solitary lamp atop a solitary table,

Unyielding as the pinnacle of all lights before – all of history itself

Coalesces into this single pinpoint of light; humanity itself existed

Only to bring these enslaved sunbeams into my eyes–

To light a bedroom, and, stretching its blazing white fingers,

The infinity of sky aglow within my eyes.

- Nightfall

(in Spanish, with English translation)

La noche está

fértil con silencio.

Estamos lejos, de sombras

ocultadas, yo y la noche.

La luna aparece

llena de su deseo.

Cansado y solo,

el silencio no está

soportable; la distancia

planta semillas

de desesperación.

El viento canta su

requiem susurrado.

The night is rich

with stillness.

Seperated by vast

unseen shadows,

I and the night.

The moon seems

filled with longing.

Awash in tiredness,

the silence is

unbearable. Alone,

distances plant seeds

of desperation.

Unnoticed, the wind

quietly sings its

whispered requiem.

- Nike; Wingèd Victory

I can only watch as she

so quickly overwhelms you.

She alone permits you your successes,

by her will alone are you

ever free.

Her lips frozen in silent

condescension, the dance of

her gaze proof enough of her control.

You cannot see, even now,

the chaotic ties that bind you

to her? Can you not feel the

weight of her, the pain of her,

the power of her?

- nimbly, i

nimbly, i

dance our wicked dance, this

unaccompanied tango (i wax and wane

inside of you); i come breathlessly alive,

living huddled inside our flesh-forged

cavern, breathing in the sultry air; i feel

my softly glistening skin curving into yours,

quietly deepening there

- Nouveau Americana

it gets easier&easier

with each passing moment;hour;day;year;life

to accept mass-produced identities(instockforalimitedtimeonly)

relinquish those final vestiges of self–my –your–

and flow into the halcyon current of name-less-ness

while allaroundyou lives a

d r e a m w o r l d

which isnt alive(but you arent alive either so

it doesnt really bother you;itself)and deep inside

the darkdampness behind your silent lips

your tongue can taste the lifedying

as you drive off;

an assemblyline;

onto these smoothly___________________paved roads

flawlessly straightlined)(delirious unwavering

alwaysstaybetweenthelines___________________neverstray

watch passing: row | row | row | row | row | row | row

of massproducedcars in the paved drive-ways

of massproducedhouses for all the perfect little

massproducedpeoplemassproducedpeoplemassproducedpeople

and you realize

this is the american dream they are living

who dreamt this twistednightmareworld

of carboncopypersonality and xeroxedbabies

- Now without you

my heart

seemed ever more content, each passing moment

spent free from imperfect memory, wholly awash

in your self, tasting the rhythm of your lungs & heart

how i wanted to press my soul to yours, lay down roots there

and live inside of you, symbiotic. it was never enough

to have you – never enough: the animal within me

craves you with thoughtless avarice in defiance of

my sanity, impotent to overpower this anachronistic beast.

i starve for you; i am still yearning. this drives me now.

your fragile beauty dissolved before i understood

it was being unmade, i am left alone, the beauty inside me

desperately seeking the cool scent of yours.

my love, terrible and passionate, still pries me

from reality: the blunt hammer wielded by vengeful time.

desire understands me; my fingertips shatter everything.

i scream for you: rasping, hoarse. i demand that night

surrender you to me from within its darkness.

- Ode on valentine’s day

There is something wrapped, hidden, inside this day.

As I wander through the hallways of my heart,

Red crêpe paper adorning veins, coating my valves arterial,

Out beyond what bitter sadness lies stale on my pink tongue,

The syrupy residue of love and passion tickles my senses,

Arousing a beautifully dull ache within my heart’s enigmatic core,

As though this pulsating muscle wished to spring outward, upward,

Beyond the farthest lights…and further still into cavernous infinity.

The translucent grey veil of solitude may shelter my eyes,

May bring blunt words to my lips, and deaden my ears to cries of love,

But such veils are discarded and quickly forgotten,

For such things fade so easily into the fringes of time;

The clear shining mask of ecstasy melds far more comfortably to my face.

To you, my love, on this anointed day of ardor and adoration,

I call forth those enchanted sprites, bearing in their wake

Melodies soft as warm spring rain, and vibrant flowers born from rainbow tears,

And I shall take the softest melody and the brightest red rosebud

With which to adorn your smooth and precious brow,

For my debt to your light is more boundless than that black cape

Upon which are strewn your luminescent cousins, those madly pulsating stars.

- Ode to inexperience

i am 17.

i do not understand

the inner workings of the world

or the outer ones

i do not understand the inner workings of my mind

or the outer ones

i am infatuated with idealism

loving to pretend the world could be a better place

if…

i am infatuated with romanticism

loving to be overwhelmed by beauty

everywhere…

i am infatuated with love

wanting to fall so deeply into that red warmth

forever…

i am 17.

i do not understand

why music is so beautiful

why the sunset

which i have never seen

is so radiant and rich in

shades of fuchsia and baby blue

why every breath i take allows for the next

why tapping glass makes such a clear sound

and why a sound could be called ‘clear’

and why

above all else

i am here today

writing these words

upon this page

sitting in this chair

wearing these clothes

and why my back hurts

and my mouth tastes of potato

i am 17.

i do not understand

and because i don’t

i do not accept the words from other minds

or the thoughts born from other memories

because those are not my own

what is my own?

are these thoughts, born from my pen,

mine alone?

experience tells me yes

inexperience questions everything

i am 17.

i understand

that the inner workings of the world

do not affect (effect) my seclusion in this sphere

and i see with perfect clarity

what should be

why isn’t it?

so obvious

and how to fix what is so wrong with

this world

and the people nursing at its infinite breasts

i am 17.

i understand

that experience is boring

painful

limiting

behind the translucent grey glass of

your experience

you reminisce about the happier days of yore

and i

i lie back upon my blue-blanketed bed

and dream

- Of Tragedy

{Nature}

Brittle and dying, leaves fall silently through autumn's winds

To the closed uninviting arms of the frozen earth below

Landing softly and unnoticed, to die softly and alone

{Humanity}

Silence shattered in an eye's blink by smoking black powder

Ejected metal flies straight faster than tempestuous wind

On wings of fire tearing through fabrics and flesh

Into life's throbbing crimson source, and out again

{Birth}

After countless hours and days spent breathing and alive

Life slips slowly away each passing moment until

Black silently envelopes glowing light extinguishing

The central flame pulsing inside every chest

{Humanity}

A silent hum of rapidly increasing strength and timbre

As a tiny metal teardrop born of the belly of the Beast

Unleashes the Hellfire of the infernal pit

And transforms the innocent into a shadow of ash

{Nature}

Zephyr’s hysterics drive down unrelenting liquid

Thorns and invisible fists of air sweeping clear

Forests and cities alike with indiscriminate ease

As all of Nature’s works commingle in eternal air

{Ø}

As glass shatters so easily with the hammer's tap

So lives are broken by the softest touch of

Death's silent mallet, tapping each of us in turn

- On Poetry

Listening to the imperfect melodies beat out by

Hundreds of thousands of falling drops of liquid ice

Preventing my tortured mind from finally falling into

The powerful rejuvenating arms of blissful sleep

And leaving behind an eclectic, haphazard

Trail of tears upon my thin glass windowpane

there is poetry

Driving down the open freeways of this or any

Other state I watch as the lines of varying colors

As they dance and intertwine among themselves

Never beginning, ending only out in infinity

For asphalt isn’t merely black, but shaded grey,

As all surfaces contain endless strings of color

there is poetry

Being unable to stop watching the hypnotic nimble

Swaying of leaves and branches in brisk autumn wind

Endless gyrations, uninterrupted by the casual

Fall of a single leaf from its lofty perch

To the cold and uninviting arms of earth below

there is poetry

Watching my father watching a movie as sharp light

Falls upon his face and chest, rhythmically sustaining

His life with each swell, as his eyes, hiding a mind

Lost deep in thought, dart quickly back and forth

To take in the entirety of the pinpoints of electrons

As they enliven, destroy, confound, distort, invite

there is poetry

In the simple monotonous clicking as I type out these

And countless other words before and to come, a stream

Not just of English letters but of consciousness

Imperfectly transcribed by the imprisoning necessity

Of language, that thought appears and solidifies

In the tapping of my pale fingers upon a black keyboard

there is poetry

Searching for the human soul within your dark

Piercing eyes as they simultaneously probe my own

Open to the world, unspeaking and unmoving in search

Of the philosopher’s Holy Grail: where is that which

Separates Man, where lies the seat of Thought

Invisible behind your black retinal mirrors

there is poetry

Dancing slowly at thirteen meager years of age

To the crooning of a long-forgotten vocalist

With my arms draped around a girl’s shoulders

For the first time, wondering is this Love?

If love is, or can be, found in a middle-school cafeteria

there is poetry

Falling upward and outward into the golden rays

Of sunlight, and dancing to the unspoken melodies

Tossed earthward from two atoms’ meld into my eyes

All of this activity envelops me as I sit motionless

In a blue and white plastic chair in my backyard

One summer’s afternoon, my mind enraptured by light

there is poetry

I have heard Great Minds speak about the meaning

Of Poetry, and what truly makes a Poem more

Than words printed upon a page by an ink-infested

Machine, in a brick-walled publisher’s lair

And I heard Great Minds stumble over their

Attempts to bring the ideal of Poetry to light

Unable to solidify their abstract thought into the

Stranglehold of the English, or any other, language

I defy these Great Minds and their half-defined

Ideal of Poetry, for Poetry is everywhere,

To define is to limit

Poetry is anything, everything that ever is or was

Alive, or dead, or neither or all of the above, or ever

Could exist in humanity’s incomprehensible dreams

- On Walking to School One March Evening

There comes a time of silence and of stillness

Upon the still-lightened air, mid-evening,

Breeze dominated by harbingers of nightly chill.

And in this wind glazed with frost

I walk the rough asphalt roads of my hometown—

That most familiar mile to the high-school door.

Setting out, folder in hand and music in ear,

The slow, measured, most careful pace of

My legs as they, unaided, carry me along.

The stillness of this night is palpable, leaking

Into every gaping pore of my body,

As if seconds had expanded to fill those holes in time

Where dreams are born, for this stagnant

Evening was infused with the seeds of dreams,

Fantasy unfolds in such lyrical and unblemished visions.

Not my eyes’ deceptions, rather

The magical mundane, the unnoticed

Frills and trimmings of the world on display

Having pent up their radiance for a
Caring eye, all the trifling slices of world

Unfolded their veils, petals of grey smoke,

And displayed to me the radiant core of

Simple and unfiltered beauty, undimmed by

Their unknowing naïveté; I could only watch as

A plastic flag, a wet and mud-specked newspaper,

Twin flashing lights of an airplane’s wings,

And the yellow headphones of a city commuter

Exploded toward my eyes, blinding magnesium flares

Of beauty kept stored away, on this quiet

Night, as I kept my vigil to solitude and silence

Leaving a flowing cape of unrequited beauty in my wake.

- one day, when i have come upon the Someday

one day, when i have come upon the Someday,

i will swim through voices far deeper than the rain

and i shall dance in the shadows

of shadows in the night

and i shall sing of untold loves and all that lives have lived

one day, when i have come upon the Someday,

i will know through what mouth are breathed thoughts

and i shall feel the tingle of silence within my soul

and i shall cry oceans, of sorrow’s delight

not rivers,

and i shall sing of untold loves and all that air has seen

- Only Silence

I lie submerged

The water of my soul

Overflows into this

Concrete bowl; faint ripples

Mar the glassy surface.

I live submerged

Unable to rise beyond

The mirrored façade

Of time’s cage; the mortal’s

Strength is dulled.

Time is not here,

It does not manifest

For the pleasure of

Human eyes; it deepens

Within the emptiness.

Time cannot feel,

It has no sense

Of self or being,

Only silence; it thrives

Within the silence.

- Passive Love

You love her.

She is beautiful.

She is both of these,

And so, so much more.

You love her because she cannot be defined,

Because she stands and walks and lives

In open rebellion to your clichéd past.

She is beautiful because you will sacrifice

Yourself for Her, to Her,

And you will love her all the more

Because she will not notice. Because

Her loves and her beauty float

Through a space-time only lightly

Brushing your own, filled with the

Passive loves, uniquely yours, of all mankind.

She is beautiful.

You love her.

Lover.

- Prelude in D-flat, Opus 28, an Ode

So simple and unassuming, so commonplace

A body is the piano — from the most

Powerfully grand of the pianos to a child’s keyboard

These elegant and rigidly curvaceous forms

Can sing their clear songs of love and

Wordless joys, of the most black and

Bitter pains, and of the simply beautiful

Mysteries of life, of love, of death;

From these 108 monotonous voices are born

The infinite fantasies of those gifted minds

Able to shout out their lives through the

Raised lid of the grand piano, cry out

The amazing passions of their boundless hearts—

And Chopin, now, singing to me of the

Thundering tinkling of the cascading rainfall

Enveloping the world, while scattered drops

Fall silently, speckling glass window as

A young boy dreams of the music behind the

Raindrops, unknowing that I shall hear his

Twenty-eighth opus while, 168 years later,

I sit in this wooden chair and write this poem

All because a young boy pressed his hands
To a window, felt the raindrops, and listened.

- Quietness

With the wild eyes

of youth I once again

can see love, can understand

its untamed heart. I had

lost this, my vision,

having grown complacent.

Immortal father,

why do you saturate me

with these emotions? Can I not

live in quietness, without

these seething waves of

scarlet fire? Should I take

as sympathy

your ultimate silence?

Within I am violent,

devoured by

my own passions,

the clean fire of love;

whatever roiling waves

hide beneath my

smooth exterior,

they cannot carry me

farther than loneliness.

Do you claim me as

your own creation,

immortal? Am I the

bastard child of uncertainty?

Twist me gently,

love, and let me grown

accustomed to your strength,

let me yield into you

and plant small seeds of

my blood inside yours. If

you must bend me, heart,

recognize my fragility;

my body calm as petals

may contain hurricanes

but cannot survive

the stillness of night.

- Recursion

I am only now beginning

to catch up to my existence.

Sometimes, I feel as though

I live in my dreamed future,

Ignoring reality in favor

of my capricious predictions.

These imagined days come

more quickly to my lucid mind;

the history of my life dim

by contrast. But now, gently

rocked by imperfections in

the railroad tracks, I am

overtaking my dreams,

living faster than my imagination.

- Reflections While Standing in an Empty Hallway

How many shall pass through this same spot,

Breeze on past it without a backward glance,

Unawares that for these few simple seconds

I own this air.

It is mine, all my own, and only the

Iron-crusted claws of Time may tear it from my arms.

Until then, all Chaos lies in some distant field,

A rotten corpse teeming with flies,

Spoiling the pristine halcyon rows of swaying wheat.

As Chaos rots, still I stand and breathe in

All the air, my air, that my youthful lungs may hold.

- She is forever beside me, celestially speaking

Somewhere, at this very moment, my love is readying herself

For the revelries of a cool Friday evening, as I sit

At work and think of her; she glances at herself,

Image reflected in the unclosing eye of the hallway mirror,

She will adjust her hair, rapidly blink her wide eyes

To remove any doubt of her corporeality — now certain

She exists, that she may truly control that beautiful body

Reflected in the mirror (of which I am most envious,

At least for now, for mirrors have but eyes, and live

In the forever-separate world of lights) and she turns,

Moving toward the rear door, with perhaps a sidelong glance

To ensure no blemish passed unnoticed —

And now she slips out into the quiet darkness

Dwarfing the arched streetlamps and gliding

Each moment closer toward my world.

- snowflakes Rising

I don’t believe that snowflakes fall

they rise

Sprout upward out of everything to greet the morning sun

They dance ever upward, outward, engulfing the whole world

Enshrining every limb, encrusting every slender branch with crystal

Leaving the earth enrobed in white as if

Preparing a virgin for a volcanic pit

the snowflakes rising envelop me

I don’t believe that winter kills trees

they love

Arms outstretched, every tiny branch seeking, feeling

Grasping across the roadway at its lover’s

Outstretched branches, calling, yearning, wanting

The merest touch of bark, to bark

Such repression, such discontent in their wooden hearts

Forced apart by unfeeling, coal grey asphalt,

my car

I don’t believe that headlights illuminate

they see

Twin yellow-white eyes probing darkness

Sight elusive, never satisfied, always searching

Millions of pairs of eyes flying at me

Away from me, redness and anger in departing

Ahead of me, can they see my eyes?

Can my eyes, restless,

see?

- Stars & Oceans

you live out past stars & oceans,

out where paintings come alive and

voices crumble within hysterical winds

the quietly dramatic;

the violently mundane

swirl together out here, mix and blend

smoothly intertwining, imploding

even when holding you, i cannot have you,

you are too far removed from this world

for me to feel you & touch you

you have fallen: descended. my body is gathered

beneath you; you land softly beside it

i am the unworthy disciple,

the silent robed figure: your shadow is home,

your footsteps the only road i can recognize

why have you chosen this world,

my world of petty material things

why have you chosen this body,

my body of water and earth

you are better suited for other worlds, and other

voices; you who do not submit to time & space

& who demands the clear center of things:

you undermine our fragile existence with your power

the worlds of passion & substance

were never meant to coexist

& you, who dare inhabit both,

your undoing will be the end of all worlds:

the untying of gravity &

the unraveling of energy &

the unbecoming of dreams

- Summer Thunderstorm

All day, the harbingers of this nighttime storm

Have been assembling to form this thundering chorus;

Now, with all in place, the symphonic cacophony of

Flashing light and water can proceed as planned;

My breathing matching the rhythms beat out

Incessantly upon my windows by the impact of falling clouds.

- The 24^th of June

I have spent this summer’s afternoon

Out-of-doors, body asleep in a chair, while my mind,

Lingering within the fringes of consciousness,

Captures the final pages of the book I cradle in my motionless hands.

When this last slip of paper is pulled across the clasped

Binding, cover quaintly flapping shut behind, I feel my body

Sigh softly and rise, legs gently straightening,

To hoist my body, now a more sun-deepened shade, and

Bring me to the closed glass door leading into my kitchen.

As I approach, the barely reflective pane reveals myself to me,

Standing flushed, body warmed to its dark center, covered in

A thin layer of salty moisture, as though I had just been born into

This glorious late afternoon in June; I am here, now, pausing after birth

To glance at this prematurely aged reflection, before passing through.

- the curvèd edge

One life alone between fire and the shadow’s breath

Wanders through Fate’s maze, toward the infernal pit

As endless gleaming eyes gaze on in dread wonderment

Powerless to halt the silent trembling footsteps

Eternal step as solid foot leaves solid ground

And tries to find safe harbor among dust and emptiness

The body twists, sharp scream slicing through still air

As pale and clammy hands scrape frantically on chalky rock

The flames below race madly upward

Toward the lone dangling body, thrashing about

Unyielding in solitary defiance of the Fates

Even as fingers slip ever closer to the chasm’s edge

Gasping breaths, lungs fill with more gritty earth than air

Adrenaline surges, scarlet blood tears through veins

And dribbles out through shredded fingers to taint

The grime that coats the curvèd edge of Dante’s pit

From down, below, the ruined millions crane their necks

Vacuous eyes following another tortured soul’s plummet

As powerful arms grasp at muddied air, powerless to defy

The unrelenting gravity of Death’s victory

And a final, muffled drumbeat as life’s flesh drops

Into the hostile, indifferent arms of the earth below

Crimson-caked fingernails let slip their pitiful grasp on life

To leave another supine body, stretched before the Gates

Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate, for hope is truly lost

Among the innumerable pairs of empty, cursèd eyes

That watch another soul, another momentary fascination

Vanish among the ranks of Hell’s battalions

Now another mindless worker, of that most futile toil

Left for those spirits flawed in the world above

Where death’s affliction comes only briefly

Ceding to silence and that curvèd stone

Laid down in hallowed earth

Among its own…

- the human condition i say

the human condition i say

reeks(of ignorance’s decomposing

corpse

)man can look upon himself

— an unknown monster — contemptuously

selfindulgent

craves death and infinite eyes

to in any way scream their existence and lose hope in hopelessness and, while

Mother Death

sings in the rafters

men prance foolishly upon their crumbling stage

- the red light

(inspired by toni morrison’s beloved)

in death, life reborn

sorrow born from sorrow’s womb

mother’s love

i loved you to death

my beloved

i could not bear to keep you here

can i return to the emptiness of absence?

will i return to emptiness at all?

born free, lived free, died

free?

and now, with freedom in Beyond

and now, with freedom in my home

sorrow’s light

passion’s red, love’s red, fire’s red

blood’s red

living on through wooden wall

as though my heart were not a grave enough

- Thoughts while lying naked next to you

I’m thinking,

How many millions of years of evolution,

Starting with some momentary amoeba,

Past dinosaur and antelope, have all

Culminated in that fine line of hair

Tracing its way down your arm.

I’m thinking,

You cleaned the sheets. Which seems

To suggest you knew this was coming.

You doubt I noticed, but I have, and

I appreciate the gesture, my love.

I’m thinking,

How can your body lie so still?

Calm as crystal, doubly beautiful,

Enveloped in sleep, linen, flesh.

I’m thinking,

It’s not the seconds that matter.

Nor the minutes, hours. It’s the lives.

And I’m thinking,

How it is, you’ll never know–

My love defies words.

- time; life beyond eyes

I can see her flowing

Weightless and free even against the tides of time—

Left alone, it seems she may sink ever deeper

Into that mystic current; beyond eyes’ powers

I am left the patient observer,

Preferring sight to its fourfold counterparts

And she, she simply floats past, suspended

Within the folds of time’s velvet cloak, my fingers

Able to touch only the foam left in her wake

- tired spaces

the people come, their voices fade off into

Past, and still these empty holes in space

reside to be refilled by other minds,

unawares of any value attached to themselves,

layers of emotion permeating molecules of air

a family portrait was taken here, the

last reminder of a grandmother’s legacy.

a quiet young boy of 14 kissed a

quiet young girl of 14, for the first time, here.

a mother distraught, abandoned, alone,

took the first step into darkness, here, forever.

a woman’s gasping breaths as one becomes

two, here, upon hardwood floors, Life began.

and still these empty vestiges of the

Past Tense float without form or scent

within the unencumbered void of space’s Time

- Train Ride

I didn’t want you to leave. We walked

So quickly to catch the train. I had

Promised to accompany you as far as I could,

Into Philadelphia. The rest would be yours

To travel alone, in silence. Sitting in

Disbelief on a bench smoldering with

The residue of a thousand memories.

Trying to capture your scent, that it

Might linger with me. Watching you,

Unawares, as you are taken from me.

Too many glass panes have separated

Us, there have been too many

Departures. I know you understand

This silence, my incomprehension.

- uncertain fires

the sun falls deeper

into its pool of uncertain fires:

igniting, awakening the spirits

of ash and decay. how can we

bear the weight of this fire,

stand fast before its inhumanity?

does it reflect our silent

turbulence, as we quietly

burn away our spirits; implode?

- violet eyes

i see myself trapped within your eyes ablaze

with violet passions, overpowering my flimsy attempts to flee

your heart’s eyes burn white as snow

veiled within the deepest, lightest, purple

within, my struggle continues intensified by your flame

i yearn but to free myself, encaged by my own loves

i stand broken before them

- Windswept

Walking through rain is the closest thing

To flying. As wind whips the body

And the heavens collapse downward,

Closing the eyes is enough to unanchor

The feet from their landed harbor.

–

Windswept,

I am the cracked and bloody plains.

You may call to me from your oasis,

A mere fragment of my sanity which I clutch now for safety.

Only out of fear, you must know, am I drawn to you,

The damned have few resources when in need.

Underneath my hostile soil,

Scorched dry from eternities of drought and fire,

There may yet be someone worth your salvation.

If, in time, you come upon this, my

Naked soul, may you know the pain your life has created.

–

I cannot convince my mind to abandon you.

If I only understood the way by which

You intoxicate. The way you force yourself, uninvited,

Into my precious mundane. You have

No place there. Your body intrudes and interrupts,

Quietly amassing power. No crescendo can

Be complete without its release and return to silence;

All that you have built within me is but

A harbinger of the destruction you must ultimately unleash.

I can only pretend to brace myself
For the pain I know you carry toward me.

–

I implore the heavens,

Call down your thunder upon me,

I would but yield.

I will soften before your storms, curving

Into the mightiest gales, opening myself to the rains.

I will let you pour into me, define me,

Become me.

- words

i do not

use words

to bring me close to life,

exactly the opposite.

words are the Shadow,

they are the razor-thin pane

separating

the world from

my world.

words do not clarify, they do

not explain, they do

not illuminate. words

confuse, they entangle, they defame

the grand tapestry.

what words could ever express

the simplest beauties:

a clear lake, noonday sun, lovers’ kiss.

adjectives stand, drooped in shame,

impotent in the face of such

wonders, such clear mystery.

words protect us from

experience, they isolate

from any understanding.

they prevent communication.

but words…

words are all i have.

all i know.

my pen is

my paintbrush

my translator

my vision (once-removed)

this pen and

these words, born

of only my mind, heart,

soul,

are the only manifestations

of the indelible sparks behind

- You are to me

{ i }

You are the pen with which I write these and countless other words

My journals, my poetry, my thought carried forth

As you wait for my mind to craft the perfect phrase

That would sit hidden in my heart without you

As you bring my buried psyche to the surface of a page

And allow my eyes to see

{ ii }

You are a well-read novel upon my faux-wood bookshelf

Always a comfort late at night when my mind refuses to submit and yield to sleep

You are there, patiently waiting, with painted cover concealing

Five hundred pages of mystery, wonder, anger, and romance

For the soft touch of my index finger as it glides from page to page

Setting my mind at ease, as it is welcomed into yours

{ iii }

You are a pair of headphones

Tiny, gold-plaited prong plugged into the recesses of my heart

Somehow, through thin plastic-coated copper wire

You whisper my heart into my waiting ear

Staving off the loneliness and the menacing silence

With gentle words, born in my heart and delivered through yours

{ iv }

You are the small radiator in the back of my bedroom

Permissive of the summer’s unyielding warmth

But always waiting there, for the harsher days of winder

When my body, violated by winter’s breath of ice

May find solace and comfort in your heat

As you fill my room with life and love

{ v }

You are the small black stereo resting on my dresser

Bringing a world of music, infinite in variety,

Into my humble, white, otherwise silent bedroom

Whenever I cannot bear the moments alone,

Searching out simple comforts in a complex world

You are with me, soothing my soul with your melodies

{ vi }

You are my laminated driver’s license

For suddenly, with you in hand, borders shatter

And I am catapulted about, freely and capriciously.

Racing with you down life’s many open highways,

Or meandering down the back roads of my hometown,

My world has grown, energized, matured, through you

{ vii }

You are my violin

Together we dance, each toying with the other,

While I struggle to transform sterile black dots into

A gorgeous melody, you demand emotion, spirit, life,

From inside your auburn shell fly forth my passions,

And, in time, true music

{ viii }

You are my favorite record

Somehow, someone, somewhere, put together a mix

Of twelve completely different songs, all of which I adore,

Not any one for the others, but each as their own composition,

A perfect blend, of love and anger, pain and pleasure

Converging in perfect harmony with my soul

{ ix }

You are a droplet of water

For some mysterious reason, you meld to anything for me,

Reshaping yourself to better suit my disposition,

And, if touched, clinging to my finger,

Until you slowly merge with my skin, nestled inside me,

Becoming part of all that sustains me.

{ x }

You are a two-dollar bill

A most rare find, never used for common things

Far more precious than the printed number in the corner

You are saved, kept treasured, cherished

Not for your value, nor for what you could bring

But because you are special, matchless, and mine.