Pastoral

Unknown photographer

Remember when I asked you to keep vigil?

Oh, the promises you made!

And oh, how you slept!

And… Oh, how you brought me

offerings in your quest for redemption!

But I have limned myself with

the thinness of every moment—

this one, and the next.

And I have stolen away into a mythology

that only I can understand.

Thoughts. Legends. Fantasies.

They endure.

As do the sepulchers of the dead.

Late at night, stillness coils through

my flesh, rousing every angle

of my being into attention.

Words are no longer necessary.

My mouth is round with vision.

The strawberries ripen

in the stirring of the wind.

I walk slowly.

Density and Divinity

Pelvis, Georgia O'Keeffe

There must be words to describe

these fractures in the frame of perfection.

You say, Fractures are not often

viewed in a beautiful light.

I say, Yes, but sometimes they are

just what we need.

Thinking back, I could’ve said, Sometimes, they are

just what I need…

To recognize and acknowledge that

perfect isn’t always desirable.

But, I didn’t say that.

And, I don’t want that moment back.

I write.

The words curve

like the sensuous lines

of a body at ease. I see them

for what they are. Words.

Then. I see them

as a body at ease. Limbs flowing

like ripples of sand that harden

when the tide sinks. The insolent arches.

The mottled pits. A transfiguration.

Real, or imagined?

Futile, this question!

We see what we choose to see.

We sit together and shoot stones at the stars.

Things could be worse, I suppose—the stars

could be shooting stones at us.

The sea gathers itself like a smock of intricate pleats.

The light dissipates like a raging mirage.

We cannot change this.

.

.

.

We can.

We will not change this.

I will not...

I will not change the flow of geography.

I will not break the order of the water.

I will not alter the falling shadows’ rest.

I will not stay the voice’s expression.

I lean into the collapsing day

and moan—my body embracing the dark.

I choose.

* * * * * * * * *

NOTE: My first poetry chapbook, From Darkness, Beatitudes, is available from Finishing Line Press.

Click here to order now!

Naiad

Photo,  Aaron Draper

An ancient dream,

if you will…

shoulders unarched

i walked into the water

paying no heed to the waves

giving no mind to the imminent storm

my spirit emptied of discernment

my core hollow of presentiment

pure as a newborn

whose gaze falls blue and unfiltered

i walked

i plunged

i bathed

in the cistern of secrecy

my body jarred and amplified by

the keen obscenity of this new unknown

unknown, that was, to anyone but me

sorceress! i called myself

a torrent of names i lashed

at my own eyes and cheeks

how long before the burden of truth

affixed itself to me?

how long before the self-drawn blood

stained the cold sand floor?

I’d like to shake the memory of that dream

like I shake my hair when I emerge

from the froth of the sea.

I’d like to wrest the reality of it

from this reality.

I’d like to…

but doing so would be 

a denial of self.

And who am I to deny me?

So many others have tried and failed.

I rest, instead,

fierce and flaming

inside this masted body,

a stirring yet unsung intermezzo­­—

an ivory circumference of byzantium patience.

* * * * * * * * *

NOTE: My first poetry chapbook, From Darkness, Beatitudes, is scheduled to be released June 2014 from Finishing Line Press.

Click here to order now!

Descent

Adam & Eve, Gustav Klimt

We sit on the green banks of the swelling river.

Every morning—like this one—a random

tree branch, its leaves kissed by the wind,

unspools its longing, shattering the sun

into asymmetric filaments of gold.

No one is here to see this;

it is ours alone.

What was it we used to say about broken light?

That it reveals itself as

orbs in flight, willowing

through the separating skies.

I recall our stunted conversation, our timid words,

emerging from the dance of breath and tongue with teeth.

I remember, too, your distant laughter, peeled from

your throat by the white heat of late July.

Have we known one another too long?

Oh, there is no escaping

this fugue of imagination!

You appear in me, and speak to me in tongues

once confined without pardon.

And what can I do but—as if for

the very first time—entrench myself

within the impermanence of you?

* * * * * * * * *

NOTE: My first poetry chapbook, From Darkness, Beatitudes, is available for pre-order from Finishing Line Press until April 25, 2014.

Click here to pre-order now!