novice

teach me to sing the song of your heart.
remove the shadow of your hand from my eyes
so I am lost in the the glare of everything.
let me find nothing and be home




.

dolce

you have been stealing
nectar from the honeysuckles
again. the white flowers are easy
prey under the ripening moon.
you are heavy with the night,
the musk of soil and crickets
song. your hands are soft with scent,
your lips are full, sweetened. I taste
your blessing, the sacrament
of the earth I bury myself in




.

no prisoners

savage beauties hunting, there is no bloodless trail but
I'd pay the tithe to color their lips, the violent
thrashing tide held in the throes of a dying language.
a one way ticket to the abattoir. I squeeze my
shattered limbs into their grasp, feel the fine
toothed terror ripping up my spine, my life splatters,
drained not a drop is wasted, a communion of claws
and meat. Intimacy and the final answered prayer 




. 

hesitate

I blink away the blood
thick anger, the bitter iron
coats my tongue, fingers
knife into my palms.
I look at you with an
ill-used clarity and know
why you hate me even
though you swear it is
that other word.
remembering the days
when I stole your heart
not your life




.

once

A locket of hair still bright with summer tied with a blue
ribbon. Polaroids overexposed, your dress an aurora
around your shadowed shape your hair laughing. Mixtapes
just because some songs have to be given and kept.
Postcards scribbled in the haste of some great adventure.


Rainy hours spent in the green vinyl back seat, we
glowed with the cherry of cigarettes, the warmth of the
stereo, and a paper bagged bottle. I was an easy escape
but not enough, you were waiting, passing time until
the departure gate opened up. We were already extinct
when a blazing August weakened into September, the
nights finally seem dark as if trees hold daylight until the
last leaf falls.


All my words were faded with the past, pale against your
new world, so I kept them to myself




.

blitzkrieg

bodies feed
create a hollow
a space to fill
this is not a ritual
this is war
the uncontrolled
chemistry
of consumption
tooth and nail
blood and bone
flesh into flesh
a lost singularity


engorged hunger
devouring
pearls of pleasure
a beast wallowing
guttural
ecstatic


wrapped in a silk
tent collapsed and free
in a chorus of breath




.

compliant

I run my fingers under your skin
opening your forearm like an envelope
the strings of tendons, veins, and arteries
exposed as a bloodless medical text.
I pull on the chords until
your hand closes on mine




.

overlap

there are days when the light
pushes into you, suffused, sufficient.
glowing in a room full of rain.
a grey that is almost blue a blue
that never leaves you a fugitive.


you are nervous when you hear
my bones move. this house
has settled into a fixed austerity
too poor to be called home.
you know I might mention a
change in the weather




.

three quarter parts

1
blunt force in stop motion
pickup truck bending
scrapping grinding sparks
fountain relentless diesel
electric demanding more


2
I could give you an olive
branch of the wing of a
dove. But what do I know
of love. I can only give you
what I have already stolen


3
my finger prints will fall
from your face, a season
will come without renewal.
the sky will never be this
color again




.

how to drown

there is never much vodka,
no sea and love is not option.
But if I drink enough I might
trip into the brown remains of the river




.

shadows

love crisscrosses us,
shadows forever collecting
under our skin, when we hide
in the light of another




.

a blue hour

sometimes the blood is loud enough
to hear over the left behind noise
of the street or a transistor radio
always shy of finding a frequency.
polarity changes during
the slow slide into darkness
and I am looking for things to do
with my fingers. cigarettes die
with a wasted breath of nicotine
and knuckles only pop once.
I give up when the stars begin to
fight through sodium vapour excess.
there is a nobility to twilight
or at least mercy. the squalid
emptiness filling with night




.

junky

hold me so tight
my bones ache
when you pull away.
deformed and maladjusted,
muscles twisting through
fractures. the unclenched
heart failing to understand,
tripping over its rhythm.
the systemic shock of release




.

salvation

watch my failing lungs,
each exhalation my rock bottom heart
sinks a little more.


whisper my name,
a single breath to sustain me,
another chance to sin



.

taut

you have lain bare amongst the raw
petals of your pain arranging them
into the lines of history.
the tributaries of a life-line
always pushing to now.
Razor blade smiles and the
slow parade of doubt's daily
crucifixion give the ink shape.


Surely there are moments of bright
feral joy but the demons don't remind
you and the heart has no hands
for such elusive prey.


You had no chance of ignorance
but sometimes momentary blindness
is good enough




.

Elysa

the waterfalls of my eyes will
never lie in silence, the music
of the night swimming. stars
hide the secrets of fragile hearts,
wishes held in trembling mouths.
Fireflies to be lost in the sky



painting by  Jel Ena

.

redemption

your fingers scar my skin, blood
rises pigmenting the trail of your touch.
an arid wild longing born in your breath
crawling through me, a ragged animal
scouring the emptiness
for prey. the brink born in desperation,
razor bladed stigmata rips away any
vestiges of the sacred. guttural and obscene
my eyes poor over you. sealed
in the destruction of your embrace, euphoric
I grasp at my blessed death




.

lines

my fingers trace along the lines of words,
the flesh of paper dimpled with punctuation
and letters, a fine black vein carrying
the ore of meaning and more. but
the parallels end, the memories of you
diverge from the hope of finding you here.
definitions fail as words are lost to distraction.
thoughts scatter, motes in the last sun
of the day. the pages blank in the night




.

haiku

the rain falls at night
hiding the face of the moon
the stars are quiet




.

ride

the miles of black top are strung out
between static and all night christian radio.
preacher man howls like a coyote.
high beams slide across the barren
shoulders of tumble weeds and yuccas.
jack rabbits play kamikaze
trying to sink this old battleship.
There's a .38 in the glove box lost among
the maps, looking for blood to spill.
a lullaby hides in the hum of the radials
and the night strokes my hair through
the cranked open window;
if I live long enough I'll sleep through my death




.

pitiless

In the swollen heat of August
hornets rattle their paper hearts
against window panes,
denying the refusal of the
sky to accept them.
Their desire burns them up,
finally curling into a knot.


An electric fan pushes the thick
air into the semblance of a breeze.
There is comfort in the white noise
of the oscillations but no
deception of coolness.


The hornets have not failed
at being hornets,


For all my cleverness I am still
trapped alone in these dank sheets




.

vigil

Make no offering, light no candle
I am as consumed as your missalette's
dog-eared faith. do not spend the
breath of beseechment into the hollow
of your palms. Instead raise the chalice
of my skull to your lips and murmur
your prayers. The sacrament of your lips
accepting my confession. receive my sin
and I will give flesh to yours. hide me
in the velvet warmth of your thighs.
that is heaven enough




.

last waltz

dance with me
in the dying night,
when the candles
have blown their final
breath and the music
a sigh nearing completion.
the gentle rocking of
our hearts entwined,
timed footsteps rooted
in the moment




.

why

why can I not have the small
of your back, the terminus of
graceful curves I would travel
to the column of your neck
where the hair begins to grow,
in short shy curls, near the soft
shell of your ear and the firm
architecture of your jaw,
a wonderland for fingers
to explore, a place of whispers
and secrets that lips are eager to tell




.