The Second Wind

There is a place I have
seen, between
waking and sleeping;
you are not just aviary
or some giant cat, you are
hunter and prey, both.
fielding sling shots and
diving for pressed apolitical
sparrows; the white sage is
female, it flowers under
the weight and affection of
much good scorching, the
gaze or fingers
like rays, holiness of a wholly
different stripe. The barrels
copper, and iron ensconcing with
the aging liquid of luring
conversations, and ink
from pens, as I watch, their kiss,
the tattoo on the page.

I fear and crave for the
feelings that slither
out, that swell and crash and
break like vases against walls,
like waves on shoreline, there is
(a question)
breaking, breaking (where
are you taking me?)

I do not pretend
to know my destiny
I have faith in
happenstance and fate.
I couldn't foresee your
hungover fretful stare, the
look that finds me over and again
speechless, senseless so
defenseless that I can only
raise my hands, skinning
rabbits, to the pink,
to the death.

silly wind. You can

blow and writhe.
but my fire does not perch
or thrive on your usual and common
oxygen. see, my flame sparks
sears its promise from
the inside of your words,
my mouth, my chest in halves
this ribbon of ribcage, the bones
that are simple and silent, the
repeating thrills like
flying dreams, I dig
deep.

the crackle of sapphires, spherical
shaped sorrows. I will only
borrow your hands, your tongue
to teach me new languages, ghosting
into draughts of inky free
flowing if cumbersome
passions. like paper
I am thin, and burn
too quick, aloft in the second
winds. where
the grasses shimmy under
the weight of their Talmudic angels.
they whistle, when split between
thumbs, in the same way
I slip between yours.

This wondrous sun, the son
of my liquid, parasol perihelion
summer. It was barely spring
yesterday. still too early not
to expect blizzards.

I am good. I have always tried
to be, as good as I
could but there are always
soliloquies and rupturings.
like you never see sleep
coming; it is just all of a sudden
upon you. like you at the
door bell, folding two-thirds
of my country into your back
pocket like a road map.
those are my hills, my alleys
my side streets, all my
thorough fares. we have so much
and yet nothing in common,
not even the route, or how
we got here. all impishly,
(im) possible; delirious, decadent
and unquenchable. never
one for violence, I
wonder how best I
might benefit from being
hurt by you. Rain you see
from a distance, look like
watercolor paintings, those
experimental elementals:
wet on wet, descending.

will it get to the point? a sharpness,
an edge - will I bleed? will
poetry ever be
just a something that we can say
"yeah," to - will it ever become
just something we do, in
the dark corners still looking
still panning for our fool's gold
like blackened truth? There
is a power in really
looking, in being really
seen. So bearded
or shorn, there is a mariner's
look about you, or in your
eyes. Oh, what siren wasted
you? You look as though
you've been lost at sea
for years.

 

Reviews

[Emily B]

Holy S**t!!! You just went to the top of the list. Well, to the top two or three poets on this site, in my estimation. There is such a huge difference in those folks that like to 'write poetry' and honest to god poets. I'm glad I wandered by . . .