homeless

I know how people become homeless
Severed lines once well grounded
Friends, family disintegrate in a wash of resentment
Slipped footholds to an abyss of unknown
Where needs slow into wants
I thought I had it
I thought I'd make it
Each penny to someone else for something gone
I know
How people become homeless
Collapsed foundation, the roof falls in
Cutting every piece away in ordered priorities
Letting love go ...it's too expensive
No time to the bottom of the penny jar
Closer to alone finds a new level
Of just what we'll take
I know how people become homeless
I'd rather waste away than have you see
What's become of me
All that's left is dirt
And words

cliche of flowers

Glowed light within
Deep inside
Plastered opaque white
Bright tiny red
Supernova expanse
¤
Pinpoint shine
Broken through steel
Skeleton under stretched skin
This bloom
Beating in atoms
¤
Pushed by fire
Self-ignited arson and iron
You breathe in
My every thought
Closer than feeling
¤
Shaping something
From nothing
My emptied space
Filling, filled, wanting
You
¤
The cliche of flowers
My bloomed affection
Like brightening flames
From candles to wildfire
From like to Love

singularity

I think
Post human
Source code
Intelligence
Super
Intelligence
Transcendence
Unlimited
Smoke and flamed
Event horizon
Sucked and
Created
Spun black
Tech chip
In dust
Death
My new drug
A zombie
Delicacy

we met

I remember
when I could
string words
like glass beads
for your neck

I remember
when my words
meant so much more
than scratches
on burnt skin

I remember
when I turned heads
with a thought
of blue
words

I remember
when your skin
was made of words
charcoal written
in gray lust

I remember
when I loved you
with words
before
our skin met

flowers

Tranced
Spun circles
Square of salt
Balanced
At the tip of her tongue
Circus trick
Distracted
Oozing truth
Underskin injected
Fought
And fight alike
Winter to winter
Licked
Sweet survival
Of flowers
Tranced

wind

Single eyelash
On my finger tip
Blowing it away
To infinity
With a wish
¤
Lost in weeds
And dirt
My wish
History mixed
In rubbish unmattered
¤
His zephyr
Picks me up
Drifted on southern drafts
Tiny surface scratched
Love
¤
Eyes wide open
Unfringed
Felt wind
To be taken
In my own infinity

our box

Lying in the grass
Backyard tall
The very dirt
I thought
I'd be buried
¤
In pieces
We spell
*L*O*V*E*
In outlines
Of stars
¤
Circle of moon
Holds our single silhouette
Dressed in silver light
We live, breathe
In our box

dried leaves

Rocked wood
Worn through polish
To bare
His baby sleep
Of old men
¤
Window sat
Hunched over bones
Swallowing another shot
Whisky stained night
Slurs into dawn
¤
Whiling away
The life he grew into
Freight train passenger
Thundered boxcar
Building fires
¤
He wakes
Another day
On rails of the long haul
Ever closer
To familiar sameness
¤
The collected yellow
Of dried leaves
His brittle bones
Still
In motion of spun earth

still here

I left my soul in a poem
Washed clean in the showers of spring
The almost-year that's passed
And I'm still here
I left my heart in a thousand poems
Butchered, spackled and torn
A centuries-old connection
And I'm still here
I leave my love in single words
Deleted by winter's cold
As numbers flick by, one at a time
And I'm still here

held

New moon dark
Held in night's stillness
Feeling your heart beat
Against my back
Your breath in my ear
Soft words like stars
Burning up as they fall
The curve of the earth
Rolls with my hips
To foothills and mountain tops
Arm over my waist
Embracing the unknown
Clouds of dreams
Wash us away
Until the sun rises
Over our curled up
Labyrinth
We sleep
Like quiet waves
After a solar storm

your night

I love your night
And where it came from
The soft insanities
Living in the dark
Shadows and silhouettes
That follow you
Roam my fantasies
I love your history
Of ghosts across plains
In musty old castles
Lurking on covered bridges
I love your violence
Inside
Spinning like a worn eddy
In a river of thought
Never a fist
But when you sleep
You wrestle your demons
Raging for justice
I love your struggle
For freedom
A sense of independence
Rebirth
I want to give it to you
All of it
But the journey
Is your own

she danced

he stitched together
a fire
inside her
the colors
of her heart
¤
and she danced
sky clad
giving herself
to the moon
meadow's scent
luring him closer
¤
and she danced
in dimly lit night
alone
with the moon
¤
and she danced
to make it rain
she got
the moon
to shower her
with love
and star dust
¤
and she laid back
looking at the sky
to count stars
as the moon
kissed her lips

left

Seduction
My fingers
You imagine
Dragging across your skin
These lips against yours
Exchanged breath
Slow mingling of thought
Braiding of limbs
All my words
Steeped in Love
Dredged up
From a churning sea
Filling your vacant spots
Left by sirens
Intensity
Like a drug
Melting you
Forging you
Into something
Tempered
Giving you strength
To move on
Passing through me
Practice poet
Gateway to a horizon
Not mine
In a slow burn

without words

I still have your birthday gift
The jellyfish across my wall
The paint is dry, the gloss shines
You're still with me, you know
In the back of my mind
Seeing you in motion, I know you
I should exorcise that demon
But this is my long haul
Still without a word to share
I put them in a box for you
You, who knows me best
Maybe you can open it later
When I give you your birthday gift

reluctant invisibility

My invisibility
Is apparent

Knots in wood
Eddies in churned waters
Blacks in eyes

Voyeuristic tendencies
Watching life
From cornered shadows

I was a silhouette
Once
Before broken hearts
Scarred skin
And sleepless nights

Raging fires
Drop forests
Ashen landscapes
Footprints like snow
Even the Phoenix is gone

Raging fires
Steam out oceans
Flapping sea life
Gasped asphyxiation
Even Neptune left

Raging fires
Blinding me
Photo realistic images
Plastered the darkness
Even I can't see

Widening irises
Stored in back pockets
In invisible
Existence
Stolen daylight

the sun

Opened up
Exposed
Time and again
The glare of the sun
Melts me in
Hot light
This skin
Scarred and bruised
I keep going
Footprints behind
Prove to me
I'm still moving
Into night
Solitude of dark
Growing shadows
Keep me company
Dancing words
Across my graves
I'll venture into
The sun
When I'm strong
Again

bindings

I couldn't help
But to fall
Into your unknown
Your every word
A swung mattox
Chipping back
Castle walls
How were you to know
Bricks tumbled
Splashing into an ocean
No longer mine
You say
Space and intensity
To blame
I say
Rose petal fragility
Is my terrible weakness
¤
Swimming
In your unknown
Grasping at words
Dismantling
Syllable and meaning
Separating letters
I look for me
In you
How are you to know
I tell you too much
Not enough
Looking for just right
You say
I'm in there
With the rest
I say
I like you, I'm
Cracked open like an egg
¤
I'm standing in
A black hole
Nearly lost
Timeless pressures
Swallowed with the
Everything of you
Spinning in shined
Brilliance of you
Flesh and bone
Beautiful flaws
I know you're not
Just bindings and words
Crushed pulp and ink
You are
The warmth of sun
Danced twilight through trees
I am
One of many
Holding a candle [out] to you

old rusted armor

Each piece of armor
Off
Slow succession
Now
Schlepping backwards
Metal dragged
Behind me
This arduous task
Steel
Over the shoulder
Steel
Chest plate
Gauntlets
Why did I take this off?
The helmet
Particularly heavy
In this rain
Steel
Legs and feet
Not even polished
Old rusted armor
I stripped this tin
Thinking my heart
Would be okay
This time
Tossing the cage
To wind
Almost blowing away
Clanging of my dressing
Wakes the neighbors
Can't heartbreak
Ever be silent

my misunderstanding

I misunderstood you,
I thought you said...
¤
Life's too short
To feel like this
To feel
It's the everything
And nothing
¤
I solicit
With all the words
Possessed
Cast to distance
Like star light
¤
I'm left
In this well
Each grappled toss
Revealing more
Unbearable feelings
¤
My field is vast
Feet buried
Seeing through weeds
Flowers
Too far away
¤
My heart
Stuck on one beat
Then two
Blood
Fills my head
¤
Swallowed
By sunlight
My gray light
Finds its place
Touching time and tide
¤
I act out
As me
Hoping that's enough
To hold on
To what is there
¤
...I misunderstood,
I just keep saying stuff

I am art

Brushes
Sweep Dry
Wet canvas
Monochromatic
Color spike
Remote Prosperity
Forgotten
Local depravity
Chipped stone
Finds form
In striation
The stab of grief
Tenderness
All for display
For unknown masses