Contemplating
Cutting Strings
You were my spirit child,
You were an oasis of green mystery.
Shadow dancer, you held me close,
Your hands caressing me.
You were my familiar stranger,
You were a hard cold chill.
Slouching bermuda, you didnt know my name,
Forgetting all of me.
You were my free escape,
You were the ripe forbidden fruit.
Half-lover, you indulged me,
Only enough to keep me near.
You were my spirit child,
You were the early spring.
Moon driver, you couldnt sleep,
But what about
what about
me?
Fire
It didn't rain today.
And after letter after endless letter
and ceaseless smoldering disillusionment,
My singed words catch aflame.
For even if this fire continues,
Insisting on fate and destiny,
I can see you shimmer in the heat,
Then turn and walk away.
In the smoke that fogs my vision:
You, now aged and wrinkled, Spotted,
With eyes of pea-soup and milky haze,
Turned to rose-petals and ashes, drifted away.
There were no clouds today.
And after each crackling click of time,
I cannot know just what to say
To end this fire or be consumed by flames.
One Step Forward and One Step Back
He always called me his librarian
and turned towards me
stepping back away.
I could see him leaving
not wanting to let go
he couldn't seem to not call me.
When he ignored me for a pie
i picked up my chair and walked away
he followed (with the pie).
Just friends we are of course
never mind the kisses and stuff
he asks me why i do what i do
so i pretend to not know
and he smiles stepping back
out of the embrace that made me laugh.
I never say very much anyway
he drives out the curves in the road
and i buckle my safety belt and lean back.
Thats really how it should be
no need to go jumping out another window
he yells he's a jerk and sings to his burrito.
Never mind that taunting voice
chasing me around the mall
yelling that i love him.
Life goes on and i have only one tear left
i'm not going to be the brave one
one step forward and one step back.
Valley of Death
Those desert-hot nights,
The window open,
A crane-fly sticking itself to the screen.
Wondering if you might be awake.
Sitting in the kitchen chair starring,
(At nothing, of course.)
My legs in you lap,
While you look at the morning paper.
Weekends with my weary collapses,
Hot flagstones beneath my wilted body;
Is this what I dreamed for?
Your cool hand on my face.
For it will only get better, right?
And I can only grow weaker.
Perhaps I should die for causing you pain,
The empty house, unsatisfied doorways.
But I love you and will protect you,
(Holding your head in my lap.)
But I need you to need me,
Like my body is in wanting of a cool bath.
You draw it for me with scented candles,
And sit and hold me while I weep.
Oh! To be careless would be splendid,
But to be with you is heaven.
Wailing Rind
You I brick inside my wailing rind,
and sand I run my fingers through,
your hair of curly brown.
You kept pieces of me on dusty shelves,
in jars of change and cranial holes
and my love with frayed, stiff edges,
Thrown so gently on the floor.
How could I ask you to love me anyway?
My emotional rhythmic impotence
and deafening esoteric eccentricity;
I could never say what it was that I meant.
That places you in my wailing rind,
and you, I brick in;
my memories, my foolishness.
