Intersect

The love songs sing
themselves, through empty
hills where our spirits rush
headlong into ether

A pair of salted dreams
shaking sand from
our skin, our hair
the ocean of ache
when you leave
again

The desperate moon
long casting full shadows
on the kisses we plant
all over the skin like a garden
fresh dirt and flower scent

I'm alone when i think of you most
gathered in clouds and humidity
hungry for the heat of you, the
gentle rocking of your heartbeat
teaching me new rhythms

A begged for barter, love for more love⁹
hours in tethered togetherness
spiderweb filaments warm like breath
grieve the summer as leaves gather
around our restless feet

Two winding roads
intersecting over and over
dots of spoken light, leftover
star shine, laying down memory
markers, still singing old songs
a teaching, tantalizing tempo

teased into a history.

Tipping the Scales

Gavel me to order
the jury's been picked like
old fruit unvined, a 2 finger solution
stronger than the mind

Blessed as a lamb
sutured with Sun
a New Year bloodletting
born ugly as oil

Crack my skull
where the bones meet most
i’m eggshell thin
and black with ash
yet suckling hard
on falling leaves
and the inside of God's wrists

Don't call me vampire
don't wear me like a mask
don't disease me
into doctoring your freshest wounds
with salt again

a leech-learned lesson
leaning against my
better judgment
a spark at the gas pump
and the whole thing may blow

Arcane agitation will come
polishing stones
and clearing our names
all the sonnets of a sentinel
rusting in smoke-filled rain

the priest wears judge robes tonight

hands me down
hand-me-downs

a janky justice
made wholer than hell

I drew prison bars all over my arms
before I knew
what keys could be
warm blooded enough
to know the difference
between a crime and
a circumstance

clamp down each jaw
that winces when wondering
which of us will leave first
die first
be wrong first

call your witnesses
those wolves & witches
that spray your name
slobbered and slick
to say some songs
supposed to sell
the best brands of innocence
to the least of us

as if I object
in silent measures
every beat a rest
every word a moaned mirage
 a dreamdust tongue-clung,
undone homespun
enigmas making mockery
of boring sorcery

a sustained claim
columned and insane
envisions us all
blinded with shame
all the men of means
rebuilding me
from old movie scenes
and their own worst dreams

Deliberately describe how
the night breaks down
around you
when skin deems sin endearing
when screams don't mean
what you think they mean

the stepping stones
become the sentence
stolen from poets of
prescient  Pompei
staring through frozen eyelids
into a split screen future history
we kept looking back
too hard to ever see

without fail
without bail

I'm setting myself free

The Albatross

You,

a bent bird

hung like shame

around my neck

As I thirsted, drowned

everywhere, afraid

to drink at the well

of plenty

Your milk and honey

tainted with reasons

a new taste full of

old curses

The drops of dew

dancing on the tongue

hot oil in the pan,

skipping, jumping,

spitting out secrets

I thought I was an emperor

without any clothes

or fabric or thread

or knowledge

of how to breathe

underwater

Some slippery slope

we slid down, extinction

the only word we were

afraid of

before we learned

gravity

wisdom more ancient

than men are made of

before shackles or sin

built in like soaring feathers

fixed to fragile skin

I watched you call me names

more humane than necessary

when you learned how hollow

our bones were, how emptiness

is needed for flight

as if years alone would find me

as if i wanted to be found,

pinned down

left to learn of longitude

from memories of maps

and scars

The innocence of prison guards

the names we gave to other people's pain

diving ocean winter white

a haunted wave of what comes next

I gave you more than clouds and arrows

loved you more than air's best breath

you've known me now

for years on end

salt and sand and sea and land

a black stone around my neck

so long I couldn't

live without it

soul shaking free

from shackles and stares

soft sacred smoke

rising through wind

the hatching sound

singing ashes to sleep

You, a bent bird

a fossil, a dream of regret

angry at the seams

too heavy for arms

in love with height

too sad for climbing

As I rhymed your name

with every season

I was full of shipwrecks

and notes in bottles

written by hands

foreign and proud

Water, water

spelled in palms

too small to hold onto

these relics of tentacles

these mismatched missions

we made with our tongue

your land of plenty

Polluted with progeny

Plucked from the shores

of other men's missing

in action or maybe

just laying down dead

the last of us spread

out on the table

a feast for the senses

a meal fit for kings

the throne rooms

gone empty, a crown without

glory in a kingdom of

clowns

I thought I was

a fisherman

pull8ng up dark dampness

others people's honesty

laced with salt and brine

still sliding down slopes

I slicked up myself, extinction

the only word

we knew

in sign language

before we learned

surrender

and coming undone

we named all the animals

so we'd never get lonely

and that's how they found us

when the day finally came

You, a bent bird

hung like a medal

a badge of bravery

around my

new neck.

Desert Nights

As if heat could be

whispered, your mouth came close and

told secrets to special places

inside me, left melting dreams

of candy and catastrophes of

nights alone

when noone wanted to be

And heat is a verb

in this city, wrapped in

sin and sleepless nights

the days unravel in our chests

we smile ourselves to sleep

when we can

Knowing heat is coming to

claim more than our hearts and

flesh

this time, digging deep into our pockets,

our memories, our most prized

possessings made mirage,

made flash flood

Breathless names, heat on the lips

ways we murmur soaking in sunrise

taking pictures of the sparks

stitched between our bodies

in the dark, some newfound philosophy

of hungry beginnings, craving

that old feeling of satiated summer

slipping into September

While the heat fever dreams still

softly throb in kisses and leave me

sudden, warm and waiting

in embers and coals, to fall

back into your arms, a new

way of coming home.

Coyote

There's an ebb and flow

To this life, the veins know it

The pushing forward

The back splash

The moment of silence at the edge

Of the pendulum swing

I have loved youth and beauty

Even when they failed or

Especially when the failed and

I have loved your becoming and undoing

The saying of the feeling

The feeling of the knowing

The saying without saying

The going without going

Let me feel you here

In this song, a pulse a star might sing

To space, that deaf emptiness

Sucking at the edge of every last

Pendulum swing

Then cover the clocks and ebb

Further than you knew there was

Into yourself

Bring back every treasure you can find

However broken, however many have called worthless, we have learned the art of polish, kintsugi spilling golden light to swallow every crevice of pain

Erasing all shame

I've got 4 chambers full of favors

Blown like dandelion blessings in the rain, come make every moon so full we can't stand it

And howl with me again