Psalm 4

Some semblance of skin was
rifted, who knows how it
broke so well?

A former tree became a reveler,
immersed in bloody drink,
staggered about and came to rest upright.

A noisy party ensued at its base,
at which I stayed for quite some time,
And my eyes finally fell upon
a mourner at torn feet.

There he is,
my savior-god,
a crimson pulp of man.

Plea

A small creature
runs around like
little poisons feebly
coursing veins of mine:

Love,

How do I
swear by it

Answer me,

can I live
in your dream?

Element

What seer,
what sorceress
are you,
that this
should come
to pass
in me,

My soul
becomes fire

My skin
becomes water

to gradually
reveal how
it is
that I
love.

The Varied Heir - A Response

and we live____in spirit___might
__perhaps among____saints within saints
God____is good__in stone music
__waving staves____in tree stems.
White crescents___shimmer so wildly,__reflected
__in language___that gives us____no excuse
thread in us___to sow such
lengths of light___in us
& doesn't it___lay foundations__(why question)
___& doesn't it____love.

The Varied Heir - A Response

and we live in spirit might
perhaps among saints within saints
God is good in stone music
waving staves in tree stems.
White crescents shimmer so wildly, reflected
in language that gives us no excuse
thread in us to sow such
lengths of light in us
& doesn't it lay foundations (why question)
& doesn't it love.

Riddle

Likeness of limbs,
moss-laden, with twisting
branches into fingers.

Caress the wind,
O my soul,

Length of me:
hardened magma.
What will you (Can you?)
do to the truth?

My roots do not have shape,
They flow, fly,
flee the mountainside,
and rest in deep places.

Sometimes I fall asleep,

And what a fickle
little heart.

Narrative

A lonely leopard held
my life upon its head,

His wife, the seldom
angry waterfowl, carefully
instructed me to let
him rest three times a day
"He won't tell you when
he's tired, such silliness
in men."

Then,
An feathery voice
in whispers said,
"This way,"
and led us westward
through the woods
we'd gone through
ten times, ten!

Overhead the bird
who whispered
chirped departure,
flew back east,
and had led us
to a burial ground.

One grave stood
so high.

In it inscribed,
was this:

We all were born,
We all will die,
The old were children once,
The lives we lived
grow down, alas,
and return unto the dust.

Rather Oddities

1.
What is a knot
and how
does it happen
unintentionally

in wires and
hoses and yo-yo
strings?

How does it stay there
for such a long time

and grow stiff
like we do when
we get old?

How does it keep
sailors alive
and sailing?

When does it die?

What do we do
when we become tied
into complexities

like knots?

2.
What are you
frail balloon
that you should
curve

like a lover's body

You are no sphere
yet imperfect in
this
world.

Why do you fall,
like eyes on
beauty?

Where are you going?

How
do you
fly?

3.
Giraffes walk right when
they emerge from their mother,
so covered in birth.

Rather Oddities

1.
What is a knot
and how
does it happen
unintentionally

in wires and
hoses and yo-yo
strings?

How does it stay there
for such a long time

and grow stiff
like we do when
we get old?

How does it keep
sailors alive
and sailing?

When does it die?

What do we do
when we become tied
into complexities

like knots?

2.

Memoirs - Pompeii

Memoirs - Vesuvio

Indifferent terrain,
so clearly dark,
Some siren-haze's tantalizing fingers
caress the ground.

Indifferent slope,
so treacherously steep,
Some hermit tree makes bitter love
to former molten rock, now soil.

Indifferent apex,
so still for such a power,
the pumice choirs sing its praises
and turn their eyes to see

Indifferent me.

A Game of Chess

Forward pawn
and castled king,
can't you know?

Knights in L-shapes,
Urban Dictionary, felching,
Oral sex, facing mortality,
It thrills me when you swear.

Rooks go sideways,
(We'll probably love alcohol)

Bishops stay on one color,
We talk of Calvin, and the will of God.

The versatile queen,
You do know,
how are you now so calm,
so well disguised?
It's just like it was that day
shortly before graduation.
"Checkmate," you might have said,
both then and now.

And I, moving one space at a time,
became nauseated by the bench swing
and talk of former love.
How much can I wish I'd kissed you?
I folded so long ago.

Theme and Variations

When mine eyes did fall upon yours
and yours intersected mine,
their voice-light shed upon the space
between them script divine,

when first I spoke in tones as tense
as taut-lined bow strings wound, (incensing
lives like mine is no small task, you trust)
from thee did emanate yet such a blessed sound.

When fingers wrapped around mine and
my skin upon your coolness wept some,
shocked, so thrilled at touch again, so living,
so mad my soul with psalm and wings,
so mended me, so full of home and giving balm.

And if my lips should touch yours, perhaps love,
and silently my all 'midst said revealed,
no doubt, that silence be the allness 'tween us said
and silence need be all between us sealed.