Under dapplespot boughs, where
Crunch 'neath feet, the dry decay:
Mold and leaf, eater so eaten

This hall, woven of wood,
Is the kept secret, wherein green
knights clash sunstruck swords

As lopped limbs grow anew,
Sprung from moldearth to
Spring in skyward birth

This woodleaf queen
With roseflare cheeks
and frostbite lips

But between are eyes:
Riots of green sun
Dances of fickle leaf

Their reign is of flit and flicker
Eater so eaten
Here under dapplespot boughs

It's late and cold outside
The breeze has a chill
and it reminds me of you

Winters embrace
is fading into summer
open arms unfolding
inviting in

Enjoy the last vestiges
of winter wonderland
Effervescent translucent
otherworld kingdom

These stately still
halls of ice
Chill lightly rests
It's fingertips on everything
Alighting here and there
Bestowing some winter wonder
Everywhere

I want to walk
down these halls of winter
our cold fingers
entangled and intertwined
numb from cold
Winter branches woven
together

I want us to be numb
together
in the timeless heart of winter
forever

-Azrael Always James
© Copyright 2013

You brought home peaches today,
in a small woven basket that smelt like sunshine.
I told you I'd make peach cobbler with them.
I went to get the pie pan out but there was already cobbler there.

I turned to you confused and you
Smiled a sad smile
Took my hand and lead me to my rocking chair.
Told me that I looked beautiful today-
that you loved me.
I laughed a little laugh,
I'm sorry sir, you are kind, but we just met!
Again you smiled your sad smile,
took my left hand in yours,
We've been married for 46 years

You brought home peaches today,
in a small woven basket that smelt like sunshine.
I told you I'd make peach cobbler with them.
I went to get the pie pan out but there was already cobbler there.

The evening was awake full of history
wind pressing against warm skin
reminding us
that forgetting would be too long
and


we didn't have a sail
or a boat
or more importantly an anchor
to remove or ground us in this swelling sea


I looked over your head wishing for sunlight
so we could go back to yesterday and the day before

so that maybe we would have never yelled so loudly
on the train tracks
watching humanity tear itself apart
on each side of us

we got lost in that
we lost everything we said we never would
and now these buildings aren't our friends
and their structure is pushing us out like gates

and soon,
I'll become a stranger to another town
walking without your shadow underneath empty street lights
talking to the moon about things only you heard
about why I thought the world is ending
and how I planned on

surviving
(your hand helped the most)

tonight we said goodbye in tangled fists and heartbeats
tonight I shed away the secrecy of humming words I told you while you were sleeping
far away dreaming of me
I grabbed you like it was the last time, the way I always meant to hold you

tonight I sang to you in years
locked behind eyes you so swore chambered the sun
(on couches and floors)
watching you circle around me
like the earth
steady in your footsteps
in cold spring winds

waiting..

but Im already in Portland missing you
walking streets and counting trees I wish I could show you
because you're not here
where I think I need you

Im already reading your book about the sand
and imaging the way you smile in the desert

tickling scars you gave me on a bed
wasted wine and razor blades
(now twisted like metallic woven thread pink and past)

Lucky You ,I tongued my lips
(felt those)

parted teeth
(jesus christ)

that red rust

pain killing love
love killing pain
(circling)

fuck the way you made my thighs sweat

but,
your arms are tied around me now
and Im promising myself I won't forget
amongst the screaming silent trees

your heart is beating faster..


but,
rest assured..
'your emotions are heavy,
I'll keep them inside my chest'

"Bye", I said.
Over the phone, which was foolish.
You were entitled to more than that.
It was foolish to dwell on the inevitability of last days together.
For fifteen months I waited and doubted.  
A beautiful hummingbird on my finger.
You never flew off.
Even when coldly advised you to do so.
Even when I had little to feed you.
Mesmerized by you, you delicacy.
But damn it all, it's ended.
I shook you off my finger and stuck up the other.
Tonight we bed down miles apart.
Lonely alone, and lonely in company.
And our love burned, but stung me sorely.
A man never repaired and prepared.
Old love scars that didn't heal.
Always frightened and delirious.
Letting my wells run dry.
So much of me hopes you call for me in the morning.  
And come despite my cold heart and shoulder.
Reject my last word, my deadly three letters.
Persist as I resist.
Stopping only when we find our wings woven and our nest warm.

perhaps skin, also, yawns into horizon,
delicate like surface tension,
fetal like parenthesis.
the moonrise is woven from short-staple cotton
and thus yellows, accordingly.

enclosed: the face of disappointment is actually a series of small balloon explosions;
girl heart, eight inches wide,
lighter than atomic hydrogen.

“his eye was like a bloody opal
and his lips tasted like black suns, citrus…”

human absurdity comes in nitrogen and phosphorous:
a dog, a horse, a rat.

the sheets were coarse and she woke with a rash.

We are such opposites, you and I
Yet somehow we've woven ourselves into this web
You are a tsunami
Yet I am simply the ebb

Differences so evident, it's almost insulting
Your ink-stained arms push up against my bare, ivory chest
You are so clearly you
While I am only somewhat me, at best

So many places you've been
While I've been sitting here all the while
Circumstances should have told us both "No!"
But that word disappears completely as you smile

So much knowledge I've gained
While you don't bother with reading
You are always content with the simplest things
But I yearn immensely for things I'm not really needing

Your smoke-filled room meets my untouched lungs
Your devilish ways engulf my virgin essence
We can only meet briefly, and so rarely it feels
Your absence is like Christmas without presents

I snicker when you sigh, laugh when you cry
I'm through with rest, yet you sit as I stand
I lay myself down just as you rise
My ghostly form next to your harsh skin, perfectly tanned

Your breast was hollow once
Long before me and you, we, became us
But mine was overflowing with love
That the Heavens knew was meant for you, I undoubtedly trust

They, all of them out there, may not understand
Your roughness and ruggedness holding my soft and clean hands
But I do not care about their worries or remarks
Because we are separate people, but one in our hearts

All the pattern pieces were made with individual care,
Woven together, the journey through life women share,
But there remained some loose ends, unused threads.

They were the ones that did not get used,
Not part of the pattern, not fused, they refused,
To be set aside, they bided their time, knowing...

Just as the women had been brought together over a dire need,
With prayer, they assembled the quilt pieces knitted without greed,
No gossip filled the air, a sense of urgency to complete the work.

Each piece was attached to another, using the left-over threads,
The many became one community, tied together with the short threads,
The rejects now held the whole quilt together, instead,
Of being discarded.

It takes all in a community, to make one quilt, one banner, one voice,
One future, from patterned pieces to a hand full of loose threads.

Shhhhh...
the only sound I want to hear escape your lips
is your breath
amiss in the sweeping endless echo of this ocean
I enjoy the feeling my fragile body
pulled and pushed
in this distance between us
I easily wave away these subtle forces
in my motion in your tight direction
subtlety hides this force that could take either of us by storm
into dark submission
embrace this submission to your skin now
your thrashing heart now
your strong compassionate arms now
sharp rocks amass baby power granules
This is where my feet belong
Shivering in our humility
numb to all but our synchronized vibrations
rocking in our susceptibility
to the depth, the darkness, the knowledge that together, now know
it binds our arms, strongly woven
fragile are we are in each other now
but strong in our conviction
anything could take us now, at this moment
we haven’t any worries
what can fear do for us now?
In the way you fit in the swoop of my neck and shoulder
we are pierced together, forever in this moment
the moon as she witnesses
Perhaps she sees something that keeps her
we are at the bones of mercy, of her power
and your body carried flush against mine
You hold me as if I carry some smoldering deep power situated in me
You are so much stronger than me, its in your grip
in the way you hold unto me
in the battle from which you contain your powerful thumping heart
that speaks so little of my own nudity
in this current situation
like I save you somehow
that my presence heals your predicament
smother me in your predicament
so that I may truly feel at your side
carried in that small corner of your heart
breathe into me
your passions
my sheltered trust
your devotion
because while my body was not created to serve you
a small part of my being has been dedicated to you
silently,