It was White

  A white ...    A white ...    I’m dreaming of a curtain of snow
  
                                                         falling from her shoulders.
  
Snow crackling against the window. Snow shredded
  
                                           with gunfire. Red sky.
  
Ocean Vuong
Aubade with Burning City  
  
      There lay war.    Tyranny’s serial  
Killer... heat abroad  
  
The moon was white  
                        Degrees of yellow
  
    White lines laced with bliss ... much ado without implication
  
He ate the meat as if
  
A canine without teeth ... and she  
            
              tossed her smile carelessly  
  
She held a sparrow in the palm of her gentle  
  
               White... and trembling hand...  
  
   White and trembling
  
  
She ate a plum and let the juices run...
  
           Ran down her chin upturned ...  
run down it  
And dripped red juices to the floor....  
  
Let it drip                and he lapped like a dog  
  
As on airways nostalgia comforted  
         On all fours he licked red drops  
  
And once over  
Melancholic  
  
            He would forever be.  
  
Reduced to that taste....  
         orgasmically  
                     And in torture....  
his mind in torture
  
  
  
Wind whips the sparrow lost...  
she mourns her seat  
                                       Of an un gloved  
  
Pearl white hand
  
  
Un gloved and so delicate there....  
  
The morning makes it hard to build a nest

In your mind
And in your breath
Find me  
I beg of your impenetrable walls  
To crumble and come  
Down  
  
My God....
down and all around me..  
    
I'd love to hear you  
lying and next to me  
    
Make me a believer    
    
I might believe    
    
Pant my name right out loud  
In singular high  
And sweetness    
It might ease your tongue    
And stroke into it  
    
I know that I would....  
    
I wish that i could  
    
I would for you  
    
I would find that place in me  
Where my name    
On your tongue could reach  
Death's bed beaches  
And propel them to the shore  
Slamming waves  
Eroding rocks
and ungodly placement  
    
And over...  
Over, over  
    
Over.  
    
But a lifetime more than  
geology between us  
More than an ocean could stand  
without parting  
Much more than I had thought to  
place willingly    
    
Even still    
My longing turns readily    
And responds wildly    
To even the thought of it  
    
Asking more of the archer in me    
Than my pull can possibly bring  
I feel the need to draw the bow    
Intensely    
    
But Christ the intensity  
    
It is...  
Intense  
    
Too much    
Too far  
To pull that mark  
And unable to hit?    
    
Once more...  
    
I withdraw

Silent Bell

I cannot feel here at all
No touch in this space
No sight sound
Or ability to taste remorse
...
When the roaring stops
Done God deafening
And the sine qua non silence
The after the moment
Moment
Of a crushing vacuum of pause
Pre denouement
The infinity felt in the silence
There
...
before fate arrives sure footed
Black boot stomp
And fortunes imprint
...
So deep this track
How many have laid it
...
And here is mine
It shows my drag and limp
Curving artfully in the mud
To be shown and traced by hands of the living curious being
That would care to escape palmistry
Cut out the hustler
the convict
the grifter
...
As they stoop to find the lines and ways
That history arch’s and would bend their bright future
...
It would be a tragedy
They think
Finger curled to unsmiling face
To flatly increase a pensive face
...
And so the hum and swoop
Of approaching infamy
This heady swirl
And no sound to its definitely draining source
And no horn to sound an end
No violent or shocking alarm
To herald what will happen
And stick
...
To yellowed pages filled with flowery stroke
Script that burns my name into useful algorithm
Or other words
More apropos

The instrumental blows
Slow saxophone    
Accompanying my mood    
I tip the man with dip and shake    
    
Smoke and it's pillaring      
High and blue    
Like writhing tendrils    
Of the Medusa      
And her memories of when    
She was a beauty queen      
      
A thought occurs    
by tossed delivery    
However heavy my scrupulous resolve    
This kind of heaven is thick    
With indiscretion      
      
So one for my baby    
And one more for the road    
      
My bend of elbow      
Breeches slow slur    
My tongue takes on heaviness    
Ripe without pretense      
Formulation of rationale      
Dissolves    
      
My hands sticky      
With traces of me    
      
And my eye    
covers itself with hanging hood    
My view now comfortably obscured    
I am everything      
And I am nothing    
      
But hold on to this babygirl    
      
I am everything      
When not nothing    
      
The secrets of my skin    
Still feel beyond the numbing      
Goosefleshed and cold with fear    
Of the wide awake in darkness    
      
I am so afraid of the dark    
I have been made to exist    
under this neon light    
    
Somewhere inside it feels    
This heaven is not right    
My bliss is a traitor    
He might hang for these crimes    
    
And my soul    
She hurts    
My bridge is under fire    
The water boils    
    
And still I dip my toes    
    
Beyond the carnage and heat    
Still the sax man blows    
And lulls me    
But how I love this music    
I sink and I listen  
    
Until all around me shoosh  
Shoosh  
And ease into breathe  
Way to close for comfort  
So close to death
  
I raise my glass to my new companion
She stares with eyes
Of truth and beauty
their light I have never seen
nor hoped to
  
And still they shake me to my bones  
  
So much so and that ever after
The darkness has befriended me
And built me a home  
And kept my peace

It is dawn
  
I watch the dusty tilt and splinter
Of morning sun's soft emissions
I weave my fingers through them
And let them hold my need
  
My ache for the evenings before
when I bathed you  
And knew your body
And could smell your scent  
Strong and musky
where it was kept upon our bathroom shelf
  
My ache
she is strong
she remembers when
  
When comfort and care
And your arms were ever ready  
To pull around me
Wrapped carelessly  
  
Ghosts of you still wrap tight
  
You hold and squeeze  
And the twilight in that embrace
distorts the early sun
  
I feel torn
  
With the need to battle this obscurity
And with a shaking need  
to collect and keep it
  
My body urges me
It remembers when
  
So I often beg for it  
when it fades some
I had been crippled by my begging so
  
I believe it had crippled you as well
I must believe that to stay in this light
  
My posture dips
It remembers when  
  
I would get on my knees  
And would swallow you whole
My eyes on your desperate desire for release  
All the while
  
Now my eyes on this new day
Finding beauty on my fingertips
And pain in the memories that flutter it
  
My being wants to bend in that pain
It would feel natural
I think....
  
And i do again
  
But it would be a swallow
I could not choke
To watch your eye  
And it's ecstasy in release
  
A crushing blow  
It would keep me on my knees
  
so I rise
With this sun
And each day forward
To live and be gentle with it
To pray on these knees
I do not stay in this existence
In your evening  
And remembering
When
  
(I have known serenity in my stand. The next time I mean to keep it. That is my promise, to the next dawn and it's tilt again.)