coloring inside the lines is impossibly bleak,
with a hissing noise
atomic locomotive
rounds the bend,
extrasensory perception is not
a mindless gift,
it's a train station in the clouds,
tracking all my starting points to you,
nothing in the middle,
nothing at the end.

you leave in opera
with secrets and grievances
under the radar,
and your ready-made
wings catch in the power lines,
you're coiling like smoke
in the arches of my cathedral,
a sense of elegant decay
while sweeping up the debris,
committing arson
with the paraffin of my temporal lobe.

yesterday's fairground waltzes,
ghosted lullabies,
and woodland hymnals,
set in a context not of
resolution and closure,
but of contradiction and assimilation,
break the bond,
away they float on purveyor belts,
one too many molecules,
one too many departures,
always on the surface of everything,
nothing in the middle,
nothing at the end.

~
The name on my lips
is a prophecy

An unsustainable breath of life

It sparks revolutions
both for and against

To say it is to pray it
in a word, a phrase, a life sentence

And it lies scattered on the beach

Put your ear to a seashell
and listen

Listen for the sound of terrible canyons of static

Of plastic birds
decomposing trees

Things we lost in the fire

Listen for the starvation tapes

For the voice of people who eat darkness
and make big fires out every little syllable

Listen for the work of reformatting spiders
spinning social webs to burden and ensnare
naïve reckless hearts

Listen for the heartless aftermath
and the building blocks of sheer madness

Listen for the sound of weeping
at the memory of peace
~

But,
For those of you
who has no clue
Love is not found on February 14
Love is found in John 3:16.
It’s in every single breath
you’ve taken.
You should be grateful that
It is free!