The good is the mirror of mercy upon the earth
forgiving as the sky forgives its clouds.
Yet when he turns away,
he returns to the silence from which he came.

No road reaches him except through the heart’s light.
And he who has never known that light
will wander forever among the shadows.

where the last coal of creation still glows.
If you reach in with moonlit fingers,
hunting for the soft vein of my weakness,
the fire will climb your veins
and crown your limbs in smoke.
Beloved
I told you: my heart is poetry,
and poetry is the heart of the witch’s son.
Do not wound it,
lest it choose the hour to wound you.
And when it does,
its betrayal will taste
like pomegranate in the dark
sweet, and red, and endless.

I am not a poet.
I am only a wanderer in the marketplace of words,
a fool who follows the glimmer of syllables
as others follow the scent of bread.
Poetry is not ink on paper.
It is the pulse beneath the page
a breath moving through the hollow reed of the poet,
a secret that leans close to the ear of the heart.
When I meet a poem, I bow.
I circle it once,
then twice,
then again,
as though it were a shrine whose mystery
can never be entered in a single step.
Each reading strips away a veil.
Sometimes the veil is my own blindness,
sometimes the poet’s mercy in hiding the flame
until I am ready.
There are nights I leap from sleep crying, I have it!
and mornings when the truth laughs,
gently reminding me:
Child, that was only the shadow of the meaning
come back, and drink deeper.
Poetry is a journey without map or return.
It is the caravan of joy
that passes through my heart again and again.

You came without footsteps.
I did not hear the door
only felt you
arrive
beneath my ribs,
like smoke curling into a sealed jar.
I was praying,
but you were the breath I used to say your name.
Now I live
in a room without walls.
No ceiling, no floor
only your nearness,
pressing me open
from within.
I am not asking for paradise.
I am asking
for the warmth of your palm
on the small of my back
when I am weary of seeking.
I am asking
to lean into you
as a tree leans into wind it trusts.
Let the world do what it wants
let time collapse,
let stars fall into rivers
but let me keep
the wine of your presence
on my tongue
a moment longer.
There are days I am nothing but hunger.
Days I mistake your silence
for absence.
But then a bird lands on the windowsill
and it is you.
Then my spine tingles
for no reason
and it is you.
And when I weep without knowing why,
it is because you are
too close to name.
You are the touch I can’t return.
The kiss I give inward.
The home I carry
in the hollows of my being.

Oh devil,
play your crooked song.
My cup was born empty
not for lack,
but for the thrill of being filled
by hands unclean.
You danced,
not in shadows,
but in candlelight and clinking glass.
You sang not sorrow,
but sweet sugar lies
dipped in honeyed brass.
I did not fall.
I followed.
The path was perfumed,
the rhythm too rich to refuse.
Sin, in satin slippers.
Wickedness, with wine on its lips.
Yahoo for me
I did not burn.
I became the fire.
I outshone the flame.

I drink to forget
my keys,
my pain,
the clatter of bees in my head.
But the French cognac tastes of door handles
and old brass prayers.
Each swallow lights another hallway
in this crumbling hotel I call me.
Pain sharpens
not like a knife,
but like a mirror
with too many faces.
And then
cold metal teeth in my palm.
A familiar bite.
Yes.
Of course.
The keys.
They were conducting an orchestra
of forgotten errands
in the soft cage of my hand.
Stupid French cognac.
Stupid hand.
Always holding the answer
like a riddle too proud to speak.

And the fool said quietly:
Look at the man carrying the words of God,
and still, he has no idea how heavy they are.
He cared too much
more than his heart could hold.
It spilled over,
like a cup with no rim.
He pushed his soul
past what it was built to bear.
And over time,
his face changed.
People didn’t call him by the same name.
His words sounded strange
in places he used to belong.
His trust dried up
like grass under a burning sun.
His strength faded
like the last inch of candlelight before dawn.
Because everything has a limit
the stars in their paths,
a widow’s tears,
a man’s time,
even him.
Even me.