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 Apr 2014 Michael Amery
Hayleigh
Don't try and save me.
Thousands have tried and failed,
watched disappointingly,
each time I've derailed.
Don't set of shore and raise the sails.
Im drowning,
Sinking in a sea of what could have and what should have been
There is no life boat strong enough to take back the things I've seen
withhold my weighty heart.
my soul is anchored in the the darkest parts,
The murkiest waters.
It is held down in the depths
of despair
Save your own sons and daughters.
Im a wasted rescue mission.
Throw down your ammunition
i have enough to tear myself apart.
 Apr 2014 Michael Amery
Rose L
let me tell you boys and girls
how it feels to drag a beating nicotine heart from your ribs
and drain the blood from your pink and purple fingertips
let me tell you how i cried when I pulled a slice from my wrist and told myself I was beautiful
time and time again I told myself i was beautiful -
tell me how it feels to rot inside
and kiss the very thing your mama feared with ruby red lips
i've got time on this earth to spare, kids -
nail paint over blood and bones showing
hoarse throats and his own special kind of poison in my guts -
red eyeliner and a black death in tear ducts.
Lets see how many gore metaphors I can fit into one poem
when you're young
a pair of
female
high-heeled shoes
just sitting
alone
in the closet
can fire your
bones;
when you're old
it's just
a pair of shoes
without
anybody
in them
and
just as
well.
it was in the darkness that i found her
there by the dry fountain
its basin gathered the paper thin years
like withered leaves
like soul searching written with her lips
like a castle keep penned with the inks of my regrets

the dry fountain flowed once upon a time with a rich river of
all manner of worldly beasts
the fabled ones and the forgotten ones
and their tales like tapestry's woven with heart strings

now the dry fountain was her home
she bid me take my leasuire for a moment from my fleeing
so my bone thin horse could rest his weary heart
i offered her coins in gratitude for her shelter
with a gentle hand she turned such aside
and instead took my hand
and withdrew the pen embedded in my skin

and said to me that
'each dawn requires a darkness with which to begin'
she began with fragments of me
i tried in vain to be the candle that holds back the shadows
but in truth she is venus finding gentle sweet sainthood in her repertoire
like a frail swan of the ethereal grace

she wanted only to see the glory days to return to this place
to see the fountain flow once again
see its thriving life and its deep magics of the heart
we spent that winter camped there gathering each paper thin tomb
and placing them at the alter of the written word
but to no avail
the days had fallen to cold stone
and not even the brilliant light she shed soulshine and heart
could revive the dry fountain

the last i saw her she had glanced back from her road leading away
with a kind woman's smile she gives to friends
she once said i was too reckless with my heart
now i knew what she meant
(for Sandra Beasley..the poet)
 Apr 2014 Michael Amery
mûre
Is there anything so extraordinary as a hand?

I asked, as I ****** his finger
with a gusto hungry to milk some essence of him
that would nourish me after his body left.

Your divine digits! These brilliant explorers, who
fragile as separate spring shoots, can teach and tell and build what
would last for ever.

If a Renaissance lives, it lives in these hands , these ingenious orchestrations that can musick and paint and sculpt and-

          *-and write?


Yes darling, and that.

I migrated my tongue and attention to his palm and slowly painted his love-line pink, tasting his future.

Do you know, when I was once a little Catholic girl- they would tell their stories in Sunday School and I used to imagine the soul resided somewhere in your belly and felt like chicken noodle soup...

and perhaps not so, perhaps hands are the houses of soul where the most Authentic Self of selves resides waiting to touch, to hold, to caress... where the animal desires of humanity delight in the most truthful communication existing?


        -Then... what is the common language? Id?

Yes, perhaps you're right. And love.

His other hand, jealous of my attention, spoke aloud in a sonnet of pinches and strokes that could have drawn tears of reverence were I not held captive by the decadent finger between my lips.

Between gulps of air he queried my fixation
and with a final holy gasp I testified:

**"Darling, touch is the only transparent sensation"
I remember you like a famous brachiosaur, ensconced in the terrible street lamps of west county apartment block row. That swaying bronze gate to your three flat two room apartment. Skinny legs for the couch, the backroom bedroom, and the bunk beds in the master suite. We studded me for excellent squeeze; one trident pull switching time against a baited lock. "I'll swallow you whole," you brushed off into my ear while I passed your cheek with my lips, braising your skin with dew drops of our rushes and sweat. Even for April this was alright. Your brother had already moved out, and listening to Hall and Oates and going fishing was all you wanted to do. So I made us two root beer floats with Almond Milk ice cream, and settled into you for five hours and forty-five minutes. It was before 5:00a.m. when you turned to the night and spilled the last ounces of your naked body out to me beneath the satin sheets. I pressed my lips hard against your nose and whispered I'd be leaving soon. Still I do not recall if I woke you when I left, but I remember that next day when you questioned if I had.
Written for Elizabeth Huff
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