I remember trees
and pathless forests of flowers.
I remember bees
And unnumbered hours.
I remember birds
As beautifully bright as myths.
I remember words
And the lips they were spoken with.

I remember mountains,
Mighty monuments moments built.
I remember fountains
Sapphire and serene, still free of silt.
I remember skies,
The true blue of azure eyes.
I remember stars
Hopefully winking from afar.

Youth is hung like clouds above
The sky, no longer blue.
I think that I remember love
Though I can't remember you.

Lassos of fire
pull out my roots
Running higher,
I’ll pull on my boots
And leave no tracks
In my trekking plight
There’s no coming back
No return flight

Indomitable Icarus,
I fly into the sun
Inconsolable Narcissus,
My iron wings don’t run

But my skin scorches
From rays up above
Then your harpoon searches
To pierce my flesh with love
And haul me down
And tie me here
To watch that crown,
That summit of fear

Gladly I’d remain
I’d surrender to you
But I must end the rein
And make the sun new

Stay, let me run
Forgive my absence
And forgive the sun
For its distance
For I will coax it
Maybe in some years
I’ll teach it closeness
So it will shine here

On the first day,
God made spoons.
And he sent them down
With red balloons.
So we wouldn’t drown
In our dining rooms.

On the second day,
God made shoes.
He tied our laces
Along with our noose.
We sang his praises,
What’d we have to lose?

On the third day,
God made grilled cheese.
He grilled them with butter,
So our hunger he pleased.
Not a drop went to the gutter,
For we swallowed the sizzling grease.

On the fourth day,
God made wheels.
He put them on our feet,
So we could chase his heels
Though he’d never let us meet
His shining ship’s keel.

On the fifth day,
God made combs.
He brushed back our locks,
So we saw where we roamed
But he did not let us walk
To where the horizon domes.

On the sixth day,
God made brooms.
We could sweep and fray
The days of our doom
While brushing away
The dust on our tombs.

On the seventh day,
God took repose,
He left us some time
To do what we chose.
Then we invented crime,
Found in our families foes.

Spoons went unused in bright countries,
I guess ‘cause there was no food.
And shoes took us to strange bounties,
Places we did nothing but loot.
People kept eating grilled cheese
And it all went to their thighs.
wheels turned and never ceased,
Even after the mills went dry.
Despite all the combs,
Our hair was still unkempt.
Brooms brushed away poems
As women to cleaning went.

But wait- our poems and words-
Were not fashioned by God-
He made man, beast and bird,
But not the phrases we jawed.
That day began in silence
But somewhere around noon,
Lunch halted the violence
And one of the meeker loons-
A gentle soul with a brain-
Saw her reflection
And gave it a name.

Then she made words
And practically named
All the adjectives and verbs,
And nouns that ever became.
She wrote about spoons,
Of famine and drought.
She wrote about shoes
And dangerous routes.
Grilled cheese she abhorred
This thought she tallied.
Then wheels she turned toward,
Wondering why they tarried.
Combs she had never used,
For she spent it all on ink
By brooms she'd been abused
So on them she did not think.

Then there thundered brighter thoughts,
The divine danced in her dreams.
She described him, defined him, untangled his knots
She tried to unravel his scheme.

But one day she concluded,
After a lifetime of words,
That her pursuits were deluded,
For her thoughts were but birds
In an esoteric sky
With clouds of definitions
Of which she could only contrive
To make a rendition.

But if she knew, she’d be surprised
Of her true correctness.
For in her thoughts, she'd realized
Her God’s greatest purpose.
Her life, given to his pursuit
Measured more meaning than mourning
And because she had not been mute,
Man had spent time learning.
Until his thoughts in paper shod
Made God a word, and man a God.

I am a patchwork;
My skin is a puzzle.
Pieces tethered by sinews of thought,
Tighter than a muzzle.
Tear yourself from my whole,
Watch my veins unravel
Hear the bark of my soul-
In your pocket it growls.

I am a machine;
My brain is gears.
Feed my circuits energy,
Move my wheels with tears.
Ringing in my clockwork chest,
My heart is a bell.
Find the hour to ring it best,
And it will serve you well.

I am an orchestra;
My hands are violins.
Your hands are relentless whips,
Cleaving flesh and skin.
Rip away my singing lips,
Steal my precious tones.
Make me stutter, make me lisp,
And make my song your own.

I am a skeleton;
My bones want clothes.
Voiceless, thoughtless, inanimate,
Death I make men loath.
See my stripped hollowness,
Hear my torment echo.
Eaten by my weakness,
Digested by time and yellow.

My marrow picked clean
And by buzzard beaks chewed.
Since I have nothing else to glean,
Bones, my Queen- my empty bones for you.

Hello, are you there,
Tangled in my hair?
I find it funny how
In the dark I’d allow
You to sit on my brow,
Which furrows at my dreams,
In whose mirages you gleam,
Of my angels- brightest,
Of my demons- mightiest,
Blinding my curtained eyes,
My lovely Mr. High.

Most nights it’s dark in here.
But unquiet, for throatless voices jeer.
From locked places their calls emit,
In the dungeon of my mind they grit,
Speaking sermons, ******* and without wit
From times when we lived in night unlit.

They usually stay in their cage,
Forged bars contain their rage.
But there are nights- and even days-
when they escape, and Hell they raise.
They whisper treason I should not hear,
For some odd reason, their language is clear.
Perhaps it’s ‘cause everyone understands
Words that are carved by clawing hands.

With teeth I forged,
On my soul they gorge.
Without throats, they swallow,
Without voice, I bellow
A silent scream, inaudible appeal,
To the outside world- if it is real.

But I think it must be,
For it’s the only place from which I see
  Your figure, bright and resplendent,
Emerging, a star from the sky descendant
Into the purgatory of my soul,
Come to rescue and make me whole.

Into battle your wings do glide,
The gritting voices they do cry
To hear you proclaim to them “die!”
And my throat, wasted and dry,
Does not catch a last goodbye,
As unto unreachable heights you fly-
My lofty Mr. High.

Such relief,
Yet full of grief.
I feel that I am free,
Yet unable to sail this sea
That separates you from me.
And even if I could, it would be blasphemy.

For what candle have I to hold to you?
To your purity, alabaster and true.
I’m just a girl who can’t get out of her head,
On the inside I might as well be dead,
Which is why I have you to watch over my bed,
So that my sanity to my sickness is not fed.

Most nights, it’s dark in here.
And restless, I begin to fear.
The silence, surrounding, it suffocates,
I find myself wishing for a voice to grate.
But since I have no voice of my own,
I sit in solitary silence- alone,
Until the voices begin to drone,
Returned by you to their cage,
Where forged bars contain their rage.

But sometimes the dark gets so lonely,
That I rise, stiffly and slowly.
I tiptoe past hollow palisades,
Down corridors spun with gossamer and age,
Deep down, to the dungeon- and the cage.

I remember the last thing they told me
Was to guard, with my sanity, the Key-
The one that separates the voices from me.
But the longer I think, I come to the truth
That Key also separates me from you.

So into the lock the Key I confide
And the forged bars ajar I pry.
The carnivorous cacophony collides,
But my only reaction is a blissful sigh
As opens my mind's starless sky
To deliver my savior, my Mr. High.