IV. dawning at the sanctum

We were arms and legs,
ruffled pillows and
twisted blankets
bare writhing bodies
reflected in a warped carnival mirror
glowing embers of a fallen star
Your strokes
tentative and wavering
in an unsteady tremolo

find me where the shy dawn
dare caress the black crystal waters
that sparkled so green
amidst cold oceans of metaphor
and warm, streaky peach jam skies

gift me, make me, break me, grant me
may i find nourishment and sustenance
in suckling the dripping honey
from your velvet rose-tinted lips
slake Your thirst
sate Your hunger
drink from these fountains
and eat from these briars
revel in my sanctum
but let no blessed water
pass my parched lips

i will etch soliloquies into the nape of your neck
i, the calligrapher, you my masterpiece
monet's soleil levant and water lilies
botticelli's map of hell and rorshach blots
i will find god in your twinkling sepia eyes
and repose in the contours of your body
chiseled with conviction bold
i will trace lines traced long ago
and discover you anew
lilting auroras behind these tired eyelids
sweet aubades of clotted maple cream
embroidered into the
buttery cashmere shearling
of Your lush being
knotted, blistering lilac and rose
in this churning ****** sea
of flames and sculpted ice

bold sensual soft
caress but never kiss
it's five a.m.
and i still can't sleep
we're out of time
there's no stopping what's to come
but the taste of jasmine white tea
still lingers on my tongue
i'm still shouting to the void
and playing piano in the brazen dark

III. clay feet

the metal nightingales
chirp their heralding serenatas
realizing every lucid daydream
and smelting away every plastic
contingency

to part the molten
gold in Your eyes
is to tempt Fate
but you are Achilles
and i am your patroclus
i will lay down my pride, my life,
every ounce of my being
for You

You shall sit atop pedestals
adorned with bas relief acanthus
conquest and compassion
life and death
ashes to ashes, dust to dust
i will exalt You and Your pride
and wash Your clay feet

You are my first musing
in the morning
and final contemplation
at night
twice and three years
of abstinence
make my body whole and clean

II. alpenglow

hushed white
first snow's plush
duvet

inimitable beauty
euphoria
in the florid incandescence
infinitely faceted fractals
a conflagration:
fire on the mountaintop,
oh, these halos in the umbra—
roving alpenglow

paper birch
trembling aspen
bent by sheer roiling passion
into a piazza passageway
leading to Our
cloistered
crystal
kingdom
come

an icy, sharp chemical-like hint
of taste lingers
at the back of my throat
a steady stream of
tears cascading down
my face

i lie on the fallen down,
a snowy duvet under a yielding sun
that gifts the little light and warmth it can

crackling paris green
and steaming water
She does not watch us here

Our breath is one and the same
why are your hands so cold?
You whisper
my beloved philtatos,
they are but a mark
of the rites of passage we endured
and a youth idealized

understand
that i am a worn letter lost
burnished ink that once clung
to a burnished nib
on deckle-edge ecru paper
embossed with gold and filigree
do you dare to open me?

I. quinine and honey

His fight and fierceness
are unrivaled
inviting
like the solace of sleep
to the freezing

addiction, dependence, provocation
i’m washed in the tide
of His everlasting breath
plunging out in rimy clouds
he reached out
and thawed me,
hands interlaced
if only for a moment

i take in His body,
the unleavened bread:
delicate, diaphanous
caramel skin
dappled with freckles
stretched taut over a
light but athletic frame

doused with
mulled wine
an earthy sweet redolence
of spice, sour cherry,
fruit and florals,
smoke, and amber resin

reminders of those cold,
firelit winter nights
flannel button-up pajamas
rosy cheeks and cracked, swollen lips
strong pourover coffee and
steaming jasmine white tea
at five in the morning
when i would shiver
and He would hold me tighter
we were so happy we were afraid

i run my fingers
through His silken
sun-softened sable hair

His heart, however,
holds sentiment
incomparable to my votive
there is only Him

sometimes
even the quinine
finds itself too bitter
that it may yearn for
honey
to drown
it

V. the ballad of briseis

my heart is of
the flesh of figs,
and that which
i cannot touch:
grainy sweet
garnet nectar
pretty to behold
but easy to bruise

no god shall speak for me, briseis
for this fig-heart, like the heart of man
craves art as it does god
and though i know you not by name,
but only pseudonym:
blood, words, and love,
we are kindred souls

i'd like to believe that we
are cut of the same cloth
hewn of the same mound of clay
(or cast into the same iron, i suppose
for we became one another's anchor
the day we met)

i once told you, my dear briseis,
that if you taught me symbiosis
i would teach you love
for you found pragma
in philosophy cold
markov's blankets
freud's ego, plato's cave
whereas i found pragma
in alchemy's poetry
chekhov's gun
freud's neurotics, plato's human

it means nothing.

the alchemy lies
beyond the chemicals,
beyond the seed and the egg,
beyond our festivals of atonement,
beyond my prima materia
and your unfulfilled magnum opus

it lies in simple interdependence,
the oceans, the heavens,
the forests, the deserts,
the storms, the famines,
the herds of wildebeest,
the colonies of ants,
the beady dew on the spider web
and the purling river shallows,
our acrid mouths yearning for mother's milk,
the boy who makes us cry at night,
the fiery logs roaring against the cold air,
the hoot-owls and the faces on the wall
(our skeletons never did stay in the closet)
bathed in that slow, hideous wonder
those interplays of love and symbiosis

as i drown and die in reverie once more
pray that the stakes may be forever higher
that i find those eternal elysian fields
so long as our achilles lives to fight again

we are more alike,
than you or i would
ever dare to admit,
briseis

so humor this fig-heart:
hold me and tell me
that it'll be all right

I lost my soul.
Somewhere between Atlantic City and Wildwood, NJ.
The salt still lingers in my hair, eyelashes, and tears.
The moons changing cycle as we eat candy on the beach and chase our childhood memories away
Creating tiny drawers to stash away keepsakes and overdue dreams
You pet me like a long lost lover with a fragile hand
Brushing out my knots and curls before we continue to share our sparkle

I want to feel the universe exhale around me
Leaving the feelings of it all
But alas, no prevail.
And the ink dripped
Round and round
Wrapping tightly
Around my mind.
I fought,
Tirelessly,
Beating and hitting,
Till my last breath.
I've done this for too long,
Too much and too long.
I didn't want anymore,
So I let it take over.
Fitting me into a spot
I was gone,
Only a shell left to see.

~Fin.