Two children in a dense wood
Lifting her hand he notices tender eyes
Glowing she reaches for him
and puts a delicate flower on his lips
stroking his soft hair

He smiles having caught her
attention he catches the light
in her eyes and lives one thousand lives
separated by seconds of bliss
he takes a thousand breaths and
when he returns to this life he sees
her warm breath escape her lips
and
moving up he seizes
it in his hands to feel
her soul rubbing through his fingers
And in the mirror of a pond
He sees himself
and slowly becomes her
and in the pallid moonlight
he cannot tell where his reflection
begins and where hers ends

We both hid from the odor
of bitter almonds
like children from punishment
like water from oil

And

when we have our cup of coffee
the black goes
endless and
deep

What could be more miraculous than that?

I begged you once to eat the leavened earth
which aged and became green by violence

You needed to be full and satisfied
discovering that my stomach had dried
which made you remember the excitement of life

One morning in the stems of aquatic ash plumes
that were rising and shuffling to create
a theater of artificial night, the arm of
the high sea hemorrhaged and
buried skeleton eras

We devoured the earth for love and still the Lord’s blue voice
was fathered like dust in light which we could
see only because of the Sun

Slowly ending
Your long fever blew the ash sickness
away and I wept watching
your perfect body disappear
into the shade of the bleeding, green forest

Ferryman, will I rest in the white roses
that can nevermore grow infirm-
where the rivers from the deep blue forest
are joined by currents of blood and ink?

Ferryman, the forest of the sky is beautiful
like blue bitumen, verdigris life moves, expires and is
reborn between the plane of those who do not die
and above the garden of grief

"Come brother, let us sleep" the phantom says
"One-Hundred and Fifty cuts cover me from head to waist-
old and beautiful tears that keep me from sleep
The heat of my lamp is ready to fade"

Ferryman,where in the house of shade shall I finally rest?
The voice of my lord is broken and dried
In the glade of cedar trees, air flushes and suffocates
The blushing of the moonlight fades and the snowy stars elude her

Make me know the ways of righteousness
The ferryman leads me down the tremulous waters
his words have escaped me like the fearful night's eyes
and in the distance the sudden emptiness of the roses

This face adores you
and promises not to
and promises it will.

Sleep is not the promenade
of tonight's mystery.

Desire is the night's adventure
cradled in the triptych of cold air
and abandoned in the warm wool
of her hair.

this is her
only experience of
                          sun light
though my expectations hide
                          her beauty
she only smiles on my desires
       This is the only sunlight
that allows me to
appraise her
I must be
            loaded
to see her an Angelica in
a sable top draped over
loose shoulders,
         the muscular
suspension of a
                 neck tied
to a vulnerable chest
a flashing
     smile, quick
     as the jocular
rhythm
               of her hair
and the flash
        of her wrist
I must be
       drunk to see
       her
and drugged
         to enjoy a rhythm
but the moment she turns from me
      chokes me

In any mirrored face
the homeless sees nothing shuffling
from his favorite stores
At night they feel their wild
canine teeth

Words surfacing
uncollected in fragments and scratches
besde underdeveloped manors
in the city's growing mold
and buildings separated by dust like a ream of books
on the trail to the open west

Noise clock, sharp chiming
and unbearable
soot blackness of perpetual rain
pulsing faintly in a palsied
flow of the oppressive
heats and sounds

My sister is a forgotten composer of rebellion
given only the courage
to think her words will merely be
a droning
cello's moans
and preludes unsettled
and old

Without authority
someone might hear her
centuries too late
when few will give her a wait or wax cylinder
of words no better than it's tremorless
indentations unseen by the eyes and ears

The days of crystalized quartz
and effeminate handshakes and kisses
vacant gestures and the beautiful
view of the destitue on a warm
spring morning in the park