It was time, it was time.
You held my hand underneath the table cloth,
and your feet next to mine.
My parents sat across from us,
and they clapped, and laughed.

You pecked me on the cheek
and they cheered, spilling wine.
So we picked up our ***** plates
and took them to the kitchen,
where you proposed to me
with a sterling silver spoon.

It was time, it was time,
my stomach was swollen and ****.
Nebulous and veiny, but you didn’t mind,
didn’t mind.

You touched my tummy and wailed,
as I laughed a scream.
An automated thud tapped the walls inside,
and you ran, and you ran to the door, keys in hand,
hopping and dancing a fool.
It was time, it was time.

How you ran, how you ran.
The teetering Titan steps,
you ate your hands, you ate your feet,
you ate any mush you would find.
You were here, you were there, eating, pooping,
all divine. You gloriously didn’t mind, didn’t mind.

You didn’t mind, that I screamed.
Sea green eyes, thunder thighs.
You were wise, and I was meek.

Watching me with a knowing gaze.
You didn’t mind, that I was clueless,
you beamed light that broke like god.
Dark brown hair, fairchild stare.

It could end now, and that’d be fine.
I would’t mind, wouldn’t mind,
wouldn’t mind if it was time.

Fall displaces our sun
Hidden behind a sterile vale
I wait in ignorance

Wolves chase me
Tear me through the open
Long drawn out dashes of red
Streaks on the cheeks of the river
She soaks in the end of a prayer
A dried ball of cotton dyed into other
Ways of being        And matter

The stone Buddha smiles
Red ink in my palms with thanks
An offering made in prostate
    pose like the subject to the question
Answered with distilled teeth
Unclentched the tongue soft
Under the lips of a kiss in the winter's day

To be given        Not had
This thanks of dubious nature

Red tape outlines the past

Red like the ink in your pleading hands

Red like the cotton in your mouth

Red like the beginning of your life

It comes swiftly into her eyes
Against the blue and green
    of our days in thought

The candle wax
    red too
Holds the negative space
Between the pages

A promise written to home

"My child is born today"

She had a small flower
Attached to her hat
There was a lilt in his smile
It seemed to give much without
Having a need of return

She talked a lot
But she was easy to follow
And he listened
Patiently
Not because he wanted to change
Some word or two later
And sadly his attention was bent
Dulled and fogged at times
At best

Maybe she was afraid to hear
Afraid of following him
Maybe he was too quiet
She too was normally a quiet one she said
But he followed on
Taking one breathe at a time
Keeping his head clear of mist
Or persons else where else when
He would rather not remember

Years later he answered
When she asked him
Why did you follow so well
So easily and why oh why oh why
He took a small breath
Stopped her and smiled
It was a force of nature
That urged it on to happen
Just as the wind fills the sails
Your voice filled my ears
And though at times I did feel lost
It felt good

Wasted               Wasted are the sounds
The sweeps        The lonesome
Hallway              Empty seat
Bare      Cold      Littered

There is more un-favored
Un-savored         Delight
In your eyes        I see

Grapes unwashed by water
Fume with need to taste
***        the wasteful father
Perfumes our reproductive
Waists

There is—Something—A mote
Sitting                In the kettle
But dead birds and assorted fish
Come forever
             Endless               Excessive

Wantonly needed

There are sticks               Perchance
Gouging from your        Urn
        
       Dead bones

In the marshes
        Roots
                   Pumped black with tar
        To my plexus
                   Ten dark hats

Spun-woven on your finger

        Tips


        And
                    We
                              Fell
Over the white
        Porcelain graphs
Of networks and tiles
        Powerful deeds
Harpooning the ocean
        Trying to make a hole

       Wide enough
       For a silhouette

Sardonically ironic, moronically harmonic,
Are beats of emotions unspent.
Overly protective, and somewhat selective,
My shoes on the gravel-laden roads
Of winter are old.
Your silvery hair, neat and bare
Is unfinished. We’re not there yet, you and I.
My name becomes forgotten,
Yesteryears laundry on clotheslines
So hauntingly frigid, and cold they could dance.
The secret of warmth is lost
As the moth dies into the hold of my hands.
Bone-framed windows, with a cryptic message
Surround my palm-tree hair.
My front door is open, hopin’ for a
Short visit, of friends I had not there.
Winter’s approachin’, tree lines are lookin’ in
On the cuckolded dreamers.
Repent.

Like (Chinese) brush strokes I shall find the point on which I’ll pivot turn
Differentials woven in as bristles spin
Ink across the surface although it appears as a two-dimensional space
It seeps further through capillaries reaching depths
Often forgotten

The infinite dimensions within the page
Made possible by the grace of a hand
Devoid of any fate
          save the fate of ink is to be writ
         the fate of paper is to be written on
                   save the fate of ink and paper are in
                   subjective hands

And now a bond emerges from this pair
In a dreamlike movement fact has come
To act and bind as brush binds ink and paper
Fiber Flesh Fluid Foam
A single stroke of inspiration turn
Inward and ‘round the perimeter
Of the page there sits an image of me
(Chinese) Character

Never seen again,
Going and soon gone
To pipes thorough the air as steam.
Give the libations, those
You never did need, to those
Up top, they, towering kings.

Never still. You demanded to be
Going, to be gone.
To-morrow through the streets,
Let the moon guide your bilge.
You admit defeat, temporarily.
Down with humility, was your sickly hound of pride.

Never then, did the waters ever part,
Going was not so spent, or to be done.
To the shores you wept.
Turn the tide, thoughts grew in vines
Around the sun,
And you felt stronger, drunk.
Desert the power once given by me, now go on.
You were blistered from the sun, only drunk from the ***.