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Breon Oct 2018
Another night staring skyward where
          Every creaking shift fills the world
                    And the ink-black sky's toothless maw,
Shocks and aftershocks of sound
          Where a moment's discomfort swells
                    To a frenzied crescendo, incessant,
Pressing against skin from within
          Until a saint's patience would break
                    Like lips parting for a stifled sigh.
Midnight falters and fades to dawn,
          Surrenders to the unconquered sun
                    Who, grinning wide as the horizon,
Watches the twisting, turning world
          Tear away from night's dreamless womb
                    Sleepless, stumbling away in a daze.
Breon Oct 2018
Wherever grass grows wild and tall
I'll think of you beneath it all,
A secret shared with earth and sky
And no one else.

Where winter came to freeze a heart,
That summer thawed us both apart
And somewhere in that hazy heat
I laid you down.

There's funerary flowers there,
Run wild and overgrown with care.
I think I'll take that wilderness
Before your chains.

A shackled love, a fettered life?
A rarer smile, brittle with strife?
All that, I'll leave behind with you
And go alone.
I'm not sure where this came from. I've been damnably lucky in love.
Breon Oct 2018
the trouble with trouble is
waiting for the next big hit
sipping on a bracing shot

the jitters could be the espresso
or everyone biting their tongues
choking on the unspoken name
of fear or dread or the grinning grave

but the medicine does work
bitter coming down to sit and clot
where the stomach meets the heart,

so your eyes can open up to a world
which wasn't yours, but the dream tells you
it could be there waiting in your hands

so trouble can wait another sip,
another slip, another dream
where time and space and all between
come still
Some mornings, the coffee takes the edge off the day. Some mornings, the coffee puts the edge back on me. I guess a fair fight's better than no fight at all.
Breon Aug 2018
Pour it out like water from an empty sky
Before you turn and see the clouds,
Like salt sloughs off the shovel's edge
Once ice creeps in to choke the streets.
Pour it out like the fire searing your veins
Where passion became love became fury,
Like ink left to seep into pristine paper
From another careless stroke of the pen.
Let it out, like the words tied into a knot
Resting heavy between tongue and throat,
Like spit and bitter bile left to sit, clotted.
Let it out, like breaking whatever breaks
When those shackles slip from your wrists,
Like stepping away from the cage to fly.
There's hardly anything sonnet-like about this.
Breon May 2018
Drawn deep on the seething alcohol sting
Of a summer-sweat mask made with every effort
Drinking down to the bottle's bottom.

On the way, we'll see a dozen devils in familiar faces,
Friendly smiles and devilish grins, temptations,
Invitations beckoning attention and so much more...

The heat washes down to lingering hands, to lips, to eyes,
Dragging them away from propriety, tangling their leashes,
Stripping away restraint, shattering will.
I'll have to revisit this, but if you'd like to workshop it, please - feel free.
Breon May 2018
So, this is godhood. This is how it works.
It's dreaming up a world and killing it,
Abandoning the foibles and the quirks
Of crushed-together crumblings and bits,
Then sweeping out the wreckage with a curse
And carving out another fever dream.
It's wandering a mindscape universe
And sifting through the crop to find the cream
So you can save it while you burn the rest,
Just for the room to have another try.
The lovelies you've been cradling close to chest?
In time you'll cast them off to wilt and die
But for a while they're almost what you need.
Go raze the field and plant another seed.
The building of worlds grows more exhausting each time I give up.
Breon May 2018
Here, where your searing body pressed close to mine
Puts Vulcan's furnaces' heat to frigid shame,
Where crashing sun-showers rinse away the brine
Of held hands, shared secrets and our glancing games,
Where fleeing through rainy May and summer wine
Brings together close encounters, whispered names;
Here, more as two than just ourselves, **** the cares
And **** remembering what awaits out there...

There, far away from home, hemorrhaging heat,
Left to my own hollowed-out devices
Where the concrete jungle strangles every street,
Leaving lives wilted and dry, no surprises
Where novelty passes for a catchy beat:
Here, alone, all identity is crisis.
The wasteland surrenders in time, have no fear;
With my eyes shut, I can see the path back here...
Sometimes it's hard to remember why I get out of bed when she's still there.
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