Stretch me out and count me like clouds
Say she is vapour
Venom, velvet and vermouth
With hair of hazelnut rapture
Clutch the moments, clutch the moonbeams
Clutch the stretched out skies of cloud and mustard gas sunset
Sing she is a child of trauma
Supressed in the name of breathing
Violence in the name of skin
And she is venom, velvet and vermouth
She was born to pink salt lakes in the low country
With ruby pomegranate eyes
And hair of hazelnut rapture
Girl with the soul of a thousand pilgrim journeys
Girl with the soul of a blackberry bush
Girl with the soul of olive trees and sheep meat and oven bread in the fire country
Human smiles
And other dark things of value
She lies like velvet
She lies in the name of supressing traumas
In the name of breathing
She bleeds like a billion stars bleed vapour
She is venom and vermouth
With hair of hazelnut rapture
She is the sum of a thousand pilgrim journeys
The prayer of holy rivers in the canyon country
The smoke of incense burned by sages
The scars of bodies burned by crusaders in mustard gas chambers
Goddess of Nuclear energies
Red-eyed like ruby pomegranates
Like the dewy cauldron of morning
When tenuous steps lead bodies down the path of executionary revolution
To boarders, frontiers, walls of white-skin scar tissue
Sing songs of Babylon in the free country
Clutch the moments
Clutch your breaths and hold them in broken palms
Clutch the tides and teach them
Breach your rib-cage, unstitch and return the borrowed bones
Melt the metaphoric thrones
Breathe backwards in the name of unsupressing traumas
In the name of truth
Stretch me out and count me like clouds
Girl of angel-breath ambition
Soul of blackberry bush and smile of splintered terracotta tile
Sing your songs
Say she is vapour

"The worst things:
To lie in bed and sleep not.
To want for one who comes not.
To try to please and please not."
                 -- Egyptian Proverb

It fades in and   fades             out
The     meandering    song of despair.
     Fading what  once     caused
The frequencies to harmonize.
Random patterns   desperately
     Random.

Her  moods   weave    in           counter
To my intense     focus in   the refrain.
        Our symbiotic   gazing across the room
At the  rhythmic  blue   light  Illuminating
Denials elusive      fingertip touch
Fading into yet another    impossible dream.

The notes are still     laid out on
The well-weathered pages.
The movements    still moving    gracefully
On a near anti-climactic      stage.

All that is   needed   are the instruments
And patrons of means to employ
A symphony    suffering long
On a soulless      listless     frequency  band
Made only to vibrate complete
But is now   caught    in   this      jumbled loop
In a now    out-        of-        sync  universe.

283

A Mien to move a Queen—
Half Child—Half Heroine—
An Orleans in the Eye
That puts its manner by
For humbler Company
When none are near
Even a Tear—
Its frequent Visitor—

A Bonnet like a Duke—
And yet a Wren’s Peruke
Were not so shy
Of Goer by—
And Hands—so slight—
They would elate a Sprite
With Merriment—

A Voice that Alters—Low
And on the Ear can go
Like Let of Snow—
Or shift supreme—
As tone of Realm
On Subjects Diadem—

Too small—to fear—
Too distant—to endear—
And so Men Compromise
And just—revere—

and the wind will blow
and you will drift
guided by chance
and an unseen Navigator  
like a ship on a raging sea
or a butterfly caught in the wind

just don't close your eyes

the light may be
too bright or too dim
the crumbling ruins
may fall hard
beside and inside you

but don't be found
holding tightly to the cocoon
when the metamorphosis
has long been completed.

865

He outstripped Time with but a Bout,
He outstripped Stars and Sun
And then, unjaded, challenged God
In presence of the Throne.

And He and He in mighty List
Unto this present, run,
The larger Glory for the less
A just sufficient Ring.

Sick with second guessing
The bitterness is back

Beyond any classification
I'm exhausted of it all

Long past petty five steps
I've sat outside long enough in the cold
To know it doesn't get any warmer

Nostalgia's rough grasp
Clasped about my neck
I feel more and more
With every forced breath

And the more I feel the less I know
It all leads to the inexplicable
The redundant and
The impossible to reconcile

Loneliness infatuated
With this idea of the unknown
Through some lust manifests
Into a dire fear of being alone

And that fear carries forward
Incessant debasement

And all the best advice I've ever heard
Is now drowned out by the rainfall

Dripping drops of memories
Seep into wounds still being licked
With a wincing at the past
While bracing myself for the crash

There was somewhere lifetimes ago
When a warmth was prevalent enough

But all that feels like fantasy now

Some sick obsession with comfort

The idea of
Being yearned for

Thought of

Touched, kissed
Dreamed

Breathed

All things senseless yet
Fulfilling for the senses
Creating some
Sense of belonging

It's all slipping, sliding
Moving out of view

Writhing and shaking
My body shivers
Off any remaining
Icicles of doubt

I know the bitterness is back

I know the rain will keep falling harder

And right now, try and try as I might,
I just can't get this **** cigarette to light