Part I.  Like Gods Falling

At first—
new trembling
and then she didn’t want
to be—

alone

with guilt

or seen

as **** half-eaten evidence
So she held it out to him
with her half-hearted, “It's OK.”
her crippling distance

“Why doesn’t she just embrace me
as before?”
He thought
that he had never seen her eyes that way—
with no words for their ruin
he loved her fearfully more

Gorged in the aftermath of forbidden
fat and animal fruit
Sick with excuses
Staring at
the core of lust
Rationalizing
Food?  Beauty? Intrigue?

Wisdom!

Searing awful terror
into each other’s minds

Part II.  Love and War

In the years between
the harrowed rows of sprouting corn
they found pleasure without plan
that bound them more than guilt had severed

How curious the textures of a man
in sunlight

her power?
In all the brilliance she had bargained for

How curious this burning for her
in the sodden life of rotting

She was always holding him now
from the scorching day
as the earth sizzled and swam
in seas of senseless—
background drone of locust and revenge
sealed in sweat and clutching labor

She was always holding him back by night
from the icy crackling mad!
his restless hunting hate!
And sometimes, while she pleaded
he would seize her
Make her pay!

For that afternoon

by the well where the boy was washing
A basket of vegetables returned
a bowl of blood

Part III.  Grief

Prepare the darling carcass
Shroud it in her pleas
clawing in the mud beside its silence
consumed beyond all fire by her anguish
“Can this not be enough to make him move?
Yes! He did! I’m sure I saw it!”
Can this not be enough?”
to stop the knowing…
grief from pouring into space?

Not even light escapes
____

Returning from the Mount of Meeting
hollow chores
collecting fatwood
grinding joyless grain

From corner of her eye
she watches the boy
walk toward the forest
spear in hand
She pauses
looking down
at hands on stone
that once had cradled...
Breath catching on jagged sorrow

She continues to grind

bitterly pregnant


Part IV.  Endings

Descended now
Reclining heap
reflects before a sun’s surrender
His face gleams with last light
hair blown back by volleys of wind

Her face
Not visible
as we are behind them
Her head rests in his lap
She is on her side
Soles of her shoes
mute and toward us
His eyes search the sky for a god—any god!
Her God

Exhaustion poses them past
the point of question
When the matter of “Why?”
becomes each other

Close in

the net of twilight
Dulled of hope and pain
at the edge of all that can be done...

...everything is gray going on black—
but we always knew that

on this rumbling
              stretch of tundra
                  no trees reach up
                     to soothe the sky
                     there is a pulling down
                  of wind tunnel vortex
               like conifers in reverse
          an icy howl
in the bonechill
               of time
Translucent holes,
         perfectly round, are dug
                in glacial archeology
                  and in the sea below
               gelid creatures lurk,
           half-frozen
         in the history of my
                                        soul
Only moss and lichens
grow on the rock,
somehow softening the
rugged textures
of the wild landscapes
that seethe
          just beneath my skin
and there, just
shy of the surface
is a quickening
a subtle pulse of veins
that pumps life
between the gales of
my heart's steppes
flushing out
           the pain
somewhere
deep
      within the private lotus
of my being
folioles unfurl
leafy shapes around
my organs
wrapping them like gifts
          as they undulate in whorls
opening my petals
in renewed consciousness
and deliberation
as a new kind of  
           stamen
                rises
    dusty pollen
powdery
budding ripeness
       bursting up
       and out
   of my deepest
       centered
whirlpool pistil
nectar dripping
in viscous webs,
to be caught upon
the tongue of
a new dawning
My silky outer
wings of vegetation,
slender stalks of
          filaments and anther
have been turned
into hot steel
They protect
    the tender vulnerable
                   when burned
as poison words held up to my
watchful eyes,
                   are properly discerned
I give myself over
to this new power,
my back arched to fully embrace
what is to come,
a universe calling thunder,
the old patterns undone
I am ready
to reveal my all
as the goddess deep within
comes to release my gold
suffusing light through skin
conjured from me
a relentless strength,
ever-growing,
                now tenfold
rising way past
soft-lit stratospheres
and orbiting
               to
                 bold

I miss
the forest of
        your magic
    as it winds its
                  tattooed way
through the
          serrated textures
                  of nightfall
all up inside
          my vertebrae
the soft wind
       rustling in your
elms,
outstretched to me
                   like arms
as stars burn through
       this brewing sky
in molten,
    fiery charms
They beckon to me
unexpected
          in quiet      
      apertures of subtle
they sneak upon me,
          unprotected,
when I'm sunken
in my tunnel
and sometimes
              in the
                   quiet stream
of the lonely, sacred night
I hear a whisper
whirring soft
as it permeates
            my spine
I let it take me over
                   as I sit,
slumped,
     in the bath
it creeps and seethes
over my wet skin
eats out my silent wrath
I let it
       fill my senses
as I walk inside
                 the deep
and on wooded paths
of solitude's carpet of leaves
when I feel
no soul is watching
     the deer start shyly peeking,
  and lynx resume their stalking
then long slashes
                  of ache
are reawakened
           from their lair
snaking through my ribcage
choking up my hollowed air
        yet, somehow
        in the longing
of bottomless, falling space
I see in distant, faded visions:
the precious contours
of your face
and so,
like an enchanted
          secret box
I open you,
inhale the confetti
of your floating stars
wave them over and through
my strands of vein,
my tripped out,
           healing scars
your essence
       penetrates
my presence
   like misty mountain rains
seeps inside my pores
opens up
       striations
of seismic,
      writhing pain
Your invisibility
            takes form
and then
            in sudden,
whipped-up heat
        it pours out in
honeyed rhythm
       to our own
             invisible beat
and just like that
I get taken.
Overcome
by slakes of love
rushing through my
arteries
like sweet
    manna
from
    above

Come to me.
             your inscribed
                slashes of verse
                branded upon
             the juice of
           my tongue
     a specter
    of the ultimate gift
      as we allow
         the magic
              to rise
               and peel off in
         swathed, aching
         layers,
                undone
Each stratum of
  dermis shed
       is a prayer for
         our succulent
                     redemption
                        Each shadow of
                          silky cuttlefish caress
                   a plea for sanctity
            or perhaps simply
            being loved
        into a frenzy
        of sanity
            healing in waves
                    of electric eyes
                          You open me
                    like a holy book
              and I am suddenly
                  filled with light
           as you unlock
the blessings
from my spinal fluid
and I am a priestess
  on her altar
       arms raised,
         love braised
              into slick-lit wonder
               a spiral cone rising from
                            ground to crown
                 chakric palette pulsating
            phosphorescent ripples
on deep-sea creatures
Your ubiety
       slakes my naked,
            somatic anatomy
                   a mere shelter
                          for our souls    
                       a working
       of muscle and skin
    with heart strings pumping
                    the essence within
                     Our brainwaves
                                    sizzle in
                         glandular fire
                        as pheromones
                       envelope us
                   like incense
This goes far beyond the
wet cuntflush of desire
beyond the embellishment
of moistened sword
  It is the sacred dance
         of souls that merge
            before even touching
                      pre-verbal animal
                   first light of mankind
                          in ancient swells
                                 of earth that
                           rise like sparks
                the constellations
           of firework chimes
       in arcs of
chiseled
         dark

When Death resolutely comes
Abrupt with his deadly summons

Tarry not like a galley slave
But like a courteous warrior behave

Do not waver and do not droop
As if you are to be hung on a loop

Never dread lying under the dust
With the body in a narrow vault ******

Know, it is only when seeds rot
That fresh and florid lives sprout

So when it is time to go
Strut like an indomitable foe,

With swinging hands and head held high
To be welcomed by angels of the sky

With the music of clanging cymbals
And the rising rhythm of sounding bells

Into a kingdom, bright and cheerful
And a state far radiant and blissful

Where the sun shall never set
Where blessed souls will joyously meet

Where Truth and Beauty preside
Where peace and bliss abide

Ousted out of terrestrial space
You’re enfolded in God’s sweet embrace

what is this
the sound of a voice
a faint crackle
over the line
burning icicle dipped
into ink of my dark
zipped in a fracture
           through space
woven in time
the sound of it
           penetrates
a heated
         arctic zing
of light
into the soul
and your words
caress places that
would not be reached
in life's daily hold

I would look into your eyes
my blues to yours
two vast oceans
never ending
This might express
the divinity
of the word "love"
This might express
a fraction of the feeling
                and this alone
could be all consuming
but the real expression
would be my mouth
devouring yours
      my tongue
exploring your lips
and all that's inside
my starlight
infusing your being
as we press into
the silken matter
as the levity of skin
that brushes like silk
as your actual saliva
and ***
are my nourishment,
like heaven's milk
and our cells
ignite in slow movement
as we gasp and sigh
the air around us
invisible velvet
I want beyond
internet
I want beyond
a small, mirrored screen
I need to drink your luster
as we inhale the soft, molten folds
as we break open
and drink deep
inner liquids
as we crack
and the flow of the
      electric river
slides
    through
and within,
intermingling
auras tingling

Just take me,
      already
let me feel the imprint
of your fingers
upon my wrists
let your kisses mark
my secret spaces
Rush into me
as a river
before we
  simultaneously
         combust
for if I have to hear your
vocal chords
one more time
I will
    explode
into
     fragments
of
     crystallized
                  dust

im bilingual
i speak
english
and
baby talk