outside of the spirited delirium
of our quaint sabotage
and with all the moxie of a tick,
nestled in steel wool -
head down in the futility. beyond -
the aspirations of
a snowflake in an open
wound.

love
is the riddle of
our days
every

Night.

and we swallow
with our eyes
no moon.

somehow i slipped in
and languished. i evolved in the cracks of the moon -
and killed a sparrow of moments
in the dense room of Being There.
if i trouble the waters, it's news to God.
and the vipers in the sun
spit Mondays
like a bullet from
a gun.

i'm beside you
but my shadow cast -
has merged with yours
or it's high noon.
i'm like a breeze
in a hurricane.
a trumpet made
of bricks
and wishes,

i'm there.
but the stars are not my stars.
and my heart is not
the center of
the world.

i love you and the world
is less a world
without you.
i'm in the emptiness that dwells
between souls that
have never met.
I am the thirst and
the wellspring.

like an -
endless pang
and a bottomless pond
with a stone skirt.
i am devoted
and ever-so
imperfect.

i love you
and the forgiveness
i plead
is not for me,
it's for the hell
i put you through,
so soon after
we met.
i am the one thing at the bottom
of a wrong church
bloated and
godless...

with only Love
obvious.

and Shame's
oddity -

flawless.

Journey to the subconscious,
Do you dare,
Feel no scare,
The feeling,
You can't compare,
Snare,
Your way down,
Inside your own town,
They call it the devils' lair,
But that's the fear,
With your soul you can pair,
[Up]
So explorer - fear not,
Put your ego on the spot,
Shread the mind,
Feel the heart,
You're one of a kind,
[Unique - a beautiful freak]
Madness and stillness you'll find,
The rhythm and blues of spirit,
Yeah mad explorer - feel it,
The journey to the subconscious,
Time to focus;
[Let your soul loose]

~ z.s

put me in a barrel
in the pouring rain
wipe that smile off your face
when you say my name.
keep your clouds to yourself
if you do that thang
with your gospel tonsils
on x-ray steam.
and prepare for the worst -
sort of pristine gloom.
but rebel in the dirt
of an ink blot moon.
your salmon skin
is so south of my veins
it's an arctic star
where the empty
remains.

never been. but i imagine, it coils counter-clockwise at the ankles
of your pedestal. it must surely breathe fire so soft
that dew lingers on the tongue of a star.
a star -
behind the green pearl of an emerald place,
dislodged from Time
and ever tethered
to no reason.

it must be other than. and farther from. and nowhere.

sublime.

the long onions nod in the fickle breeze. they etch their slender shade
upon the dizzy grass and the low things crawling. they manage to say
nothing about you as you pass, delighted... but then, you never stroll through Paradise and see onions first thing.
You ponder the steps you take
to get there...
and the apple in your
pocket...

first of all.

part your sea, and i swear you'll never overcome my surge.
my petulant swell of upheaval, upheld -
by the angels
of our darker thoughts, and the parody
of pure reason
where a
heart
stops.

a sudden gravity floats in a heavy seam
of dead air. it disentangles the pyramid
from the eye... severing a dot
from a matrix
but keeping the barn doors shut
should our animals
plot.

and our jailers
name it.

i have an ocean to promise you
Nothing is
sacred.

The Nigrescence Of White

if you want me to sink into this thing
you'll have to loan me your Titanic.
whoever tunes your piano must sing
and the fables; break and panic.

if you want me to know what you want
you'll have to know me as a cynic.
where all the dogs think they won't -
but they will, they will, they will -
if a bone's in it.

how do you cross the street
with tomorrow so completely
a near miss ?
are your skeletons as eloquent
as frost fire ?
and how do you account
for all the rain ?

seems a pity to lack so many hands as Shiva
in a downpour of your very own Sun.
when the clouds part with gathering
and gather yonder -
leaving you the view of your delirious star
and the valley of what
has never been
known.

goodnight and good luck.
may your hemispheres release you
from the globe, and your journey be wicked smart
through the jungles of unrelenting
deep.
may you find there what you lost by keeping
and abandon your crown of thorns, in favor
of a velvet noose
should the mysteries prove anguish,
is a virtue of mortality
or else the joke wouldn't work
to pay the bills.