Icicles dribble down the tip
of my nose as frost fogs
the humid corridors of my mind.

Tundras yawn before me
and sea-foam green ribbons
helically orbit one another.

Streaks of yellow roll between
the spiraling bows in the sky.
Stars twinkle slowly, just beyond.

An icy howl jars the halcyon
serenity as a harbinger of
hardships and blizzards.

But I am not of this.
I carry a hearth in my chest
and open my arms to embrace.

Ah, and now she steps down
from the gathering clouds;
her gown rippling as it unfurls.

Her aurichalcite eyes echo unsung
songs until I can't bare the separation.
My unstrung heart beats on, begging

for another verse from her slightly parted
-- but how much they open! --
lips lying, parabolic, atop her chin.

She meets my pleas succinctly:
her out-stretched hand offered
in tribute to another kindred soul.

My mind is fixated, not a thought
intrudes on my contemplation
of her exotic inebriation.

Does she know what she's done?
How every movement makes
me stutter, slightly, shuddering

(unavoidably)? How could she
understand this intoxication
which I don't even hope to know?

I suppose that's all man can hope for:
a single day, maybe not more than an hour,
where "love" can even be considered.

Rest your chin atop your opened palm
and stare out that window, keeping your vigil.
Pay no attention to the simple minds
chattering inanly over your shoulder.

I know what it is to see the rain fall,
through the glass, outside this building;
how the drops diffract the lamp's luminescence
into a shower of sparks, like galvanic dashes.

Your fingers are no longer of your body.
Pale blue lightning leaks, in arcs, from the tips,
leaping away, indiscriminately contacting your lips.
Smile, and the brilliance would stain your teeth blue.

Smile -- please! -- with your electric, beaming grin.
There's no need to speak, just turn your spotlight
in this direction, so I can reflect your radiance
and we may, for a moment, bask in it together.

If only an errant ray would land on your face,
illuminating the crystal hung behind your eyes,
painting rainbows on these drab, off-white walls;
coloring the blank expressions seated around.

You brush your bangs behind your ear
with your little finger and your rings
glint slightly in the lurid lighting.
You look down and resume your calculations.

Listen:

for some reason (truly unknown)
people call me when their trips turn turbid;
when palsied limbs jitter,
and eyes (rolled-back) flitter.

Maybe I've got one of those faces.
You know, the ones that
(between forehead wrinkles
and laughter dimples)
let her know it's okay.

Maybe I've got one of those faces.
You know, the ones that
(between penny-sized pupils
and long-haired scruples)
let her know I've been there before.

I could hear, with jaws clenched,
a deep-seated anxiety born
beyond the scope of a point
or a dab; of a joint or a tab.

And I know that trepidation;
that unending uncertainty,
interlaced -- intertwined! --
intimately with self-searching.

So, I told her about the day I found myself.
I was in a cliff-side cave, at around dusk.
Conflagrant cloud-bursts bowed to the sun
and my battered being bent along with them.

Roiling waves, gnashing madly on the serrated shore,
met my gaze with an equally unnerving force.
A melancholy crimson bathed the frothing maw,
like everyday pitfalls surely lead into that jaw.

I rolled over, away from the ledge, to another surprise:
the cave in which I was laying was only a disguise.
Stars! All the stars! Spiraling macrocosms now no more
than motes of dust floating aloft and astray.

I saw the dome of the cave come unhinged at the seams
as the million billion myriad suns erupted outside, exposed.
The volcanic initiation left floes of iridescent star-shine
eddying, diffusing into a vague effulgence.

Then the moon billowed out, with her gossamer gown
flowing streams of silvered dreams behind.
And the flowers (though the fangs of winter's
bite clamped down into their nape)

bloomed in unison -- in unified exaltation -- to herald her return.
Rose buds burst, and the lilies -- the lilies, I remember the lilies!
Rose buds burst, and the lotus -- the lotus, I remember the lotus!
I saw them rise up in offering, only hoping to touch her feet.

But each, at peak perfection, could only unfurl their last petal
and fall back down, below other (faster rising) worshipers.
Again and again they rose and fell; and ebbed and flowed.
Between their birth and demise, they embraced each other

in a mesmerizing dance, around the stems of friends and older plants,
towards divinity with leaves grasping leaves, and thorns grating thorns.
Enwrapped -- enraptured-- in foliage sewn rags; enrobed -- enshrined --
in coliseums fanned with fronds and fragrance (sandal and cedar)

I found myself.

Sigh again, my dear,
--
'though it's enough
to hear you to breathe.

Sigh for the lost days
and sideways glances
that you'd rather have
never even seen.

Sigh for being wise
in another realm of fools
and I'll propose a toast.
How unlike them you are!

Sigh like the last rustle
of an autumn breeze,
and I'll imagine
the hillsides ablaze.

I'll imagine leaves
whipped up in a whirl as
a flaming tornado and,
at its center, a girl.

Her long hair tossed
askew and her face --
her rounded, demure face --
curved in contented bliss.

Her dress rippling rhythmically,
syncopated, fully, with the twirling
wind and its fiery cargo;
how she smiles amidst the movement.

Sigh again, sweet angel,
and I'll pretend I'm not in love.

Be brave! Be brave!
I hear the cry
call sharply through
the enveloping mist;

every evening the fog settles
down atop this sleepy town.

'Though temptation bleeds
from every fractured brick!

In this mist I feel
invisible; a sprite, a specter --
an evening wisp diffusing
down streets and alleys.

The darkened smudge of
another average man.
He walks by, equally ephemeral,
and dissolves again into the haze.

So it has been until now,
even without the fog.
They always pass by,
fading again into the haze.

Although the sea may take no pity
on a stranded boat, do not give up hope!

The fog is my sea, and frosted
grays my gradient to infinity.
Vacant echoes answer my calls:
"How are you?"

Okay. I'm always okay.

Then listless lapses into silence.
I wonder if passion died with God.

If it has, you're the one who killed it.

Formless voices fill the air,
murmurs with pangs of guilt.
Growing and growing,
the dissonance turns to consonance:

Silly child, it's all in your head.*

The streets are no longer familiar,
my own hands now seem foreign.
I hasten to catch up to another soul;
someone living to help me find the ground.

Only my footsteps sound in the night.
No one else is awake at this hour.
Insomnia, alone, takes these walks with me.
All the while commenting on my folly

and the white, beckoning infinity.

Yesterday
I felt like a character
in a Hesse novel;

all I had to show
that time had passed

was the lingering scent
of tobacco smoke,
an empty *** of coffee
and a banana peel.

That, and a vague comprehension
of my impending mortality.