i do not love you*

only that when thought strays,
transforms into a hound
bound to trace the path to you
it could not seem to forget,
you remind me of sun’s
first fingers i indulged before
to stroke and kiss my eyes.

perhaps i only truly see
my own eyes in the bountiful harvest  
under sun, star, and moonlight:
more than the garden of earthly delights
all these passion volcanoes exploding-
the flow of conversations from rivers
subterranean, human, and thus divine.  

and after everything  
i see you.  

seeing you ignites a spark of desire
to burn colors and form in my eyes
that until the last fading light and breath
as long as you allow my gaze
i wish i would not be blind.

with my discarded faith
faithful friends, will you confess
to which you would tear your shadow:
to know there never was a god
or to know your prayers transmit as white noise*

faithful i know they will remain
as for friends, well, i do not really know
so i never asked, nor ever will  

still, it awes me of the human condition
to worship and seek portents of blessings
whose arrival the faithful rationalize
as happening on some holy time table and line
instead of the chance and probabilities
like let’s say of winning the lotto mega jackpot  

i have read persons proclaim
after having missed the bus or plane
that afterwards fell to a ravine or mountain
of how divine was the intervention  

i wanted to shake their hands
they must have been so special
to be saved, blessed and loved
while hundreds were ******.

like waves
from a faraway sea
your voice
comes to me
kisses and licks
the shores of my ears
tickles and trickles
little by little
like sand
into within
before leaving
for silence

in the silence
with eyes closed
for I cannot see you
i feel you
as certain things
can only be
in the dark and silence
like your words
twigs kindled
by your voice
into a warmth
without a name

your voice is enough
while I keep my silence.

to let my tongue remember  
french lessons with every syllable  

slow as a gaze, harvest each color under light
gentle as fingers tracing desire on your naked skin  

but, to speak your name would invite madness:  

for it would stir a lifetime of hunger  
in my eyes to always feed on you
my fingers afflicted by incessant shivers
with only your touch to soothe and calm  

hearing your name, my ears would ache
to hear my own in your voice each day  

*and you do. not know. my name.

the flame shivers
dims and suffocates
as it burns the oxygen
in the silence of prison

and then came the words

*laced with your madness and joys
your voice a stray wind  
with a perfume i could not name
whiffed by the fire, my fire
stroked with a new born desire
from the first house of delight

without a muse i stand
staring below my well
with the coin in my hand
a gathering gravity of sweat

with parched throat and sun bitten skin
the waters stir a delicate invite:
to wash away the gathered dust and ashes,
dilute even minute traces of yesterdays
from soiling each new day,
immerse out the cold of last night
where, in her deep dark
i stripped and whipped passion
free of my longing and desires