soon you will be distant after you leave
while here i will remain in silent wait
with the stars, the moon, for you to return
so i may find form and shape in your eyes,
for the shores of my ears kissed by your voice
and I’ll remember more than just my name.

i will move, my lips repeating your name
as inch by inch and feet by feet you leave.
i know you cannot hear nor hold my voice
nor do i know if you care as i wait,
yet i will, with failing heart and poor eyes
for hope, rhyme and reason with you return.

from where you are I know you will return.
but will you remember me, or the name
of those that once found delight in your eyes?
will you forget or abandon them, leave
all thought to an eternity of wait
until it hears nor fears no sound nor voice?

i confess I close my eyes when the voice:
yours, caress my ear, as if i return
to the first night before i learned to wait
for secrets hidden and revealed by name:
of those that have come, gone, and those that leave
endless broken mirror shards in your eyes.

never will I forget your shifting eyes
that held me before you gave me your voice
that made darkness fade. glad i did not leave
for there was only madness to return.
the same night when you gave me your own name,
your gift for what ceased that night, your own wait.

in silence, not knowing, i still will wait
under day or night skies until four eyes
lock and hold, to each other trade a name
that could not be spoken in any voice.
only then will i know when you return
that smiles or hope have no reason to leave

here i will wait until I hear your voice,
eyes sleep and wake with hope as you return,
name in lips that only after death, leave.

only in this new world
where ones and zeroes define
each word and color to take shape
can a farewell be born to remain
without touch, sight, or hearing.

for this reason perhaps i cling
to when the same light and sound
halved so they may join themselves
in full and equal new measure
between and within, for us.

passionate as i am, please

*let your distance and silence stay true
even as thought seeks to close its eyes
to the memory of you while each lung
stifle and choke the air so my tongue may
never again shape nor taste your name.

let me be the sole inheritor
to the memory of our last night
whose slivers i will feed  
to the mouths of forgetting
while i live on dying.

it is not the rain
fall on my skin
nor the howl of the winds
embracing me
thus i cower and shiver

but the memory
of your fingers tracing my back
as if writing a love letter
of your soft cheek pressed
against my left shoulder
like a first kiss
while your nose draws
to breathe and savor deep
my sweat and scent

that i miss
in your absence

i do not know
when my eyes will cease
witness the sun with her light fingers
caress my naked flesh warm and gentle
like when you first traced your lips
ripe and sweet against my own

flowers in full bloom
after the cold night
with the pregnant moon
what new blossoms  
will perfume the air?
will they even dare compare
to the rare harvest
savoured full and deep
in the valley of your breast

i do not know, love may be too short
yet i want no rest or seat with regret
nor wish the long and lonely road to forget

your eyes will cease without
kissing my shape and form
i know, yet allow these eyes
to be hunter, spy, and lover
seeking you and only you

until my lost sunrise

as my memory shift
to drift on towards sleep,
tired as aching bones
wrapped in numb flesh
from too long waiting
in the soft places you
now claim for your absence,
i wonder at the memory
of memory:

of the season when and if they forget,
if longing’s swift and silent arrow
find its mark true and through,

and if they know of regret.

you used to share
only the distance and silence
until one of you decided to break it:

your voices began as awkward pairs
until each found its rhythm and began to dance

you gave tables a reason for its sides,
your gazes lingered and held mirrors
reflecting each other, shared lips
as you kissed the same cup
even rose from the same bed

now, your eyes are naked daggers
quick to gouge any new color and shape
seeking refuge in the pages of memory
every word, every sliver of voice
you once allowed to caress
deep within and between your ears

why is it that two strangers
can perform the miracle of welcome
yet everything between two lovers,
each brick, wood, and stone of the bridge
built in the wake of the broken silence
now lie in fire and ashes, the earth salted,
in the air a certain kind of stillness, a quiet
that makes even darkness weep and bleed?

pure white ****** paper
my pen emerges
ramrod lustful
to take it into bed

as if with every contact
pumping and thrusting
whirls and whorls
lines and curves
between gasps
of commas and periods
it could soon
******* the seeds
from hope’s garden

does something remain
when one is leaving?
what goes away, from and to where
when one chooses to stay?*

lost in these preoccupations,
between drowning in coffee
raising hope like blue smoke
twirl before blown and fade,
i find myself seeking refuge
in secrets and mysteries:

i discover a world born
between leaving and staying:
the shape  of words spoken
and thoughts hoarded more than gold

every day i find new questions
whose answers belong to the night

i know that i do not know
while daylight dims, pressed,
until there is only everything
holding nothing.

my tongue did not taste nor trace you as a rainbow
because you spawn hurricanes inside my chest

you have always been thus, and so much more
you are of fire and earth, wind and water
the elements and minerals gathered in you
transformed like carbon into diamond
revealing your reflections under light
sought by poets or lovers when comes night

because it is not my lips
you seek for your own
so you may savor the day
that is being born as promised,
laced with the aftertaste
of my ashes and yesterdays.

because my hands are scarred.
and your skin bristle, your flesh
shiver at the contact of its strangeness.
your skin detects but would not believe
the possibility of ripe and sweet fruits
from the seeds i gathered
coated as their shells are in grime,
washed out traces of something red.
and so you dare not even discover
what twigs we could gather
for little bonfires to blaze in your darkness,
to melt your shields,
your daggers and armor,
and forge them into spoons and forks,
into a clean goblet
to hold the wine.

because my voice is not his voice,
my eyes are not the stars
of your blued skies,
in daylight or dark.

silence was a language
whose words we borrowed
to be whispered by our eyes
when we had to say goodbye.

fades in the distance to blink us a bridge
whose pillars, arc, and breadth,
each stone and each step designed
as inspired by our first night vow
to bind us more than by blood
across the garden of stars and night.

so that when the light finds us,
the words of silence will be spoken
again in our smiles before we shape
each other in each other’s arms
where our voices births a warmth
to rival that of dawn’s first rise.

now, in your absence that is bleak
as my sighs that even darkness denies,
has silence always been this barren?

when i breathe as if with dust and ashes
gathering so it may reshape my mortal heart.

we parcel ourselves
to trade with each other
through glances, gestures, and words
a handful of fears
and a sky filled with our desires.

we barter quotations of our lives
fruits and goods of experience harvested
after being toiled in the garden
where the sun lives and dies
all over and over again.

we even offer our silence,
we breathe deep while memory seeks
to unearth the pieces we lost or misplaced,
at times finding those pieces
we choose not to trade.

i spread our traded pieces,
yours alongside mine
and discover they share
bursts of red passions,
hues of blues,
warm white and cold black
on their skin and flesh and smell.

there is that space between us,
silent as the dead, distant
like the stars of no particular time
and i would like to fill it with something
crafted on my own, from memory of pieces
we trade and traded.

something like a bridge to span along
the ocean of gray space between us.

to discover that strain of silence
i avoid as if plague born and sworn
claim to take shape and root
like the pathways of my veins,
drinking from my mortal heart  
so now i gaze as if with eyes born  
with the light of unnamed stars,
wind trace forgotten sigils on my skin,
fingers touch and trace as if laced
with the kiss and embrace of desire.  

i would be grateful, and speak,  
as only love between pen and paper
fresh and wet with ink or with blood,
the name of the altar for this naked fire  

but there has only been silence
now i claim for my own, and all  
this silence seek is only silence,  
born to spawn to feed and breathe  
an infinity of itself and in between.

on its last day
we murdered last year*

with our lensed eyes
named with a new gaze
our voices flayed out
with our mismatched knives
designed and sharpened
to cut, gouge, and bleed
with the gifts of new poisons
and fresh deaths.

gazed with a pure force of naked tenderness
caressing the leash of my raving blood
to be quiet and still

as if held inside your arms
laced with your soft kisses

never will i forget your eyes

your ears may never be again
the shore kissed by the waves
born from pages your fingers stroked
slow and gentle, nestled in the tender
warmth of your lover’s hand.

still, a thought of you precipitates
like soft falling rain gathering into a stream
for pages ****** and naked
as you once were, and waiting
for words to find their shape
like how you once traced and claimed
my own in the dark

your ears may never be again
the shore waiting to be kissed
by these new waves born from streams
flowing together in my lengthening nights and days
still, everything as it must be and still is

for even after us this still remains:
the afterstory of how i ache for you
with an emptiness equal to your silence.

i rediscovered
shape and form of my desire
while you were sleeping
away the taste and texture
of words born from stupid mouths.

without your makeup
i see you as i know you:
flower in the rain-
swept, drenched by wind and water
unbowed, waiting for the sun.

you don’t have to wish
my heart to beat and learn how
to french kiss your name,
i’ve practiced since the first night
my first word when comes daylight.

from infernal tongues devouring
wood and concrete edifices,
to the brief yet joyful life spark
from a match lit as if to breathe
soft and tender so that a solitary candle
may flame a vigil against cold and night,
i have seen and endured those lips,
yet none proved to be a feast
more than the fires of friendship
like the one we named ours:

solitary embers fated to a lifetime of wait
until we allowed them to share names,
speak secrets and whispers desires,
fingers like the poles of stars
joined together as it peeled away the covers
wrapping our pains, tragedies, and shames.

yet even as i desired for each grain of sand
be allowed to trace the shape of our feet
while shore and sea lined each kiss,
i did not forget the fate of fires.

even now i can still feel the warmth
as if your hand was still pressed
against my own, ghost friction
from the fiction of our devotion
i now allow the wind to claim
for it flows into them, by their names,
to scatter these ashes away.

ask the light, and she will speak-
the secret smile she traces as she kisses
my eyes for the beautiful day that is born

as it was her gift yesterday,
on this day when i breathe with love
for you and only you, know this:
you do not owe me touch or hearing
even grateful words need not disturb
the silence because someone has to be
the first to fall, even without knowing
how or when: for a lifetime or all alone.

let me savour the stars and her kisses-
full, like the moonlight with her embrace
where my arms stretch out, as if waiting
for you, even when you are not coming,

because the same light
who promises i can greet you
could only remain silent and dark
as she denies my last desire
to say thank you, and goodbye.

it must be beautiful, to be certain like the stars taking their place in the sky at night, across this vast silence and stillness to know and feel that in someone’s memory i burn like warm gentle fire, revealing faraway eyes and pregnant smiles.

but i dare claim not nor let hope beat in my breast only for truth to bleed out my eyes and set my heart to rest.

but i would like you to know, in your silence, in the distance where you are clutched by things dark, deep, and cold, you are never forgotten.

it is your name he whispers as he greets the smile of the sun; your shape and feminine form absent he remembers to fill the empty space under the gaze of noon and the moon; it is your voice his winds strain in the silence to listen so they may sing; in your eyes where he wishes to feast on the colors and shape you may share; your touch incandescent sheds warm light to what is almost forgotten and buried under a lifetime of love found and lost.

may you never allow the ghosts with their fangs and claws to devour the promise that is you: know that it is you, everything about you, with all your darkness and your light, in the dance of day and night you are the gentle fire burning away all that is lost, sad, and cold to reveal not just his eyes nor his secret smile before he dives deep into the dark.

even when his open eyes never see you again, nor your own eyes kiss him soft and full in the distance, the memory of you, the promise that is in you will always burn and rise

until the last goodbye

the voices of morning
the call of the birds
the hum of fragile wings
and even the winds sigh
for they could not hear your voice
and thus they could not sing
and the sun would weep if not for her fires
would rather be blind
for her eyes could not find you
to give you your shadow
that once walked alongside mine

silence could not find its voice
for it has lost its rhythm, its home
between each syllable of your every word
and even the night feels the cold
that is dark and empty without
you in the distance, awake,
your heart beating and your eyes
set off to some distant land,
or to the sky where soars
your dreams and hopes.

and i
and i my love
and i my love stand alone
even my shadow dissipates
my voice fade as my eyes
dives into nothingness
with only a faint hope
that when morning comes
light and sound, sight and hearing
reveals your face and your smile
that rival those of the stars.

to write about the light of night stars,
how they pale against the harvest  
she gathers in her eyes from only the sun
would be like tracing the outline of a scar
with a blade, to bleed in silence
for the lust and addiction to old memories  

thus, there remains no reason to write
about passions when they poison;
for longing when one does not belong;
nor for desire burning into cold fire  

without a reason for love and living
i will court and be intimate with dying

it began with the fingers of day  

parting the dark and cold to reveal
fresh and green succulent cruelties  
arousing one’s appetite the desire:  

to be a blind witness
in how your absence  
bleach color and bleed form.  

to be deaf to wind fall fail  
find their morning melodies
for without your voice  
there can be no song.  

a brand new day in the season of waiting  
until you would arrive in sight or hearing.  

but now i no longer count the ways
i gather the body of each day  
to join the corpses of yesterday:  

there is only this, and every night,
among promises written with salt or in sand,
a cancer without end, or cure
eating me up while i endure.

even when you lust
for the strokes and licks of tongues
laced with the seasons of ashes,
why do i still desire to wash your feet
with my soft and gentle kisses?

to share the sky once more
with you before you leave,
sear the colors in thought and memory,
lace and wrap it along muscles and veins,
your perfume the oxygen for blood,
your voice the lullaby for the long cold dark.

so i can endure, and wait
until the next naked moon.

godless as i am, your name
will be the prayer traced
by my serpent tongue and sinner lips,
may moonlight and starlight show you
and may your eyes find me:
with my bad penmanship
my awkward lines
my occasional typo
and grammar woes
imperfect as i am
worthy to be
your Poet

my Mousai.

i did not wish to be asleep
lost in a dream like a bus
bound to go places and spaces
far and farther away
until it arrives to waking
where you would be absent

because you are not a dream
i am awake and i wait

while waiting for your goodbye
silence takes it roots and blooms
in every stone, leaf and flower
as if the seeds were planted yesterday
and with each breath waiting
you go far and far away

with only this silence to remain
a graveyard to each of our names

from the sea comes
not only the ceaseless fury
of waves  embracing stone:
from its deep where secrets lie
to the source and color of the sky,
one can wade, stroke and swim
to come to its shifting sands
virginal for four feet and four hands.

i have been here, and you there:
the days between us shuffled like cards.
perhaps fate will deal us a full house:
a pair with a heart and a trio of aces
for the words we ached yet stilled
our tongues to shape and caress.

wiser in the fictions of affections,
we proclaim the distance as breadth
where we shall sow the promise
for the season of toil and harvest.

even father time could not measure
nor mother darkness swallow
my desire to meet the dawn
where i might find you again,

because with you;
sun rediscovers the secret kiss of light
winds birth a caress
of gentleness thought forgotten
stars and moon light embrace
with the warmth of the first fire

i open my eyes
to breathe your name.

i discovered
the shape of my desire:

to navigate the waters of sleep
without signal flares, rafts, or life jackets
like you do.

with you.

i did not seek to intrude upon your garden
to plant seeds for violent thorns and dark vines
take root upon your cheek and drink from your tears
nor a trojan horse for my starving madness
to feast upon your thoughts and rouse your own
yet i confess when i lost my innocence of you
i found myself clawing above the cold earth
where i waited the claim of roots and worms
blood in my veins decanted with gasoline
ignited into a desire to savour again the sun
raise my fingers to trace words and fires

because silence is a mouth
gaping wide with sharp teeth
and little by little she feeds
on the memory of your voice

your voice that wove my name
between far away cities and strange skies
between houses without lights
empty snake streets and dead hills
a string of white light in the dark
stretched out so i may find you

then there is a silence
forged from unknown materials
darker than black
wide like daylight and night sky
full of constellations, comets, stars
burning bright to dust not just eyes
nor ears, memory, or hope:

your silence.