Sometimes it's just a conch shell
I am tired of holding
to my ear.

The birdsong outside my window
fills me more than your affection
ever could. When I say I am in love
with the entire ******* planet,
I mean it is impossible
for me to settle down.

I am not the type to sink
in the river, I want to float
on my back through the bloodstream
of the Earth and let the moon tell me
when it is too dangerous to go
swimming.

I never learned how
to swim. I am far too cautious
when I talk. My body is self-conscious
about letting the chlorine of
a summer pool touch me, fill me
like you used to.

I guess that's why I'm leaving,
love. The open air is a much better lover
than the sea. I would rather burn
inside the marrow of a far-off star
than feel alone at the bottom of the ocean,
only fish to guarantee I'm still alive.

Love is Pluto,
drifting in space searching
for something to hold onto
never knowing it is in orbit
circling something it will
never get to touch.

I wish I'd never touched you.
Never felt the sandpapered scars
that fold inside the creases in
your wrists. Never let you think
I had fallen from heaven, I wish
I'd told you I'm searching
for a way to float on top of clouds
without needing a God to tell me
I'm happy.

Maybe I only loved you
when you were unhappy.
Maybe your shoulder blades
never contained the wings I thought
I could see when the lights were out.

Baby, you were the ink
pouring from Shakespeare's
****** quill. You were the barnacle
in the sand waiting to take in
the blood and screaming disbelief
of a child, you were the whales
beaching themselves in one sorry attempt
to taste the grass.

You were the one
to always keep sinking.
It was your sandpaper
I held under my tongue
hoping it would rasp
long enough for someone
to tell me I was bleeding.

You were always
bleeding, especially when
I was gone. Now,
you breathe smoke
and still tell me it's me
who needs you.

What was about 2 a. m. that always inspired her? Why did the sky have to be pitch dark for her to finally find her answer? Why couldn’t she simply control her mind at her own will? She wondered all of this as she lay in bed; her room was completely obscure, her computer screen the only source of light. She continued typing, the keyboard composing a uniform beat as she translated her abstract thoughts, regular habitants of her subconscious, in to words. Dark san serif characters that by themselves meant nothing but united could open worlds that have never been conceived before. She sighted pausing as she realized a word didn’t work at all, she racked her brains till she found a synonym that enabled the harmony of the prose to lighten. She smiled as she always did when she realized how writing was an intricate and bewildering process. How it took a life of its own and made her simply a tool to the construction of whatever was dying to get out of her limited human intellect.

The Cannibal’s dream and the inverse conclusion
Twist of the seam, sunken scattered illusion

Shouts of the spy fastened tight to the pylon
Sacrifice sweating; bygones can’t just be bygones
Mustard gas moans, whip lashed in the fire
Cunning glass masters burned alive at the pyre
Miscarriage minister delivers the sponge-bath
Alive at the eve of divination, the wrath
Blasphemous cries vindicate putrid powder
Sweet crystal cradling, swaddling sheets on the shrouder

Arcane sessions in the cavern deep
Turbulently righteous ideas to reap
Divine purification at an alchemy flame
A zenith of nostrums, bad medicine, blame
Strip off the layers and chant benediction
A hand, from the mind, reaching out for conviction
Sharp swords of lead, heavy, shifting to gold
Sentient beings search for truth to behold

Excavate, deviate, a stranger to demonstrate
Colloquial séance with panic to elevate
Head leads body, a path of insurrection
The soul and the mind at war for correction
The crotches of branches, slits of the eyes
A crevasse of lonesome; wedged in, we writhe
Anticipating the sting that comes with the change
Of transforming the cave into a mountain range

I go to the door often.
Night and summer. Crickets
lift their cries.
I know you are out.
You are driving
late through the summer night.

I do not know what will happen.
I have no claim on you.
I am one star
you have as guide; others
love you, the night
so dark over the Azores.

You have been working outdoors,
gone all week. I feel you
in this lamp lit
so late. As I reach for it
I feel myself
driving through the night.

I love a firmness in you
that disdains the trivial
and regains the difficult.
You become part then
of the firmness of night,
the granite holding up walls.

There were women in Egypt who
supported with their firmness the stars
as they revolved,
hardly aware
of the passage from night
to day and back to night.

I love you where you go
through the night, not swerving,
clear as the indigo
bunting in her flight,
passing over two
thousand miles of ocean.

Transmogrified through the written word,
I see myself through his agate eyes;
Shall I take up then the sin of pen,
Transmute smooth paper
To invisible sighs?

Secrets suit him best of all;
A blackness from which ink disappears;
The word written down remains only a whisper,
The heart has it's stalwart lock and key
Which safeguards well it's timeless tales.

For he's the unturned phrase of a day,
Which empties deep into me my own;
And the faint, far echoes slowly returning,
For a thousand years:
Bedrock of my soul.

You are a dark spot on the shoreline
I can’t see it, but I know you’re smiling
And the ocean is trying to swallow you whole
But You laugh at me for trying to save you

You are a dark spot on the shoreline
With waves lapping at your shins
I still can’t see it
But you’re still smiling

You are a dark spot under water
There are shadows pulling you in
Undertow of regret, pain, and wanting
And if you let me I would give you my lungs

If only it was just
one staircase
two hallways and
five doors
keeping us from each other...

Center of all centers, core of cores,
almond self-enclosed, and growing sweet--
all this universe, to the furthest stars
all beyond them, is your flesh, your fruit.

Now you feel how nothing clings to you;
your vast shell reaches into endless space,
and there the rich, thick fluids rise and flow.
Illuminated in your infinite peace,

a billion stars go spinning through the night,
blazing high above your head.
But in you is the presence that
will be, when all the stars are dead.