She Wants

Scarlet cheek
Drenched in heavy breath
Praying to a god of lightning within skin
We sin electric
Along the pulse of thunder
That pounds along the prism of rib cage
As an empty echo waiting to be filled

We reduce the night in hidden instincts
Back down to darkness
Kissed in candle flame
So desperately close to being blown out
That we have already settled into gloom  

Sightless in the slap of touch
The weight of wait
Tension in tendons
Curled toes and closed eyes
Fearlessly peeking
To drown in the bounty of hair
That hangs heavenly
Like a blindfold
Lost in the black sea of pupil
A lack of breath
In lip bitten lungs

We surrender to a pillow case prison
Bed sheet asylum
Deemed insane
We play straight jacket
Handcuff confessions
Shrink our skin
Closer to a clothing called sanity  
Admit to the sweet seductions
Of tounge **** swallow lip
Quiver to bow
Notch arrow
Draw steady down
Hold
Hold
Tremble
Release
To bask in the wisdom
Of hip slips singing
Dipping witness to testify
In the court-ship of submission

A contained chaos
Contested as corruption
But our bodies speak universal
In a language of moans and mantas
Sung out over the churning bass beat
Of heart thumps that resonate
In the taught syllables of beau-ty
Caged between skin and its slap  

We are powerless in the presence of passion
And position our bodies in sculptures of sweat
A natural occurrence
A midnight madness
Where we shed this skin
And let our bones scrape
Till our skeletons knock the nails outa this casket

Resurrected we wake as infidels
And follow our echoes
To the origin of our conversions
A little death
A simple attraction
Tension
And release

The dream of home grows stronger
Fills up the engines of your bones

Cascades along the train lines you travel
Straight as the steel rocking you to sleep
A lullaby left to sit and hum itself into twilight

Even the hills of Spain are touched with prophesy
Snow, winter claiming the country as her lover
As something to lie down upon and rest, sanctuary

This is what I look for in a thousand places all at once
Home, somewhere to plant my shadow
Let it grow into night

This is the place
Where lovers gather
                 To grind the softest parts
                 Of their hopes down to bone
To find those white buried truths
Hidden beneath the waters and mud

Our honest is buried under an ocean of blood
Dive
        Dive
This is how we learn to take off our clothing

for Thich Quang Duc,
The monk who lit himself on fire in 1963.

The flames were a mantra,
Kissing skin like the enlightenment
That blooms when one has finally
Swallowed the last spit of his fears.
Young monk with kerosene in hand,
Pyre priest of thunder and spark.
You never said a word as you ascended,
But I wonder what you whispered
Before your blood boiled. I wonder
What you dreamt of the night before,
If you even slept, or did you stare
At the stars and say sisters
I will sing you soon,
A symphony of supernova and smoke
That stopped all the street lights
As the world basked in your blaze
As if you were the origin of heat.
You wore a halo of combustion
For all the angels that couldn't
Be heard singing a dirt song,
Harmonizing with the silence.
But the furnace of your body
Was a screaming nirvana,
And if those flames were a mantra,
Then they were speaking holy holy holy.

Stubborn boy
Let loose the shackles of your smile
This world is far too holy for you to
Hide that half halo of your grin

The sound that comes in the crumbling
Of your childhood is the same one
That speaks in the secret wanderings
Of your soul
So listen close

When we walked around
The old bronze heart of this city
I wish you could hear
The rising pitch tuning
Of your veins as it readies
You to perform inside the
Same arena as a thousand
Broken down Cleopatras
Playing with snakes

Stubborn boy
Succumb to the silver smile
This city speaks in
A language I will never know
I am a scholar
That studies only the whispered
Tongues of crescent streetlamps
But you
You can learn all the languages
That have ever crashed into the moon

Close that book you have buried you eyes in
And in this city plant
The waiting bud of your billowing heart
So it can blossom like flames of windswept cherry trees
While there are still days left in spring

Stubborn boy
They taught you how to sing
And you memorized the melodies
Of such foreign stars
Open the cannon of your throat
This world is a two bit theater
That buries bodies
In the same seats they were born

But you
Son of a thousand
Secret subway duets
Will one day find yourself
Sitting next to the soul of this city

And she
She will ask you to sing for her
And you
You will learn why the tides chase the moon

You who are silent
You who once tended this garden
You who left once winter closed its teeth

I am sorry for the way
        I missed all your clues
They were subtle
        And I was too busy trying
        To untangle the bird cage
        In my chest
I only wanted to learn how to sing again

We were poor students
        But I have studied
        The trajectory
Of the bullet that broke us
Like a ghost haunting its own bloodstain

We could never negotiate
        Or way thought  the burning
        And the rubble
This ***** gift you left me with
That I hate to unwrap
But cannot help these anxious hands

        You who are silent
You who broke away
You who never learned to bury your
Caskets
I cannot fault you for this
I had hoped that
You would be better
Then the girl who forgot how to love me
But you were the same shape as your shadow

You who are broken
You who sung always in silhouette
        You who are silent

Sometimes on the quietest nights
        I suspect I hear
Your tremble dream
        Damming me for opening
That door you had locked so tight

But
You who took my keys
You who boarded up your spine
        Your who are silent

Someone will have to sing
For the both of us
And we can walk away
        Alone again
        Silent

Wheels spin
        Laughter Laughter
“Scooters are more fun” He says
Wheels spin
        Laughter Laughter
His father sits tired and old
        Bourbon in hand 4 ice cubes
                To cool his tongue so he wont
                        Yell at us to be careful when we ride
Wheels spin
        Laughter Laughter
3 bikes 1 Scooter the old kind before
        Razors were ever invented
                With big wheels and big handles
Unsteady and rusting
        “But Scooters are more fun” he says
Wheels spin one handed       Balance      Balance
                         ****
Down Down red red
        And he is screaming
        My knee red red
Wheels spin
“Rock in his leg” He says
Dads bourbon left on front steps
                The ice melts          Waste
And there’s blood on the road
         On the steps on his shirt on his face on the grass
His hand is reaching
        Inside         red    red
        His knee    red    red
        Out rock out
You have no business there
****** and *******
                         The rock leaves without saying
                                      Goodbye or even Thank you
red    red      red      red
****** ground and yet
He won’t cry
        No tears only screams
Scooter broken
                         ****** old thing
The wheels bent and spinning still
        3 Bikes and a trip to the hospital
Wheels spin
        Knees Bleed
                  14 Stitches
Laughter
        Laughter