Chime, clatter, clank, ring,

Clink, dream, shuffle, rub

What’s that you say?

Where’s that racket coming from?

Why, it’s the wings on my heart, a flappin’ together

Having one hell of a party

Watchin’ all the pretty people go by.

Red and blue figures running strait out of the aorta

With flashing clappers in their hands.

What racket? It’s a celebration!

Watch the jumpers swirl,

The tumblers whirl,

My own arms flap as I want to hurl

Up all my faults to make room for more joy

To allow my body the ability to express,

That which it cannot.

What is a skeleton?

Just take it away! And my limbs can join the heart runners

A wobblin’ and bendin’ and flappin’ each way

Kiss the day, kiss, kiss the day

What are my innards?

Just take em’ right out!

I’ll have more room

For the smiles of children,

Golding leaves,

And black ambition.

I’ll be able to **** in the morning air with all my being

And fill the cavity where my intestines once were

With real soul soup—savory sweet

And people say there’s no heaven?

This I’ll never believe.

There’s a silver wisp

Encountering to two black holes

To linger and to freeze

And what I breathe is winter



The burning leaves before each eve

The moisture rotting away the wood

A cupping of burly brown earth

Settles in the crevices of my hands



The warming in each tender place

The sifting coal down alley ways

Hand made mittens and frost about

I tense my shoulders as I walk



The morrow shifts its eyes low

To peer alone at barren earth

And tuck it in to sleep

For lo, I feel the coming white.

I’ve got a little gift

I’ve cupped it in my hands for you

Between each sweaty palm it lies

Pulsing.

If you’d like to take it

And press it to your chest,

And let it sink, although not painfully,

Into your core—you can.

It leads down to my soft wrists

And through my arms

Gracing my sore shoulders

And the ballet curve in my back

Sitting, settling in my hips

And shaking, shaking when they sway

Dropping it through my strong thighs

Like weights in my knees

And out, out

Through the bottom of my heels

To fly back up again

And shoot sparks through my neck

And lead you

To a place where you can become very lost

The colored pebble paths all look the same--

They wind and twist and spiral out my eyes!

Deeper, deeper, backwards as well.

The blank face by the white picket fence

The dusty bulbs ‘round the oval mirror

The flicking lights and constant, glorious

Discordant anthem!

There’s a mermaid who can

Shoot sweet syrup from her fingertips;

She’ll ****** you,

And carry you down more colored paths

Than you’ve ever dreamed of walking.

Every night you’ll be happy

And she’ll try not to release the venom from her teeth

I promise.

If you take it…

Ignore the broken glass on the floor

Hold it and speak to it

Keep it someplace warm.

And please—watch my eyelashes

They rise and fall

For you, for you, for you.

.

A creeper on the glass mirror would love to try and find

A haven for his stench to sink and be welcomed

Wind’s rhythm and gold’s beats are changing

Your red and black arch is tears of happiness for

The taken joker with the mocking-night smile

It’s a warning for the earth worms below to curl in mush

And stretch out to envelop the broken down rock grit

All while they sleep.



Sigh and grace the side of my cheek with the back

Of your hand. Will you slap my one day? No, never—

What could a little stink bug do to harm me?

One cannot separate their treasures easily—

Or perhaps rubies did not fit with the cool black night stone,

But then I remembered that the black widow eats her mate

And I stumbled on foot for a long time before I knew you.

Enough said.



It was warm that day—very fresh and brightly lit

My wrists swung docilely, facing outward—and your fingers

Laced with my hand—silent clamps and scalpels and ropes

To turn—at just the right moment. Pushing aside my answer.

And forcing me downward as if a swarm, making me a millstone

Sinker to the restless night from which I have not woken entirely.

Half developed larvae.



It’s funny walking by a window—in the fall, or perhaps the summer

My, my there are a lot of you in haggard clumps

Creating speckled shadows that dot my inner room.

Silly, the way you’ve bit my ear, and now all I hear is tainted.

I’ll steadily walk in grey and violet. No longer a ruby.

Child, you’ve got a long way to fly—a long time to mate.

Avoid those boxelders.



.

Step up, step up and tell me your name,

And tell me your throaty thoughts,

And  the quiet places where you wade.



Only one nickel to tell me your dreams,

Let me seep in your crevices,

I’ll be the sand in your shoe’s seams.



Shout out your fears and apprehensions!

I read you the answers straight from the book

Of diagnosis in the mental dimensions.



Straight up, tell me why you breathe?

Do you live for the journey?

Or luxurious rapture on a summer’s eve?



Why is your smile the color of smoke?

Tell me every detail as vivid as possible,

Now why do you choke?



I’m a faceless “listener” and judge, that's me!

Do not let those maternal boundaries blur.

Spill your guts out of respect for a PhD!



.

Do you see the reflection of my face?

It is red. Simply red.

I care not to change it, it can be red

If red is what it would like to be.



Unreadable red—the stereo type

Of love and of passion.

I am sick of such redness—

This red I am not.



Can you see my fight inside?

It is orange, simply orange.

It is fiery and weird—

The orange place I have not explored



Orange, orange is my indecision

Orange peels in my place

In my burlap stomach

Orange my guilt.



Can you see the light on my chest?

It is yellow, simply yellow.

Yellow like sun in January

When grey passes.



Joyous yellow, where marigolds play

Where milk is churned to hope

And where smiles wade,

I roll in yellow.



Can you see the rage in my eyes?

It is green, simply green.

Green like emerald glens

And raggy earth.



Seductive green, my flute

My dancing color

In gentle waving grass

My green bed lies.



Can you see my shallow cheek?

It is blue, simply blue.

Blue like frost bitten morning,

All a’ sparkle



Patient blue, the color by which

My skin is velvet.

Blue interrupting my eyes—

Inconsiderate blue.



Do you see my sagging arms?

They are purple, simply purple.

Purple like complacence.

My purple love.



Pristine purple, holding on

To all it tends

My confidence, sweet,

Dearest purple.

Diving into Buttercups--

My favorite pastime

The loveliest of happenings,

And things happened long ago,

And things that have yet to happen.



Each beat of the sunrays,

Each clap of the spring breeze

On the water below,

And the birds of love flying

Around my quiet hammock.



Absent thimbles are to be feared—

Especially if the needle is rusty,

Especially when I’m hemophilic--

And already on my face, bleeding,

Just begging for the yellow flowers!



Each rip of an artery so small

Each measly yet itching infection

On my pulsing bulb is wailing.

And the dark robed ghosts

Are waiting to take me.



I am a thorny buttercup

With no thimble for a shield.

I am a delicate beauty,

A pointed killer,

And a mirror to the morning star.