who told you
you were not beautiful?

does that mean
not worthy of their time?

but anyway
they stated as such

if anything
their actions proved otherwise

but no matter
I’m trying not to mind

that I was never real
figment of imagination

whatever you cast me
I betrayed love

and cast heroes into new moons
beached jellyfish

I’m learning to gather bones
painting a canvas

instead of
reading newsprint

sculpture of messy clay
ultimate opus

good gold
honest trinket

bees’ honey
I recognize my self

ageless blue
flame

in all that is
ugly

small practice
sunburst navel design

Do you see what I see?
We have descended into the belly of the beast.

Houses crowd together, their dead eyes staring out.
They’ve sprung up overnight like

Ugly toadstools.
The machines on the hill are busy

Scraping away the old. By that I mean
What was there before,

A forest naturally,
And putting up these monstrosities instead.

It can’t be let well enough alone.
There are too many people and someone’s got to make a buck.

The world burns down to the filter.
We suffer the fevers of the dry needle people,

And are left with what has been
Torn out from under us.

Some privy chair propped us up with potions.
Dutiful pawns, riding the arcs they have fashioned,

They pay us a small ransom
To cull and sell their wares.

Simple sticks and carrots are not enough to wake us.
The damage thus wrought we pay no mind to –

Subdivisions, shopping malls, parking lots.
There are too many people and someone has to pay.

after the ***** red day
her dry tongue bruises
the evening
with burning blue songs

morning bleeds in
then blazes
the sky pierced open by one hot star
night melts away, slinky black cat

a thousand restless fingers
pluck along my nerves
and crawl swarming bees
over my flesh
******* dry honey
and I as a comb am empty
waiting on the waxing moon
to bring in the tide
exposed and littered
on the cracked seabed
lighting beeswax candles
impromptu runway lights
for those aeroplanes
who always fail to land
and wasted afternoons
fade into wasted nights
tossing to and fro
I sleep
under the cupboards instead

Her novelty has faded.
The stars hang back, distant ladies-in-waiting.
The night sky, their palace, is eclipsed by cities
Exploding with neon lights and grotesque trees.
She is too romantic.
Inch by inch, the black sheath is drawn back,
Revealing her smiling crescent.
She keeps a faithful orbit, and stirs
Blue oceans with long white fingers.

In her full sphere
She is a perfect spotlight,
Turning quiet snowy fields into
Illuminated empty stages.
She plays peek-a-boo, uncovering lovers
Gleaming whitely in the mouths
Of beds.
The beauty of entwined limbs
Exposed in her milky radiance.

She is the sun’s soft reflection.
He is never dim, and the black
Silk bag, a sort of corset,
Is ready to devour her again.
The wine is drained from the glass.
Her smile has become a slit.
The single pearl
Gulped,
Cloaked in shadow again.

You could never picture me in the pockets of my West Coast.
I flew out of your story and into another, and then
Even into another, always the phoenix.

No longer yours, but his.
No longer his, but mine.
Perhaps I suffered these little deaths to forge a heaven with him.

A king, he’d follow me to the ends of the earth, thrice over.
His queen I’m still too shy to let shine through,
A star stubbornly obscured by cloud.

Though before I complained of rain,
On the Island it never bothered me.
Even in the dead of winter it kept the grass emerald-green.

An emerald city:
Ivy shrouded trees; moss fluorescent.
Our castles were those green giants.

Siamese blue to denim blue.
Betwixt the Spit & Seabroom.
It was all I dreamed and ever wanted.

The only thing missing was the garden, the garden,
Sheltered by walls made of cob.
Or a whole house, the air inside delectable.

Tendril of dream,
Is a cinder girl deserving of bees,
Turning honey into mead, of wild things?

No. Exiled to a foreign land,
A barren land; the ghetto forest.
Those halcyon years now only a memory.

Ridiculous to expect the bald
Rocks to yield to a surfer’s paradise, of
Blue-green ocean. Long hairs cannot thrive under puritans’ eyes.

Green things tremble for sun.
For all the rain, I remember the sun,
Filtering down through the forest canopy,

Upheld by the cathedral’s true pillars
Rather than these thrifty spindles. In reverence of true
Beauty, all is quiet & hushed.

The birth of a princess may bring us back.
Pioneers, we’re still in search of our happy ending,
To live lush in nature’s majesty.

I know the Pacific is still out there
Roaring somewhere,
Crashing itself onto stony beaches.

Mists wreath those mountains.
The drums beat.
That muted boom, my thud of heart.