He shuddered at my beauty—
sad but flattering, like it is.

And how I long to be a cat,
that lives in an antique shop.

How many times I've rode down this road on a stolen bicycle...
I know it sounds ****** up but I did what I had to,
and I'm tired and I'm cold
and maybe been broken.
Oh, Archer, oh.
Oh, golden sun,
your forgiving light,
it's warm

and I am cold.

My lord, standing fast,
with flourishing orchids private.
Love, faded spectral being, leave your grave of satin

for the warm blood of the sleeping at last.

Night-walking and undead,
skin, firm as steel.

The spring scent of flowers is rousing, heady.
I'd like for the blossom petals to rest upon my eyelashes such as a snowflake.

In my hair. And I can see my shadow hips gyrating with the rhythm of a cat, slow and smooth.

I spill beer on myself unashamed,
I like for liquid to run from my mouth,
like a lord drinking wine from a horn.

Summer nights soon,
where things dry quickly,
and I'll taste things in my throat
and smell them on my pants
for nights to come.
Inhale.
Exhale.

Living for the nights where shuddering ceases,
and one can throw a rock from a rock
in the warm moonlight.

Cloven coffee-
today the butte was shrouded in fog,
and my body was woke
so that I wanted to beg for it.
But I won't.

I can't live without the torture,
can't survive without the taste of blood.

I will be a bride to the indelible stickiness,
a lover to that which blooms.

Hold me, hold me, hold me.
I am shaken.

Burning up the road,
a relic in my ashtray,
burning up a cigarette,
a trace of sage smoke
makes me feel I am inhaling your essence.
To possess you in my lungs,
if only there,
I will swallow up your significance,
and hold it inside of me.

Lone pine lorn
is my heart.
Willowy, hanging, tangled
is my hair.
Dim light, we kept apart.
Rejoice;
thinking of skin, bare.

Bewildered I have felt before,
but nothing such as this.
Adore, ardor, my centaur-
deep molasses kiss.

Playing cards, a time out of mind...
'Playing with embers', he said,
filled with sun,
in my mind I am already Hell-ward,
to hell.
My cheeks enflamed,
a burnt offering of shame.

As my own darkness engulfed me
I looked to the Archer of Light,
whose blunt bolts (belonging to the bow),
and shrouded, virile, animus intention
has already bore through mine own virtue.
And whose prospering scepter of ambition
I felt, once,
in a dream somewhere,
pressed, blistering against my form.

Looming life of doom.
How I miss you, cursed one,
who bleeds my own blood.

Lights shine on bright eyes.
Stark sky; merely a dead stage-
new moon, no moon, gone.

Two Chinese ladies,
and a lightless lantern with
empty kimono.

the wind throbs with the spit of wanton delight.
shall not Eternity emanate velvet abandonment?
a wet cave's oysters
Dang!
a wanderer quivers in frozen agony.
will not the sunset spew forth purple ecstasy?

Shadow cast,
who are you, dark drifter?
A speculation, as dreams are.

But consider
these wraiths of the mind are real,
as the author has spoken to herself in reverie,
and seen the celestial horizon,
in half-body, half-sleep.

I would be willing to go way of all flesh,
if it meant I could feel those estranged fingers
graze my brazen cheek,
to feel the blooming heat
of your anatomy and will.

Eyes of glacial stone,
heart of ruby,
clear, rich, and red.

Frozen fountain,
a grotesque carved waterspout,
the throat of some fanciful life-blood
that has been congealed by cold,
the triumph of frost.

It would be pleasing to recall
the blue Steller's jay
with its shrill trilling
and hopping about,
so blithe amongst the Hawthorne trees,
keeping watch over the graves
of those sacrificed to the Arctic blaze.

In my bowels are hot ashes,
remains of the cursed one,
my hollows, a feverish season,
a raving desire for the pure allure
of dark hair
and embroidered tongue.
As pure as the snow,
pure as the cold,
licking that which is within...

These ember days,
a running course,
my body, a votive offering.

Over caffeinated and underfed,
what a curious life I've led...
With nothing to show,
as in, no dough
but perhaps I'll get paid when I'm dead.

Festooned with the heraldry of doom,
a gilded, wainscoted room,
whose occupants drink ale in an oozing swarm
while harpers harp a solemn tune.

The lioness gives obeisance to the new king
with an offering
of suffering,
and warm droplets of water...
Two fates inseparably soldered
by misfortune,
on this, the longest night
then toward the light
and not beyond.

Again, backwards, repetition, turning.
A yule tide with no pull
from the heavenly orb, burning.

To swim with the river in June...

I still remember
the coldest night I remember.
Poker,
whiskey, and snow.
Willowy hair of smoke and icy breath,
the fingers of early Winter
creeping up my thighs and inside of me--
freezing my innards, a corpse.

But a flower,
the bravest of winter,
braver than I,
who can only glimpse beauty,
but never come so close to it.
To penetrate such stillness would surely finish me.
Abiit ad  maiores.
She has left well.

But,
you know,
like,
uh.

alluring sun-drenched
brides beckon, saxophones drift.
squalid cellos. dream.

Sunday morning at the flower shop,
the wind, an icy, burning instrument of authority.

Day moon and I am feeling the compulsion to see flowers,
to gaze vacantly until the delicate colors are burned into my iris's and memory.

November... Blood month, when one must sacrifice their very soul to the Winter-sad.

The water was on
and the power was out,
a tree lost its life.
Is this what must come about
to force one to write?
I heard the tree caught fire,
illuminating gazes
as darkness fell,
a natural spell-
a ritual-
a well to fall into
that no one wants to leave...
In candlelight it's easier to see,
to breathe.

The stars, the moon.
Look at the moon,
it will guide you.
She speaks,
she weeps,
she comforts like a pale breast.
"Rest."

i cannot see the stars from my window
looking out i can almost feel the wind blow
shadows of headlights make me feel someone else is in the room
they’re most surely planning my impending doom
it’s as if my ancestors bodies are at my window

the blackberries have lost their spikes
walking down the driveway with a bike
it feels as if it’s neverending
and i know
the leaves will be descending
soon

never lead a pirate,

never command a gull.

sailors will sail

and seashells will glare like the moon,

while rough reefs quietly lead the captain.

i love you
but

worried glance struck down,
laundry hangs dry in her eyes,
underwear forlorn.

drunken thoughts now lost.
a hummingbird in my room--
in my room for hope.

a bat flew into my house last night
     of the species California Myotis
     and i could not sleep while i listened to the wag of it's wings.
     they eat insects yet i could smell the blood
     trickling off it's downy chin.

i felt that this bat surely knew my fright,
i wished that it would make it's way
out the window i left open for him
and flutter into the unfriendly night
where it could feast on moths,
perch on a madrone
and comtemplate that waning crescent.

on an icy morning.

as rain slithered down the window panes

i thought to myself of dreams,

and how the elements seemed to be an integral part of my soul.

it is on these wet days

that the outdoors hail me.

the finest memories are made of the rain

and the song it sings upon the top of my skull.

pit-a-pat

rat-a-tat

thrum.

'come to me for i am the washer of spirit, the lover of skin'

it calls.

how we need you, where have you gone?

come to the valley. come. come. come.

do you wake up with eyes that change depending on the weather?
is that the constant on which you base your scheming?
you travel, you travel, you travel, while you lie there next to me.

silver love clashes.
perhaps, empty papers slip.
falsely, spring returns.

i cannot recall
the other in the night realms
always at my side.
oh, dark hours friend,
the sun rises, the fog comes
and the clouds, my foe.
remoteness contained in despair,
how the landscape declares
and commands--
such affection,
such frostiness.
do look out the window, my dear,
and grasp effects
and fly a kite.

and on this day, mine,
the roses are in full bloom-
no one can say why.
it is sweet to think,
and to stare, and stare, and stare
at the green hillside.

drunken thoughts wander,
lost memories on my knees.

ferris wheels, my eyes.

veracity,
faulty.
it's hard to tell who your friends are
at the bottom of the ocean.
sand grains. black, white.
everyone is blind.
jellyfish are wolfish
at the bottom of the ocean.
spoken sounds sting.
starfish are spearfish-
one might hear a feather drop,
one might hear a pin drop,
noiseless word string.
beneath;
sky, rise up.
the bottle forlorn.
willowy hair will stay strong,
while the luminous
go on stillborn.