Frances Justine, with eyes of bella blue,
with tipsy gait and freely-falling shambles of a step,
half-awake, half-dreaming in the onset of a rush
of seeping winds' complaints unto the painted walls of bleach.
A phantom dressed in sighing silk, a glimmer-dress unbound,
her fingers wrapped in lace and fragile trimmings of the earth;
a sonic trembling synchronized with evening humming low,
this tapping placed upon a table -- forests in the flow.

Frances Justine,
the pretty,
the proud --
had relished these demeanors for a lady most in love;
how liquid are her movements as she dances in the wait
of gales that hope take her far, to continents away.

Away, so far away, from this pertinent monsoon,
her setting heart thus painted with the phases of the moon,
it floats, but not for long, the sky's
half-empty and half-full;

there, Frances Justine darkly was
just waiting to be whole.

Sometimes I wake up to
spatial tension
and awkward sting,
where there are fractions of
unwanted proteins and
dripping enzymes.
Sometimes I wake up to
obsidian corpuscles
of unknown origin
and encounters with
sentiment-shakers,
dream-eaters,
and rafter-rattlers.
Sometimes it is as simple as
dripping beige,
intangible amber,
and cold, cold, blue.
Sometimes I wake up
to nothing, too.

I s’ppose rattlesnakes can’t be
ninjas. Yes — they got
the striking and the stinging
part right, but they
are not really masters
of subtlety; they make
too much noise and take
a considerable amount
of time to make a **** and
they can never hold katanas and
hurl throwing stars. I guess
rattlesnakes are doomed to
crawl and rattle on, announcing
Hey, I carry venom, as
the rats would thank their ears and
the hawks circle above.

You will never feel
what I felt. You will never
sit beside yourself.

You are temperate
kisses on frost-chilled windows.
The fragrant evergreen and pine,
the delicate rasping of wine
against velvet throats. You are thicket-
carpeted tongue where settled
crumbs of honey-lathered toast,
burnt, crisp, crumbly, spongy,
unlike your walls. The changing of
locks, the changing of keys might
not be a good way to spend time;
they’re blind to sines, your shimmering
solar attic-roof, your gauntlet garden,
your haunted keep. You are beautiful in ways
most men can’t discern, be careful
who you let in, and in turn,
be careful who you let
return.

Twirl your tastebuds —
let me taste your
modal schwa
your vellum staining
truth or dare,
let me down
your feather-quill;
your quenching quantum
quaking.

There is a cloud that loves
to sleep between
comprehension and
your ears.