Drinking before noon--
not my habit
In the quiet of my favorite room
of softest brown and purple ciphering gray
One wall off-white reflecting light
or a good mood
or something--
I once needed
from my soul's depth--
Trying to forget

Startled by a train's screech and howling wail--
its bell about an intersection
“Look the hell out, why don't ya!!”
--get outta your own...
my own way
and let the failures just stream by

Days--
There's this calendar by some bankers called:
UNIVEST
adorns the wall
between my daughter's sketches
that I seldom see
on well-worn afternoons
among accustomed things

Yes-- "One here!"
to un-invest
in this day
I have no interest
in sunlight or the ceaseless
songs of birds
I forgot to turn  the pages on the months
Forever sunk in April
having given up on June
with its birthdays of the dead
missed events, appointments, bills come-due

Just a picture there-- the bottom of a tulip
stung in warmest pink
within the sepal hand of green
that holds it steady-- ******
A year-- dangling from a nail

if that's allowed
--my ***** mind, I mean

She was made of a language
no one could hear
and hand written in perfect cursive
by the scripture of the stars
and made from the sea and salt
of an ocean lost in a tear
and the color of blood
gave her lips all
of its crimson and rage
and she was there
when dreams took their first step
out into the void of the time of nothing
and she weaved his heart
from the poetry of leaves
and his bones from the past
before death had a cloak or a reason
and his flesh from
the soft skin of her kisses
and she tied the string of his heart
to the beat of her own
and no matter the story
or time of eternity
they would find one another
in the pages and between the covers
of the dreams they would have
and the life they would share
as they would invent
and discover and write
and rewrite the books of love
in the language no ears could hear
or eyes could see
but ever heart would feel
in between their first and last beat

I miss
the forest of
        your magic
    as it winds its
                  tattooed way
through the
          serrated textures
                  of nightfall
all up inside
          my vertebrae
the soft wind
       rustling in your
elms,
outstretched to me
                   like arms
as stars burn through
       this brewing sky
in molten,
    fiery charms
They beckon to me
unexpected
          in quiet      
      apertures of subtle
they sneak upon me,
          unprotected,
when I'm sunken
in my tunnel
and sometimes
              in the
                   quiet stream
of the lonely, sacred night
I hear a whisper
whirring soft
as it permeates
            my spine
I let it take me over
                   as I sit,
slumped,
     in the bath
it creeps and seethes
over my wet skin
eats out my silent wrath
I let it
       fill my senses
as I walk inside
                 the deep
and on wooded paths
of solitude's carpet of leaves
when I feel
no soul is watching
     the deer start shyly peeking,
  and lynx resume their stalking
then long slashes
                  of ache
are reawakened
           from their lair
snaking through my ribcage
choking up my hollowed air
        yet, somehow
        in the longing
of bottomless, falling space
I see in distant, faded visions:
the precious contours
of your face
and so,
like an enchanted
          secret box
I open you,
inhale the confetti
of your floating stars
wave them over and through
my strands of vein,
my tripped out,
           healing scars
your essence
       penetrates
my presence
   like misty mountain rains
seeps inside my pores
opens up
       striations
of seismic,
      writhing pain
Your invisibility
            takes form
and then
            in sudden,
whipped-up heat
        it pours out in
honeyed rhythm
       to our own
             invisible beat
and just like that
I get taken.
Overcome
by slakes of love
rushing through my
arteries
like sweet
    manna
from
    above

a mockingbird strips the night
of quiet
opens a portal in my soul
to let what was in    out
and
what was out    in

to make an exchange of balances

just so does the cave Lechuguilla
**** air through her ******
in the desert near Carlsbad
balancing air pressure
in great    ******* puffs that make her moan
like a lover satisfied

or perhaps not

perhaps she groans and sighs
for the **** of her million-year solitude
for the loss of her art-full loneness
perhaps Lechuguilla sounds
to stem the contagion of sobs
daily growing in her heart
each sob feeding off the one before
marking like guideposts
the descent she now takes into oblivion
searching    searching

searching for herself

the story of a princess
scratches at the edge of my mind
a princess whose ability was as rare
as the sight of an egret flying against the star-crusted night
she mounted to the roof of her palace
each night    there to repose
to light the whole city
with her radiance

everything begins in the imagined

you donned your suit of lights
to woo me from myself
to court my innocence from its cave
now    head down    pawing dust into fog
I charge    bristling    and snorting threats
through my nose

you    beautiful in light-catching suit
send my barbs like adorned words
into my flesh and soul
I bleed the last of my happiness down my back
into the dry soil
of our We
our glances nick    then slide away
drawing more passion
to coagulate in tidal pools at our feet

I cannot be your imaginal woman

I am my own
I speak in wordchunks like charcoal
hiding fire within
I beat my rhythms to music you do not hear

because you have no reck of me


c. 1994/2017 Roberta Compton Rainwater