the memory of one
citrus summer eve
is now petrified wood buried
deep, deeper, deeply
in a hollow neither of us have seen
or touched
there is ash where the fire's lickings have tossed a thousand shadows
and our story is piled a mile high
like a tower of dark secrets
deeply rooted
equipped with claws and a rifle
reality and fiction embedded in the soles
of one another's weary
traveler feet

In the wind your wings do shake
Spread wide against the sky
I spread my fingertips far apart
Trying to mimic the way you blossom
When the sun is out
I spread my arms out to touch the sea
My eyelids are waves
They lick the shore line
Lashes full of sand, the dream-heavy kind
Open and I see visions of the dahlias dancing
Close and there is a swallowing darkness
Flicks of light reminding me there is a
World unknown on the other side
Stop-motion
Time-lapse
I flashback to nights of poetry
And it is sunrise again

The fleeting moment when
Dusk conflates with the rising dawn
And all that was ever loud

Falls, to a million tiny pieces, at the feet of morning.
Her still quiet
Tears apart the knick-knack thoughts

That you had displayed
Like a dreamscape reflection,
Spread like ashes on the windowsill.

The wind breathes soft
On the back of your neck and behind your ears
Ghost kisses under the blanket of day.

The blisters ease once the dreams spill
Silent moonlit dreams
Secret tidal dreams
Wild windowsill dreams
Blazing miles from here
With one foot there
Licking and grazing and digesting
Mountains and trees and wildflowers
Into the sky
Into ash
Earth soul with the body of a cloud
Shapeless today and tomorrow billowing
Like smoke
Into the silent realm
The realm of eye-speak
Talk of silence and infinity
There is tomorrow here
Just as yesterday eluded us there
Where wind will feed the fire.

Sharp tongued
With a blow-torch soul
The mountainside goes up in flames yearly

To commemorate the birth
That Mother Nature has found
Branded in her memory as

The Day That You Swept In.

All heart and heat
And indestructible spirit.

A reminder in the form of a volcanic eruption
Letting the world know that
Hearts were made to be set on fire.

And those afraid of the deep
Need not walk in stride
With those who dive ever-fearless,

Only to rise like the sun,
All eyes on you.

Mercurial, or: the way your eyes look
When the curtains are drawn and we are the only ones in the room
Merc/your/ial, rather, more explains the way your eyes are hot jazz
Do you choose what you see, baby blue?
Do you run your fingers, like a comb, through each follicle, until you choose one
To wrap your fingers around and call home?
Mer/cure/ial, instead, I feel you in one, hot flash.
Zip-snip and farewell to trousers, baby.
The other men spoke soprano sax but
My mind shifts its way towards you
Because you are all blues and tourmaline and mercury-eyes,
And whoever said the roaring 20s was anything other than this?

Lily-eyed and with a voice rendered
Fresh amidst the sea-salt breeze
I sink my teeth into words

Devourer with a desire to breath life
With the rejuvenation of the old pages
Of tears and bone

Bloodstream wild pulse.
My soul in its nascent state
My inkhorn
Ally and protector, beloved

My mind
Womb to all things I must set ablaze
In the moonlight.

Run rampant wild-stampede
In mid-day breeze, summer heat wave swallowing me
Sweaty-palmed
And the head rush
From being hung
Upside-down
Fingertips of the globe
Around my ankles
Strongest of grips
Smoke billowing over the
Fringe of mountain top
Ranges of brown
Burning in orange
Seeing green untamed seas
Behind my eyes buried deep
In my sleep
In the hole of the rattle-snake
Venomous shedding of spring-born skin
Flower-scaled back of the dragon
Inside the fire-breather
Black coffee drinker
Frozen stare
Night wearer
Star-studded crown of moon-dust bearer