I want to softly whisper
incomplete poems
on your collar bones
that don't rhyme with anything
but your heavy breathing.

I want to bury my face
in the curves of your neck
because you smell like the winter clouds
and I've been gazing at the sky
since you left.

I
Here I am, drinking in my local bar.
There's a sadness in the air,
Relaxed,
Aged with the whiskey.
Cheaper.
Guy Fawkes night fireworks
are some forgotten war,
Flash bangs,
We're all in the trenches
Fighting
What exists in the smudged
Moonlight
And ages with the whiskey.

II
I've quit my job -
I hate these walls
I hate the brick dust that sits
Like an ash cloud.
Keep spinning
Catherine wheels, rocket cases
Fall from grace and tell me
Did I love these friends?
Let me hold you
My
Shallow
imprints in the mud.

III
Am I just hungover from
Halloween?
It's macabre.
Melodrama
full of the rich scent of rotting
Dead leaves,
And what the dead leave
Costumes, an ecstasy of
wanting to be watched
touching myself.

IV
I hope they know I love them.

Life is on  warranty
Not on guarantee
Conditions apply
Expiry date .....
In celestial bar code
Illegible, Indelible
On terrestrial territory

~

Sitting on this roof,
seeing the colored lights in neighboring windows
finding frosted panes in abstract happiness,
as winter’s wind howls about my face

Speakers blare in cramping holiday tones,
(What’s so wonderful about it ~ this time of year?)
Shingles damp and slippery,
still I hold on for dear life

Fingers numb but clinging,
for without my seated sadness
on this peak above chimney ash
watching streams finding the edge

how else would those muddied
tear drop icicles form?

~

Then I hear it on shivering vibrations
A voice from ~ out there ~ somewhere
A shadow beneath a flickering street light
Footprints in circles about the square

Moving in my direction
My silhouette on white clouds shimmies
A little to the side, for a better view
Wings ~ it has ~ she has wings

I blink a frozen eyelash ~ she is sitting next to me
A warm, feathery quilted wing about my shoulders
Chilled cheeks burn as I smile
and my heart melts as she whispers to me ~

*“No more icicles”