even the dullest of knives
can **** —

a smile has fallen deep into
the silence.

wincing on and off
like terrible vertigo.

it is you lashing across
dispersing images

seeping like ruthless mileage
underneath the bone.

you come in the room
full of these hours splintered

an outpour with a foreboding,
like spindrift you wet my lips

sealed shut and silence
is all the language i understand.

what good is there that this hungry
cavalcade gapes its mouth

and metastasizes like an opulent
laugh as maniacal as drum-taps?

your are river with feet or pond
sprawling mad, enigmatical.

is this the clearing motes depart,
unhinging the crepuscular

and fade out, as a cat shrieks tumbling writhing fornication of metal and rust?

even sleep cannot manage such realness,
and the doubleness of its comatose

or say, a war in spite of its radical
artillery. between two cities lost,

its indefatigable exertion pullulates
to a hand, laying garlands

over the same blue lament of sky
and the unawakened orioles.

Pale fingers intertwining,
a bittersweet hand squeeze. 
His thumb softly rubbing against her
cold, silken skin 

--But their faces!
Rosy cheeks, shining eyes
Two staccato heartbeats.
The wind whipped and tossed and screamed,
ebony locks flowing like the whispers 
in the night.

The horizon was near.
The ocean looked up hungrily,
muttering; tempting, teasing
Screams filled the dead air:
Elation, as they leaned in to embrace.

Finally, an exit out of this maze. 
Now we can truly be together
Now we can truly be free.

I'll find you on the other side, darling.

Two extra splashes into the now silent sea, 
Two soaring doves, carefree gemini.

The black sun coiled around you by morning,
Gingerly tending your wounded mind
You basked in the tall shadow of two lovers;
Waltzing along the line of indecisive love

Seven has always been your favorite number,
As we embarked to raise the tiger-eyed moon
That desolate soul wrapped in your inked bones
Couldn't silence the riptide that conquered like our kiss.

You were an addiction that took five months to sober,
Feathering every "I love you" with a pitiful look to me
I guess we just headed off to war in different directions
We were spilling blood in agony for each other.

There are regrets surfacing in your heart
I would know,
It's in my palm, right?

"I am unwelcome and detatched, it seems.*"

I do not complain the slow singe
Of sun above our heads, nor
     The blue berserker which is before us,
          A thing of beauty and treachery,

I do not mind the moisture, the salinity,
Beads of sweat, eloping with the spray,
Diaphanous and are one, escaping us,
     Departing into thin air.

I would trade all energy, the distance
Of this journey, the labors of our feet,
Just to witness you, the black bird
     Of brows I love, surveying the horizon,
Those teeth of linear pearl, or the red
Gates of kiss immortal, all risen
     From the summery sshh of heat.

There's nothing that would equal
The squinting of your eyes, those
Thinning of the stars, the doubled
     Supernova, which now are phoenixes
That are not born, burned, nor are revived,
     But carry death, my death, my only,

          My life.*

© 2015 J.S.P.