Lying with my pride,
limber, even in my bulk,
mind mulling, trying to find
my looming, lingering
charge, the ascendency to
which I align.
How I might invoke
indivisibility
among my fellows,
my authority
marked by my
luminescent mane -
warm orange fur -
but also by my
curved claws,
my sharp teeth,
and my urge
to assert
them on any
novice challenger.

Men weaken easily at
sharp points
brazen at their throats;
unless their prey
made unfamiliar caged
and forfeit of assertion
awaits
unknowingly folding
to meet like opposite
corners of a
crumpled covenant.

But not me I should think
Out of the dust I slink
mane furrowed
and I crush hunters beneath the warmth that drew them in.

Book after book, hard covers pressed against one another,
Rigid men in clustered homes, waiting to leave for work.

Heavy gray clouds battle for control of the supple trees,

which bend under the will of the wind,

leaves whipping and flickering their bright undersides,

like the dresses of frantic Spanish dancers;

pale pulp squishes between her toes,

the grapes bursting under the weight of

eighteen-year-old feet - both the fruit

and the flesh are soft and ripe

and smell of sugar in the sun;

the gray sea licks wildly at the gravelly shore,

while her fire-red locks twist and tangle in the wind.

The instructions for handling catastrophe
(earthquake criminal activity
explosion medical emergency)
posted, stately, the know
better -
we aren't able to act so calmly in real
crisis
and fear regret,
but not the mistakes that lead us there,
but, as if from the mind of a bad author
at 2 am
suddenly I am saved.
   YOU can be a teacher!
      YOU can study the Holy Roman Empire!
         YOU can dine with engineers!
            YOU can delve into ancient religion!
Histories and futures juxtaposed
opportunity mingled with memory
the place where
   creators and learners
      engineers and historians
         the inventive and the studious
partner
to dance the dance of
unrepeated history
The amazing thing is that it isn't helpless
like a personal pint of ice cream
before dinner laden with far too many
chocolate chips -
it slips over the spoon that tries
futilely to sift
and mix -
of all creatures,
the dreamer
is the most random eater,
it fears making the wrong decisions
to live with regret... well
This is none of your business,
yet intimate, the way surprise is
open, vulnerable

Strange magnificent magnetism
nominates nomenclatures managing to nimbly
grasp their gamy mouse.
Nannies nibble, notoriously naive,
masking their matronly magics.

Sticky sickly goo lingers,
licks its fingers,
quickly questing for its thick fling;
Stinging clicks tick, mingling
with its linguistic nature -
schisms tingle and thicken.

Placate nature's dangers,
demons dwelling in the dark;
dismember markings sated
but not caught;
Marry the taken stranger's nectar,
and market snark to desperate
markers carting parted, deepened
larks.

The bored mold grows old,
rigorously boring mostly into the gorge,
moaning, groaning its barge jigs -
the mole roars at its grim bowl.

Leavening levers leave us
fishy, wishing without precision
for fettered fritter letters,
feverishly licking with distinction;
Finnish fishermen finish
squishily dished deliciousness.

Wet snow falls faster than the
dry, fluffy flakes associated with a White christmas.
People say when it is slushing or sleeting or otherwise drizzling almost-flakes,
the weather cannot make up its mind.
I think the opposite;
each heavy flake falls with great purpose,
reaching quickly toward the ground,
trying its very best to be snow,
real snow,
that will stick and not wash away on contact with the
earth, warmed from within.

On a Wednesday afternoon,
I sat
in a Starbucks,
sipping water and ******* a candy cane,
and I watched cars driving through flurries of snow.
Each left the flakes spiraling and churning in its wake;
they did not stop,
or even notice
the affect they had on the frozen precipitation around them,
and I sat
thinking that people, passing through each others lives,
are much the same.

So
it is said
she should be dead.
Her trials and turmoils engulfed the strength
beneath her thick, pallid skin.
Her hair frayed to puffy lengths of dried rope.
Her eyes seeking fruitlessly behind and beneath their
center of focus.
The throat a collapsed mine shaft, the men
who once labored in hopes for the reward of her ore
trapped within.

So dismayed, so drained, so damaged.
So frail in her failing strength that love herself would love her.

Near to bursting or imploding,
the skin stretches and hangs,
undulating in its near-death tug-of-war.
Her prisoners gasp for air, the canaries,
yellow,
sickened and grayed by ash.

So far gone that love herself would love her.

I love you conditionally,
and with all of the parts of my heart that aren't too busy keeping me alive.
I love you with the mediocrity of ten toaster ovens,
as opposed to the fiery passion of a thousand flaming homosexuals.
I love you in way that allows me to come and go as I please,
and in a way that is most convenient to me.
I love you no more than a wife loves cleaning,
or a husband loves working.
I am used to you.
I love you in a way that probablymaybedefinitely isn't quite love.
But I suppose it's the best I know, for I am far too scared to leave,
and seek out the “Mad, Passionate, Extraordinary” love that is the stuff
of what I wish my life to be.

I wrote you a story, a sonnet, and a symphony the other day,
but I forgot them.
I meant to give them to you,
but one look in your eyes, and words failed me.
I couldn't remember what I had written,
nor did it matter.
I knew that each word, each note, I had written while not in your presence
couldn't suffice.
I hadn't been able to embody every feeling, every sensation,
that I am taught over and over again each time I see you.
I had thought my story, my sonnet, and my symphony would do a fair job,
but, without your physical, visual, and verbal influence,
my words and melodies could not reach the magnitude I had hoped.
My imagination, and, similarly, my memories,
do you no justice.
I wrote you a story, a sonnet, and a symphony the other day,
but upon seeing you, I forgot them, so
I wrote you this instead,
to describe how difficult it is to be away from you.

His voice in my ear,
quivering in anticipation and nerves.
His calm, firm fingers wrap
around each of my wrists in turn,
forming vice-like grips.
The feeling behind his actions
a salacious mix of masked innocence and bold confidence.

My spine, a tall grass frond
shivering in combative winds.
My skin
a den of a cabin in the mountains,
both welcoming and warm,
a beacon of pleasure.

He knows what I desire,
as I am equally aware that he wants to force it upon me.

We say that flesh has something to boast about,
and, to him who believes in the blessedness of sin,
it is the only thing to boast about
For the promise of smooth, snowy plains,
flowing and carrying and rising into hills,
and falling gently into sloping valleys,
As a form of the Human appearance,
is a far greater fate than any other to be known.
The shallow pleasures of our lives
seem, to me, the one things that make it bearable.
And not only pleasures in the form of flesh,
but in the form of every small bit of momentary
gladness we force upon ourselves.