Embalmed skin -
seemingly made anew,
yet pocked with sores…
from a life past.

The then waylaid heart
needed only whisper…

And long was the walk
through the cursed labyrinth
of sharp worldly things.

You wait for me
to learn the corridor going
to marbled stone god. This was my faith.

Only the pain of ravens
was true. It was not black as their
feathers were dark. Look, someone is watching.

I cannot bid goodbye
to myself. I am alive in all my poems,
singing as white as the moon.

you left your blueish dress
twisted by the pool’s edge
like a cold monument
to every single misstep
and my heart is overwhelmed
with visions of a dancing grave

via crucis in the morning
carry me to our palisade
while these tiny arcs of light
leave my eyes, breaking easily
and your voice keeps me awake
i believe that i need this

you were wrong
i am nothing
but one more familiar face
amid the pageantry

What’s this glaze
over my eyes…

A heavy mist
with fingers…
that lingers.
A cataract that
dives and claws
into the black
of irises.

A film,
a veil,
a canvas botched
and vandalised
with arguing paints.
And indelible black
that sings of sadness,
highlights the aches
of dejection
and screams
betrayal.

when I awaken
I extend my finger
towards a panel of dancing light-

did you know that its veins were torn from a mountain?

a whole hierarchy of angels
living inside the earth
were turned to transistors

so that my letters
could glow in your hands.

when I learned this
I began sleeping beside a stream,

in the places where I could watch
wires dance-

beneath wooden pillars and their flimsy black arms
whispering secrets in permanent embrace.

every night I would dream  
to the forward noise
of churning water;

of fluid drifting through the air unseen
or pouring from life long past-

terraforming
for the maintenance of symmetry.

i believe in a gentle kind of love
all soft and soothing and
just right
when i am so terribly, irritatingly fragile
fingers running down my back while we lie
rib to rib, heart to heart
listening to the beat, and to the breath
and perhaps it is that, in this world of rough and tumble
of screaming and aching, to believe in a love kind and sweet is
a naivety but i find that
because of all this roaring outside our window, i much prefer
to think of that love sweet and kind
and us, tangled around each other, i think, yes

i find that i believe in a gentle sort of love

Thank you for saving this poor old soul
tired and trembling on my knees
dazed and puked from spinning around
trapped in a cycle was me

In an untimely manner in this unlikely world
you came and brought life and glee
now we spend each day with promises held
there's now hope in thine eyes I see

Thank you for saving this poor old soul
thank you for saving me