Let us
teach the stars how to dance
guide the constellations into a lemniscate
bend their chaotic lines
trace different paths for them.

Let me
decorate the ballroom with shadows
drape the night against the walls
scatter moonlight across the floor
feed our guests cosmic dust

And you will
buy me a dress of starlight
wear a suit of midnight
touch me the way you would a moonstone
take me to the celestials.

Let us
dance the night away.

There's a certain chord
that thrums in the same wavelength
of sonorous solitude.
It is more of a quiver than a vibration
like a bird's wing trapped
in the half-inch between the tips
of a boy's thumb and index finger.

I hear the sound of
repressed struggles and imprisoned words
like a bottle of soda shaken, shaken

hiss.

It sounds something
like the clink of glass shards
swept into a forgotten corner
or the whistle of labored breaths
ebbing against the sandpaper lining
inside the throat
or the atomic scream
of dust corpuscles settling
on top of cardboard boxes filled with
nostalgia for the unattainable.

I know this sound, this song.
I hear it in the flutter of your eyelashes
the murmurs of your fingers
across my skin
the unspoken lying between your teeth
forcing their way to the corners of your mouth
your smile.

This is the sound of a divine choir
when heaven
collapses.

Eyes: Stars. I can’t help but wish on them, holding my breath, standing on tiptoe, hoping. They promise so much.
Arms: Branches and vines. Reaching, wrapping, holding. You break what you let go of; you choke what you keep.
Legs: Thunder thighs and tree trunk calves. You frown like it’s a bad thing, but you’re strong; you’re steady, sure, solid. You are a forest and a storm.
Laugh: A flash of lightning. An instant of blinding, dazzling music in the midst of my storm.
Shoulderblades: Bookshelves. My head is a journal, thoughts spilling over. You are strong enough to bear even the heaviest of my words.
Tongue: A forest fire. I still have a second-degree burn from the first time you told me you loved me.
Hips: Hills. You are mountains and valleys, and I want to take a walk and get lost in you.
Feet: Anchors. They team up with gravity to keep you here. And so you stay.
Chest: A strongbox overflowing with treasure. Your heartbeat is the song your whole body sings, kept in time to your pulse, flowing through your veins.
Ribs: Boards on a ship. Weatherproof, waterproof. This means my tears (saltwater, too) will not ruin you when they fall onto you.
Hands: Morning glories with green-veined leaves. Opening, closing; beautiful every time.
Mind: A maze. You’re a puzzle I can’t solve and a line I cannot rhyme. You are never going to make sense, and I love that.

I crumble like broken rocks
melt like glaciers
fall apart into strings of muscle
and hollowed bones
My paper skin tears asunder
like a discarded love letter
Blades of eyelashes
dig into closed eyelids
pry open sealed pupils
flay apart glass irises
Dissolve dying stars
into the lines of my palms
sink cosmos into the riverbed
of my veins
and shackled wrists
Wind ribbons of twine
around my throat
Crown my breast with thorns
Crucify your name on my tongue
Carve your touch into my hips
Strangle my waist with the vise
of your hands
Sew my hair into the gaps
of your fingers
and I'll sew yours into mine
And finally
unravel me
with poetry
and paint me
on your skin.

There is a forest old as hillsides
tall, majestic, dappled shades
fall on ground beneath the silent
gnarled defenders of the glade.

There they stand in ancient splendour
many souls have passed their way
often used as welcome shelter
from the heat of summers day.

Sweet the air they breathe in chorus
our life's breath their lungs provide,
soaking up our daily poison
so that we may live and thrive.

You seas of men intent to clear them
citing progress, peddling greed
tearing roots from precious mooring
laying waste to nature's seed.

**** the beauty of a landscape
displace creatures for your need
rupture fragile ecosystems
scar the earth and watch it bleed.

To you I ask a simple question,
as I see the land bereaved.
What need has man of all this progress
when he can no longer breathe?

Summer's warm currents retreat
the advancing brisk amber sunsets.

Submerging the world under
the reign of enduring starry nights.

The maples blush as Autumn whispers
the gentle lullaby of Winter's sweet breath.

Erasing Summer's memory with a crimson brush
preparing the golden landscape's long frigid rest.

~~~

I am not the ladder with the creaking rungs upon which your dusty feet may find stability,

nor am I the svelte key to dissipate any and all resistance to your god-given right to happiness,

nor can I entice you successfully from all the obstacles you have constructed
precisely for someone to lead you through.

And in all of this you are mistaking my momentary passing

for a longing glance in your direction.

Like the bile in my throat, all the Valentine's hearts and roses on anniversaries that
have been force-fed to you from an early age ring out

as you call y name, your voice cloaked in what you thought was love.

and I hear only the clang of my heels upon the pavement.

there is a
moon sole
in the blue
night

      amorous of waters
tremulous,
blinded with silence the
undulous heaven yearns where

in tense starlessness
anoint with ardor
the yellow lover

stands in the dumb dark
svelte
and
urgent

        (again
love i slowly
gather
of thy languorous mouth the

thrilling
flower)

On her course merrily flows the svelte rivulet
She meanders not alone carries the sky on her breast.
In him grows a longing, love flowers in his heart
She doesn’t know it, on the sea is set her heart.
The two flows embraced in unrequited passion
The sky ferries his lover to her beloved ocean.