Knock me down
Without a touch,
You shook the liquor -
Curious.
My deft tongue sought
The courage there;
The confidence
That fled the air.
Gaze to smolder,
Grin to bite.
You paced the table,
Stole my sight.
Bitter clouds,
Buzzing lights
Lumpy cushions
Needful plights
Fleeting sweetness,
Gripping hands.
I sought the violence
He can't stand.
We grappled, battled,
Strove to take
The Novocaine
A stranger makes.
And once the numbness
Touched the brim,
My feet sought miles
Far from him.

To cleave the night
To flee the wrong
To stop the siren's
Rising song.

The tales I weave
Wind through the trees
At midnight's witching hour
The darkened land
The night's soft hand
The blooming orchid flower.

They never stray
Across the day
To arid, fallow land
The baking earth
The scorching curse
The sprawling desert sand

There's beauty, hence:
The soft nonsense
I've conjured word to line
My dancing hands
My mind demands
To praise the desert kind.

I bless the hush
The jagged brush
Of lovely creosote.
The prickly pear
The burning air
The endless, sandy motes.

Each winding dune
The crests at noon
Like molten, golden earth
Reminds me still
Of good and ill
Of beauty and its worth.

My mind tips South
To scour the mouth
Of canyon, creek and sky
My eyes are open
To skies unbroken
To mountain peaks on high.

I've only spied
With inner eye
And pictures on a page-
Yet, in his gaze
His heated rage
I know the barren blaze.

Down, spiraling deep
All things coelse to the gully
Where exists one
Untouchable place
In the valley of this wretch.
Greedy hands seek
Nothing, though in jest
Perhaps I'd hoped they'd be it.
In truth, no one reaches down far
Where the unknown has no draw.

Will your lips run
Leagues from me
Curse my name
Each time you breath?
Your spoken rope,
Strung up on high
Would halt my breathing
Blank my eyes.

Or will you trap
Behind your mouth
The sins I've wrought
Upon your house?
Keep them silent
Keep them safe
And clasp them as you
Walk away.

I've marked the moons
I've read the tides
I've watched the sun
Drag through the sky.
Three long winters,
Three short springs
Have quieted
The needful things.

And yet in others;
Skin and eyes
Familiar faces-
Far and wide
Bridge the distance
Span the gap
That time has rent to
Keep you back.

Love is chemical, love is fabrication-
But it lingers like the eternities we read;
The immortalized words of many a man before.

Look around. It’s everywhere.

And I want nothing of it.