it's so perfect.
so divine.
inside she finds
that safe place and
like
a marble is blue
like a gesture
is small
like yeast must rise-
like the cat's eye,
paw at you.
because
as the cat waits
with the sunbeam she plays.
the tea
and the teacup-
exquisitely she waits.
she waits.
empty she will.
so
deny
still
exquisitely
majestically  
instinctively she waits.
on her own bone china
pretty little fragile
thing
on her own
she waits,
exquisitely she waits.


sahn
12/4/14

A waiting doll
in your waiting corner
where you left me to love me later.
Your jointed, painted playmate
stilled,
eyes wide and thrilled
where you left for solace someday.
I am timepiece.
mantel placed with Christmas lace?
I am mark the date
your ticking tock tock knock
three chime movement, seconds flat
chiseling out time to spend
Am i your singing cherub child?
Red faced ruddy,
trilling and wild
Am i your avec la voix des fleurs?
a note that waits here on all fours
patient to be heard
to sing in lazy ear someday?
waiting willing wanton woman
serving sarcasm
and delivering indifference
to the audience that's left behind
two cents to the dollar now
and the floors electric with the sales
of mighty stocks and mighty bales
and two cooper, two
is what i gave you.
for the love of a girl
in disgrace of her moral path
shall you advance her
or will she be placed below.
two pennys two.
between her and i.
avec la voix
avec,
la voix.


sahn shannon april alice 11/24/2014
sahn 11/24/2014

come to me.
to the floor where i kneel
in front of you.
follow me- pay attention close
and bend.
your will.
your beliefs,
your promises.
your boundaries.
your comfort.
follow me with your stare as i slither back above the floor.
and crawl over
your expectations
your judgments
your rehearsed words
dripping like drool from a baby's lip.
delight, devine
as i slide off this good girl's skin
contain your
greed
disbelief
desire while i
take you up mountains in your mind, lover.
i raise you from the center of the sky.
while i  blind you with lust
'till you feel silken places inside-
so fragile they will tear
ill bring the goblet to your mouth sir-
with the richest ruby reds slither down your throat as if it were alive.
oh yes, we will climb,
feel the mount behind us holding us up... wind up so high must be stealing our breath
I will give you touch, lover.
the kind you never found in all your searches.
the kind the does the touching with it's shadow not it's skin
and the shadow dances to tickle in the most promising of places.
yes ill give you whispers up here-bounce them around
like a helium star
slowly whisper here, bouncing, slowly whisper there.
rake what used to be my fingers....
now though they are sticks from the forest bound together to
glide through your silky hair and leave their beautiful pine scent.
come to me, and share old magic
just a baby of the woods-
lay you on a bed of branches
cold leaves, borough in your naked skin...
bring to me now your empty pallet
and fill my sorrow with your fight.



sahn.  
11/23/2018

if i give to you a universe,
you said to me this morning-
what would you fill it with?
a blank universe,
you coaxed me this morning-
tell me what i'd see.
i said, unwillingly at first-
i would not take your universe
not your gift to give...not your stars.
i would not take your universe
if you gave it on
bended knee.
-but if i had a universe,
a blank universe i'd fill it
with ecstasy storms
and kissing maids romping
with bright hued braids twirling
and child's first prayer that electrifies grass blades
and butterscotch ice ponds
and fields of wildflowers
and books lining roadways and
words raining sideways-
with
trains running backwards and
time moving slowly
with music for dinner and
dancing for sadness
with
lovers and mothers
and
magic
and
you.
perhaps i said,
as i rolled close in the sheets
i'd just fill it with you and i-
and i would love you when the sun
did shine
and when the sun
did not.
and i would love you when you closed your eyes
and i would love you as you wept.
love you as you walked
toes tickling my ground and sand
and i would love you when you sneezed
and as you sang
        and as you aged.
and i would love you
sleep
to
sleep-
my tiny universe to keep.



sahn
11/19/2014

I have climbed 300 steps
and sat beside the butchers pets.
I have etched in marble stone
and rose in blankets made of bones.
I have danced with withered ******
and laughed with sinning pirate bores
I have taken flights of mind
marched in armies of mankind.
I have burned the church yard down
danced on every hot red mound
and dug out wells with pails of red
and to the children gave ****** bread.
I watched the sea swell with delight
Gave hope to those with endless night
I grieve by every paupers grave
like lovers tears for the newly saved.
I have sold off squares of skies
to melt them off in poisoned pies.
I have squander endless gold
from rich men's purse that I've cajoled
And I will drink my whiskey straight
and make a list of what I hate.
I will jump off areoplanes
crashing through cathedral panes
And I will topple endless trees
upset the nest of surly bees.
And if you don't contain my spill
keep your promise in good will
For I am simply lost at sea
waiting that you come for me.
For I am simply biding time
waiting for that love of mine.*

sahn 9/9/2014

I saw a man who was buying time
with the last of his pennies in a threadbare coat.
He whispered to me on the train that we caught
that a love that will waste, is one caught in one's throat.


sahn 11/9/14

There is funeral going on,
hush for the death.
quiet for the mourning,
the dead demand respect.
There is a death and I grieve you
so pity on me and silence, I beg.
let me tell you how I mourn you
I yearn back our laughs in synchronized pops of noise
one tinkling
on bellowing with breathe.
I am rage, full of bitter
that I must grieve your hand
as I know that hand so well!
That hand held mine and so
It must be that it were mine so
Naturally
I RAGE for the loss of my hand as well.
Quiet. Stillness
There is a procession
See? We were happy once
Perhaps it wasn't us that died. Perhaps is was contented's demise
and we are still an ember of life and I am at the wrong funeral
because we are still flickering a bit
...just a bit.
it's all you need to start a fire a spark of yellow will do.
I see red when I look and see your blue cornfield eyes
I see yellow in the fuzzy field of your hair.
Shh.. they are kneeling.
Shhh
Something has passed on but it's not us? Right? This is not final walk?
There is hope... I showed it to you! Hope, we've just taken a wrong turn
you and I
This is not our funeral
My hand doesn't grieve.
My lips do whisper respect.
Shhh. This is a funeral. Respect for the death.


sahn
11/2/14

I sat under a paper umbrella of the reddest hue autumn
and like an apple
I waited for you to pick me ripe
bite, smell my neck
and remember.
I sat on bench of grey weather boards
waiting to be thrown down upon them-
wanting to be pinned down upon them.
Feet on a rug of discarded
leaves, just like me.
discarded but beautiful.
still just a season long
season woman,
can you love me winter long?
Ill meet you on the snowy bench.
white puffs of apologises will float from my mouth.
my toes will shake and the fence we loved for being red
we'll love for being white.
Red will now slither to my ears and you will say things I can't hear.
And the stars will paint the sky too dark so we
can see that winter sparkles.
Spring is full of other lovers, this bench-
lovers that are not you and I.
And the playground is full of candy wrappers and mothers sneakers.
The trees are majestically green stretching and yawning and showing off.
The children bouncing, whining, crying,  finding.
Spring is full of lovers but not us
so she gives my heart to summer
and glass doesn't melt so the places where I like to feel your sweat
are the places where they like to touch my body.
summer makes us reckless and the bench, our bench is being held together by the squirrels claws and the sparrows talons... they wait for us to scatter.
hot you kiss my dampness, damper.
hot you kiss my pain and sorrow. boiling all the past good voyage.
our fence has lost some posts as,
the children love to climb and kick
it will hold on, still.
but it won't hold-out and won't hold-in which is what fences are meant to do.
at least they should... they should choose.
Autumn, yes it's autumn ours. We are autumn lovers
with leaves of the book skittering beneath the empty slide.
We are autumn, smell like the burning leaves of who we were.
Smelling like the fresh cut wood, ready to have her rings counted
Autumn lover, hold my hand and tell me you are afraid.
Autumn lover, holding color golden like a circle round.
Hurry, before she blows me past the red fence,
Hurry before our secrets get caught by the wind and dance around the playground.
Hurry Autumn lover,
Hurry to remember that you loved me, once.*

Shannon April Alice
11/2/14

lady, lady i love you,
this could be truth but mostly undoing.


Sahn 10/16/2014

He sits on the carousel wheel,
her lover neglectful-
looks over the night as the neon illuminates the shiny people.
He sits on the carousel wheel
and loves to get stuck at the top
so he may contemplate jumping,
so to contemplate swinging with madness
from one
cart
to
another
and then
safely
to the
cart that
holds her. Hero, him.
He looks over the crowd as they swish around him-
sway around him
moving by him as if they were dancing to a song in his head
but he is not dancing.
He's looking for her.
He pops several balloons with a fiery dart
walks away from the girl with the silken stockings held to her
thigh by violet bow...a violent blow to his lustful ways, he looks firmly down
to the dirt on his boots, kicks rocks, kicks air.
Stops at the man who swallows fire from a stick,
"answer me, answer me"-
the man spits ember lies.
He's looking for her in each clown
pulling their make up down with his finger
and it looks like they're crying
so he can't really know
if it is her he has found?
Oh neglectful lover.
He busies himself by winning a prize
for his beloved, his lost
A prize- his reward for believing in true love.
He busies himself, knocks down milk bottles-
and punches the punching bags
insults the slow and disgusted carnie hags,
He moves from gate to gate
and it feels more like Hades
inside
where he's lost her
so he's been lost.
When he's lost her he's scared
that she will not feel, lost but found.
And he will not feel found-
but destroyed.
Teacups to twirl around
the dance he will swirl her around to
the day that he marries her,
if he can find her,
nay- when he can find her...
he'll put her in the teacup ride and
never let the spinning stop.
He'll fill her life with lights and sounds
and cotton candy
and he'll marry her he will
right on the tiptop
of the ferris wheel
where he sits looking round.

sahn 10/19/14

I've counted them all,
five in total.
Five hundred perhaps five million more after that.
I've counted them to get them solid...
Solid for to eat them up. Line them up like peas on a spoon.
I've run from them.
Fast, and my feet burns underneath.
I've run to India.
I've run to Mars.
They key to outrunning is not to look
back.
There, I just did.

I've colored them with periwinkle and yellow moon-glow crayons.
So carefully in the lines, I stayed.
Bright cheerful hues
to banish out the dark.
(You can't color out the dark.)
Oh, I've faced them,
****** foolish.
Face them, they'll multiply.
like a drop of water expanding
into a bucket of water
into a creek of water
into a river of water
into a monsoon.
Face them and you give them life.
Now you'll know they're real.
Now you'll know
that it holds hands
with
what can be.
Slick and satisfied, devouring mirth.
On it's back I climb stealthy-
ride it like a crocodile,
it can't lick you way up there
satisfied smile...
Oh, lover lover,
You can't bite what you can't reach.




sahn 10.11.14

With-
my bites so small they are almost
kisses
lined up like the dead: hands tied, blindfold blinding.
With-
lips that miss a touch by the width of a breathe...
just by that much-
the amount of air it takes to gasp your name.
With-
moist that rushes out of me-
all parts of me
to grasp your parts of you.
Moist from my perspiring shimmying lips-
moist that forms in a valley between my *******
and meets the moist like dew on the hairs of your chest.
With-
tiny bites on your neck right in the soft spot
right below
and right behind
your ear,
mirror to the place I tuck back my hair
nervously
like I do
when I  am
With you.
**** your bottom lip like a
honey crisp in tiny bites-
and
savor all the juice that drip
drops
drips from your tongue.
With you, within.
With you
Within.

Sahn
10/10/14

I don't always see the ghost-
he chooses a wicker chair to sit-
seems to be the problem when past comes to dine.
I don't always see them-
the empty obscure references
as they drip like baby saliva from pale lips
places we've been,
things we've done.
The past sits across.
pinky out daintily
as past will do
when drinking champagne
and talking about the
good days.
I see him like James Dean leaning against the door frame.
I feel like Grace Kelly
Flipping blonde hair flips in dip and twirling curl,
licking pink lips as if they were full of icing on cupcakes.
Yes, I do not see him.
Here I go again flirting with the past.
I do not see the emptiness of the stare
as he looks across to me
I think foolishly it is star crossed love-
and grab his hand to slip wistfully through my own
and pull him grudgingly forward.
I zoom with him room through room,
looking for a place to hold him.
And the  present sits forlornly on my front porch.
dejectedly he sits.
And the presents gift-
of soon wilted flower
lay on his lap...
And the present stares through the window
as I waltz with a ghost.
I do not see, I can not see.
I do not see the ghost.

Sahn 10/03/14

In a memory, in a postcard, in a corner, in my mind.
I tuck it there and wrap it well
old newsprint to mark its date.
In a bottle, on the bottom, in the lake, in winter,
I ship it there and throw out anchor
and watch it as it bobs.
In a place I won't remember
as soon as I remember to forget you-
I'll have shelved you
and stocked you
inventoried and packed you.
And then I'll say,
"just where did I leave that thing,
that heart of mine?"
And then I'll say,
"What was that thing I remembered to forget?"
In a thought that I won't think of you
when I think enough to think again
Is where I'll banish you to.
Yes, In the that place where the lost things
stay lost.
In that place where broken pieces stay broke.
I will take you
and your soft way-
long kiss, tired eyes, weary heart.
No. No, I'm remembering again.
Infested.
I'm infested.

Sahn
9/18/14

I am running legs flying like Hermes wings.
I am running past, so far beyond the pain.
I am running from that kiss... tender kiss. Stupid kiss,
wanton, lustful, bursting kiss.
full of promises and tasting like salty beer and silky words
slithering arm around my waistline
making me forget I have time to waste
I am running,
from your words.
I am running from the picket fence and
picket hearts
and how do I belong in this circle of things ?
I am running and
I breathe so much better out here alone.
I am running until I can't see that house with
manicured lawn and
manicured family
me so wily,
wooo so wild.
If I hear my footsteps
I've come too close to my heart.
I am running and the trees, they race me in a blur
                                           when I turn my head
                      They are waving back.
I am running and the sun gets a head start,
but always falls behind, behind.
I am running
can't
outrun
you
can't unrun
you
can't unring
you
can't ignore this bell.
I am running and as fast as I go,
I can't outrun a circle,
and I hear the bells.
Yes, I hear the bells, runner.

sahn
9/14/14

Storm into that room so you will be seen, and
hold up high, sun salute
that body, that vessel you got!
Take every vertebrae, mmm pull it taught
Pull it.
Pull it as twine itself
wrapped around my words-
each bone
creaking like footfalls on old wooden stairs.
And look directly at your soul-
Do not squirm in the shame
of your nakedness -
beautiful lustful abundantly naked-
Instead
Crest, oh lord,
White swirling madness of intentions.
and  take these old bones, baby-
take this body
Take these old bones of mine and pull them up,
Stretch, find the strength! and pull-
Take those limped shoulders and throw them back to the gods!
Oh your rusted soul, fill it with water from the Darma ***** Crick.
And it might
burn-
sting and sour.
Make you cough, choke and sputter.
But oh
Renewed, Renewed!
And you start out with the feet, kicking rocks on the road, mmmm.
And end with the head bowed back with a psalm bouncing on
red berry lips, mmm
Oh, yes! Hands out to glory, oh feet moving, dancing
hot pavement below like Hades.
Step and another, another.
Until  your out of  frame...
Oh glory is the road.
Cleaned and cleansed as you go,
Hear me? Cleansed as you go, down Sinner Lane.
Cleansed and cleansing is the road
of the
revival parade.

sahn 8/25/14

Fury I wear like a slinky fox stole
whose beady little eyes look up at me in a deathly calm,
hanging loose around my boney neck.
Anger I hang like the Christmas star
blinking on to illuminate the dark with it's yellow hue
On.
         anger yellow.
Off
         anger black
Regret I type into block and wide letters
resembling the words like black ninja stars
hurtling, hurtling i throw them
with precision...returning the hurt- to your tiny -ling heart.
Black and White and Read all over you,
Blue, man. So blue
and that deep purple hue... the healing rainbow, black and blue
and green and grief, is it not so?
Oh, grief, oh fire of grief
burning the driest kindling that is hope, that is faith.
I am tissue paper flowers on the float in the parade
I am tissue paper flowers, that bloom until it rains.
And I'll tuck my indignation and I'll shove my righteousness
down deep into my pockets
(such a shame you never darned that hole)
Bellow.  Bellow out my rage
Wrap it in a shiny box, and tie it with a silky bow...
the gift of
knowing all the blackness
festering inside.
The gift of knowing  how loud the mother's howl can sound.
I learn the curves of the drive away,
I learn the legs that will take me to run.
Anger,
I am born of this, today.
Tomorrow? Ill be born of these ash as all that is good begins and begins again.

sahn
8/25/14

A thousand tumbles takes a bottle in the sea-
a thousand dashes and whirls and swoops.
A million grains of sand takes that bottle in the sea,
to break apart, to come to me
in fragments like a snowflake fractal.
How many mermaid miles till she hands that glass to me?
For I've taken out my very-ness, for you.
- And my crossness.
My judgement and wrath.
I've taken out slight hot breathe
               (for you to melt the ice on your whiskers.)
I've taken out my toes when they are reaching for yours in the cavernous blanket world  through the forest of our lazy limbs.
I've taken out my righteousness
and my second guessing.
I've taken out for you (a surprise, I was going to surprise you!)
all the times you were going to be wrong to me-
          and to wrong me...
taken them out to sea, you see?
In that bottle, pretty bottle. Broken now like too many vows.
I've taken out my knowing best and finding better.
I've taken out the half moon of your thumbnail as well
...I will miss that in my night sky-
(perhaps I'll keep that after all.)
I'll take out the complacency of holding your hand getting out of a chair.
and the mindless strokes
as you explain
my commonplace crazy
to
simpler minds-
I'll take out the very-ness of me, and the we-ness of us.
and fill a bottle with a the brine of a thousand tears from hundred slights not slighted quite yet.
I fill the bottle and gift the sea
with the softness of you and the brashness of me.
A thousand turnabouts it takes to reach you on the beach,
a sea glass diamond ring, engage me you engaging man-
and the tides tickles my feet in anticipation, marry me. marry me.
just a sea glass promise
for a mermaid bride
waiting for the sailor man to sing her sweetly with salt on his lips
Just a sea glass lullaby from the man who loves me so.
Marry me, marry me
And we drink sparkling water from a sea glass flute
and we drink all the us and we drink all the we
for sea glass could never hold a second in,
sea glass is far too vain not to shine in the sun fanning
your invite out in a spectrum of color that
a small child's hand creates when he holds it up to the rays.
Spills out all of my intentions
Spoiled child, loved child,
Spills out all of my intentions carelessly on the sandy floor for the tides to swallow whole.
My sea glass prism chucked unceremoniously back to sea
and me the mermaid bride left at her own alter...
But a seashell to your ear and her my wailing sorrow calls,
'marry me, sailor. marry me.'


sahn 8/5/14

I cannot sleep,  and perhaps I'm weary.
But I will not dream and chance I might
somehow shift,
the blinding grace of this day.
I would no more alter this beautiful man
then change my beautiful mind.
I would not send this man, this moment-
onto the woeful way without me.
And I will not risk these open eyes to
only to find in the spaces between one days dressing -
all of the ceaseless hours thrown casually to the floor like last nights silver gown-
in that one speck in time where I cannot see the freckled hollows
(I will not risk it, I cannot risk it)
of your shoulders
and the subtle rhythm of your chest. A day
that is not locked in this very now as
I cannot lose you
by a pause
or a nod. I cannot.
I will not rest my mind
and find when I've returned
you've gone on ahead without me and
and I cannot breathe, I will not breathe for if I do
I might breathe out some of us,
I might breathe out some of you
Holding my breathe, holding my faith-
Pulchritudinous
Dire thirst,
Digestion of you.

Sahn
7/17/2014

There is a place for me.
Kitchen chairs scrape wooden floors
white wood painted cupboards full
of shiny cans and handmade soaps.
Chicken wired old screen frames
yawn and stretch to let me thru.
I'll belong here.
Old rag rug holds tiny tiptoes and
cold winter floorboards
beneath tired morning feet.
I'll leave my soul here.
Ring of beige where my teacup sits
Every day, at 7.
That old chest holds winters quilts
and fine linen for fine guests.
Where the big tall  bed has a throw of ivory
bumps of cotton form swirls I've matted down
with my fingers.
Where plants grow rogue in the picture window
and ladybugs are welcome,
but spiders leave (alive).
I will walk here, the same creaking floorboards
night after sleepless night touching lightly
the pictures of the grand hotels
from the grand trips we took
to foreign lands-always happy to come home.
Watching children grow to grow their own
And me with  hair to grey
and eyes to blur.
Softer in the folds around my neck
and softer in the folds round my soul.
Less to anger than to forgive.
Less to eat than to feed...
Soles of childrens small feet
grow to the hurried pace of grown men.
Teddy's left in corners to come home to one day soon.
I give myself here.
Running my thumb up the rough porous brick.
Letting the ivy grow wild.
Raking leaves from ancient trees
that whisper secrets on snowy nights.
Christmas lights, and wedding nights
and times of tears and
learning how to be simple folk.
There is a place for me.
Find me here among all this,
for I belong, amongst the lost prayers, I belong.

Sahn 7/12/14

And the jejune...just like that
it leaves my life.
And the mundane of it all?
The looking of both ways and crossing,
The tieing of shoelaces...
the washing of hands.
And the dullness of it all suddenly shines like a sharpened knife
on a darkened shelf
in a forgotten home
That is now just a house.
Glistens like that. Out of place and unexpected.
And all of the sudden
the sun lifts her goddess body
stretching forth her sinewy limbs,
just for me ...playfully fondles my skin with heat.
Undeserving, inconsiderate me.
And without any predisposition
the ocean dredges the finest, tiniest grains of sand
for me,
          for me.
Vain.
Reckless me.
Turns over an hourglass glistening with his diamond dust
and just like that...
And I am grateful, yes I am humbled.
And I will clutch it, I will seize it.
I will patronize, I will hoard.
And I will covet it, herald. Proclaim.
And I will know that time? Seconds hands, he stroke me now. Hours wind around my wrist and bind my eyes with red slithery silken sashes-
And Love? Fickle stroke of her pen and just like that
I am chosen.
Moved from the side of the street where a damp mold covers the crumbling bricks...
and the people I pass, they look up at me now
nodding with a secret knowing. Because
we are chosen for this love, We are the elite. Plucked from the remaining pugilists.
And just like that he loves me.
Just like that it swallows me whole
...And just like that, love.

Sahn 7/2/2014

My Darling, My Dearest
I sink to the dirt,
My regrets swirl around my body like a brides wedding dress.
White lace, virginal unsoiled regrets lay about me lazily-
biting my ankle, scratching up my legs to be held.
My Cherished Treasure,
I will carry my torment like an old man carries his walking stick
Gnarled with time and miles,
before any step I will take-
My regret will mark the path.
And I will walk for all of time with my walking stick. I will walk until I bend over in a broken bridge of bones, all the while letting my regret lead me onward.
My Beloved,
I will wallow in the mud of my sorrows and grief
I will roll and dry, caking dirt on my belly-
like the beast I have become.
My Beautiful,
The wounds that mortification of the flesh will produce-
will be sorry attempts to understand your pain.
The whip braided in tight thick leather
but I can never cut deep so I might
produce enough depth so instead will I bleed-
another sin, another crime!
I cannot feel your suffering-can only guess at the depth.
Oh the endlessly black waters of your sorrow!
I hold my breath, stones piled deep in my pockets.
I dive, I dive...wanting, needing this sacrifice.
But **** this survivalist in me. My lungs betray me-
sputter and cough.
I inhale my water of my sins and breathe them deep so I may drown and
free you from the shackles of my crimes.
My Cherished one, my Shining one-
Forgive this old sinner, forgive this reprobate heart.
For I love you.
When the stars exploded, when universes expanded
I loved you.
When the first blade of grass poked it's willful head above soil,
I loved you.
When first Adam kissed Eve,
I already loved you.
In the next life where you are caterpillar and
I am stump,
I love you then too, and beg you use me to reach closer the sun.
Forgive a fool his foolish ways, he knows no better
Forgive me, cherished one
and let me love you,
Let me love you as the faulted love the Divine. As the sinner loves the penance, as the child loves the stars.
Let me give you the moon, let me put it in on your lips.
So you may kiss the moon, beloved, kiss the moon.

Sahn 7/6/14

I thought when I'd turn to moss,
- when i had left myself to root.
When I had laid me down at last,
Than I'd not miss you endlessly.
I did not know I'd find my soul
dancing lithely in a flame.
A spanish dancer I've become
flickering my reds and blues.
I jump from wick to match to ash
and dance my saraband, contritely.
Yet I thought that when I sighed so lastly
undone would neatly fold away
like origami boutonniere
I'd be pressed between your book
something that you'd heave to shelf
and only gather dust and time.
Regrets, it seems, don't like
to die. So
I'm left haunted by my haunting.
And had I known before I wept
that remonstration without intention
was leaving all the notes unsung
by leaving catching in my voice.
I am singing in the mountains, madly
about what does not skip in the fields
and what does not drip from the sapling...
For love does neither frolic gayly
as much endures beyond repentance.
and I am left, on pebble shores
forever with my sharp withholdings
Stubbornly I held onto them,
Now they cut my like small diamonds.
I am glass and they are listless
wasted, mindless, pointless prattle.
Remind me fresh our penalties for
All the love we do not spend.

Sahn
7/01/2014

I catch you in the petrichor,
I catch the musk of you-
the dark of you,
the vanishing drought of you
I dance within your jejune dusk-
empty hollow hunger howls,
'no substance here, no substance here'
and in every day that I get to love you-
I'll love you in the jamais vu.
so that I can forget I know how
and learn to love you
yet again.
Felicity, I'll bring to you.
In a basket, on a bike-
I'll wear a fetching hat
with a ribbon down my back
as I sing to you in symphonies that echo in an empty room.
I'll sit delicate on Icarus wings
and love you till I melt-
Knowingly I'll greet the sun
swimming in the candle wax-
I'll have done all these things yet not enough
Till I've loved you when the day is done.


sahn
6/30/2014

I am just your average sinner,
sly glances say, I am second chance, time around .
I spin mediocre wildest-dreams
in rundown hope hotels
I am just a pretty sinner with a
dusty trail of lust
like green pollen in my wake.
A vehicle of possibility
to all the places we can drive our devils,
with cocktails and vague musician
who lean back on wooden chairs, against walls of fading paint.
with tables for sins
to be laid out like Thanksgiving.
My sins are neon signs in yellowed rooms,
My sins are rusted cans kicked in old beach towns.
My sins are hot pavement under cracked rubber tires rumbling above.
My back arched in a prayer to the sky.
The rise of my hipbones like majestic mountains.
My sins leak from my eyes. First one, then another.
Down, Down they fall
I fall to my knees.
They fall and I curse them for leaving me too.
I fall to my knees like the traveler who has journeyed too long,
On my knees and  I kiss the dirt of home.
I am humbled and groveling...within my sinning.
And I pray a much louder prayer. I am a much humbler servant, with much to forgive.
I wear my sins like a raincoat to keep me dry from all the
good intention and 'well-deserved!' that might be coming my way.
I twist my sin into a paper flower and wear it in my sinful hair next to my sinful eyes by my sinful mind.
I am just your average sinner
Dreaming of living a better life someday.
Praying to be a better me, someday.
Someday is a funny place to live
With towering hopes
and skyscraping desires scratching at its sterile walls.
No, not for me.
I am just your average sinner...
with extraordinary sins.

Seven times I told you,
Seventy pins in seventy dolls on seventy dusty shelves in New Orleans backrooms.
Seven times I warned you
Seven hundred aches, seven hundred acres
I run across.
I outrun the burn and I outrun the grief
The witch in me, I race with her too.
Seven miles to run, seven miles behind.
And I pass that playful laugh of yours, grab at it
and stick it in my pocket, shove it deep, deep in my pocket.
And I pass that twinkle in your eyes
and I grab that too,
send it on a paper rocket flying the speed of light into seven universes far away.
I grab that last promise
the one that was slippery and hard to hold onto.
I grab it and hold it tight
And I run.
I told you I would
(you looked so surprised).
I run and my bones hit the ground with the rhythm and pulse of a tribal drummer
He drums out in my head
Run, Run, henny Run.  
He drinks my optimism from a cup, then beats his drum. Run, chickadee, run run.
He vomits my clarity at my feet all the while his brown weathered hands drum a ceaseless beat. Run, baby. He loves you not, run.
On the seventh day I run from you and
I find that I am made now from the down of your hair
so I run until I am bald.
I find that I am made now from  stalactites dripping from your tongue.
Celtic knot of assurances and reassurances.
I am made up of moments that I didn't make.
I am made up of your indecision. They bounce gleefully "I don't know, I don't know..."
they insist as they hit walls and corners.
They are lazy, I outrun them with ease.
Seven times I told you,
Itchy souls need to find a branch for stratching.
Seven miles between me and you
Seven hundred to go.

Sahn
6/12/14

Optional is not an option anymore.
I will roam
and I will writhe.
I will rally, rebuild.
I will pave a road,
I'll launch a ship.
I'll race a train, I'll run like hell.
I'll **** the marrow from my spine.
I'll hold my head above the moon.
I'll dive in the deep, I'll chase a bullet.
I'll wander out,
I'll slide away.
I'll lead an army and bomb the past.
Declare unrest and start new rule.
Crown a new king,
I'll carve a new stone.
I'll turn a new leaf and I'll sing a new song.
I'll make a new wish
And I'll burn a new bush.
I'll write a new page
And jump in with both feet.
I'll love a new lover
And befriend whom you hate.
I'll start a campaign.
I'll torch down our home.
Then move heaven and earth one inch to the left.
I'll shake. I'll regroup.
I'll push and I'll ****.
Reincarnate
Regurgitate.
I'll weave... I will tide.
I'll bend, and I'll bob, and I'll steal,
*I WILL TAKE! *
Because optional's not an option...
Anymore.

Sahn   6/8/14

Optional is not an option anymore.
I will roam
and I will writhe.
I will rally and rebuild.
I will pave a road,
I'll launch a ship.
I'll race a train, I'll run like hell.
Option is not an option anymore.
I'll **** the marrow from my spine.
I'll hold my head above the moon.
I'll dive in the deep, I'll out speed a bullet.
I'll wander out,
I'll slide away.
I'll lead an army and bomb the past.
Declare unrest and start new rule.
Crown a new king,
I'll carve a new stone.
I'll turn a new leaf and I'll sing a new song.
I'll make a new wish
And I'll burn a new bush.
I'll write a new page
And jump in with both feet.
I'll love a new lover
And befriend whom you hate.
I'll start a campaign.
I'll torch down our home.
I'll move heaven and earth one inch to the left.
I'll shake and I'll regroup.
I'll push and I'll ****.
I'll bend, and I'll break and I'll steal,
I WILL TAKE
Because optionals not an option anymore.

Sahn   6/8/14

You are my dandylion
and I wait with stealth of a summer day
for you to stop preening in the field
of high grass and green bottles.
Yes. I wait, stroke you gentle
with the ease of the summer breeze
as you sway and waltz
for the primroses and the cricket.
I watch with willful patience
like the ripening of the wild belladonna.
as you tease with your burst of yellow
for the field mouse and the garden gnome.
Yes. I will wait like summers heat
And when you are done,
And when your pretty
petals
lay
limply
at
your
roots,
I will take you gentle into my summers grasp
and with my summers breathe
blow your beautiful grey afro out unto the world to swallow.
Dandylion, pretty primping boy are you.

Sahn 6/7/2014

here's the part where you lie to me.
here is the part where you lie.
effortless as i rake my fingers across you shoulder blades.
and i feel the bones connecting.
here is the part where you lie.
and you say you love me.
(that's not the lie)
and i keep tracing circles on your shoulder
and you lie in the same circle and
you lie.
as we lay, as we lie in bed.
as i feel your your skin under my fingers.
and you lie to me.
and i don't want to hear the truth.
and you don't want to tell the truth
so we lie and we lay
in the bed that wraps around our feet and the truth
tangles between our intertwined legs and
the truth creeps up our thighs and the
truth tickles our bellies
and we lay
and the lie dances and
the truth, that willful truth thrusts
and we lie like lovers do.
and we lie like lovers will.
and we lay
and we lay intertwined like ivy on the old brick wall.
and the truth, it hurts.
and we lay. and we lay.
and the lie it bleeds through us
and we lay.

sahn 5/24/14

If I were an ocean, I'd tsunami.
I'd crash at you, rise up fiercely with froth dripping from my wicked tongue.
I'd lick at your feet a tongue so cold, you'd hop and run like a threatened hare.
I'd send my driftwood to scratch you and then my salt to burn it
And then when I calmed down, I settle to a grey-blue lulling you to see the infinite beauty and power and wrath of me. And you'd feel small as a speck of sand.
If I were an ocean I'd take starfish and send them hurtling towards you like ninja stars.
I'd grab your ankles with my seaweed limbs and drag you under, just for one moment longer than you thought you could survive.
And bubble up the back of your legs like a devils tickle as you shot to the surface to gasp.
If i were an ocean.
If I were a universe I'd take my neutron stars and line them in a row so they spin you back to a time where hearts were whole
Well, when my heart was anyway.
If I were a universe I'd take my sun and my moon and I would cover them with a mourning veil of shimmery ivory and you would see the world like eyes of a woman in grief.
I would put you on a planet where raining glass comes sideways and I would give you an umbrella made of ozone.
I would put you on a star and make you catch the wishes thrown to you.
Catch them all, in a bucket of diamonds.
I would have you grant them all. All but one.
The one I wished. If I were a universe I'd make you ride that lonely wish of mine down the current of the Milky Way,
Feeling its tentacles of hope underneath your feet like old mans slippers.
If I were a universe I hold all your breathe in glass speck of light and watch as it chased the speed of sound down the darkness.
And if I were a mountain I'd turn all my streams away
So you could feel the gift of thirst.
I crumble into dust as you dug your heels into me
Trying to climb higher but ending so far below.
If i was a mountain, I'd wrap the wind around my vocal cords and sing to you and eerie song that would haunt your mind and make you think of loves you'd lost.
I'd give you mountain stretch marks.
Itchy places to remind you of when the sea was your lover.
I'd take my poison ivy to your skin.
So sultry she would climb like a lover's thin trailing fingernails
down
     your
           spine.
If I were tree I'd be a weeping willow.
I'd hang my wounded limbs over the river that is your regrets.
If I were a tree I'd shade you from the blazing sun.
You'd crave me then.
You'd fall asleep in my lap.
If I were a tree I'd gift you a hundred acorns...
And let none of them take root. If I were a tree.
If I were a tree you'd climb me to take shelter from the wolves.
I'd take you into my strong arms
And you would understand what courage is.
What refuge is.
What need is.
I'd stroke that glistening wolf to keep him at your feet.
And paint your toes with sap so he drools with the anticipation of licking you.
And if i were that tree you'd feel safe within.
I'd blow a wind to stroke your face and
And sooth you with the sounds of leaves and you would sleep.
Then I'd send that wolf away because you'd know me then.
But I am a woman.
And what I can do is make you see me as I walk away,
pull away
sneak away
crawl away.
I am a woman and I can be the emptiness I leave you.
I am a woman, an ocean, a universe, a mountain, a forest.
I am a woman who is the empty fragile places where I used to be.
But I am a woman
And you will remember me.
...You will remember me.

sahn
5/19/14

bending time, sleight of hand.
give to me, give to me
one more hour.
pulling quarters from the thin air,
give to me one more day.
farce of having time to say
the angry things.
the loving things.
holding you in a cup, drink you up and
i am small.
holding onto you in my pocket,
take you out and blow off the dust.
before you go, before you go.
i selfishly need to finish us.
before you leave, before you journey
i am not done with loving you.
put you on spoon and dip you in the sugar bowl,
sweet on my tongue, i can love you sweet.
i haven't finished being mad,
i haven't finished needing you. just a child am i again,
im not the selfish one,
who's leaving who here, after all?
before you leave, before you leave,
ill put you on music note, treble clef
and pull you out with a whistle.
im not done, i am not done.
loving you in my skewed way.
so goodbye is it, after all?
the rabbits pulled from the deep black hat.
and i put you in a  boat to sea
winken blinken and nod  care for your soul.
ill put you on a chinese lantern
and let you go. ill let you go.

sahn 5/18/2014

his fist that broke me,
now comes to stroke me.

sahn5/12/14

isn't it the way you're aging?
lines like a childs picture of crayoned rays of the sun.
isn't it the way you twinkle?
when the redness creeps to my face from latest mistake.
isn't it the way you drive that truck?
one arm straight on the wheel, one arm tan from the sun.
perhaps it's the way we're quiet
in the quiet that fills the room with  puffs of white clouds.
surely it's the way you mindlessly,
stroke my arm when you try to make a point.
isn't it the way you work the day?
a mans work, tired and aching at the end.
isn't it the way you erase?
all of my horrid tempers and childish demands.
isn't it the way you love me?
in that space between my stellar and my odious.
and aren't i grateful,
that your broken pieces match my broken pieces.
isn't it an exquisite thing,
that your fragile ego looked for my fragile soul.
isn't it  the way a story ends?
two old people left alone in the big empty house.
isn't it the way the best one ends?
when the children grow up and we hold hands at the park?
isn't it a lovely thing,
a sublimely confounding lovely thing.
sahn 5/11/14

sorrow like a garden grows,
around my feet
and
      through
                  my
                        toes.
sahn 5/11/14

You will lean across my body,
you pause as we both stare.
inside the cosmos of our eyes
two universes ask each other,
will you kiss me?
will you let me?
and you will lean across my body.
and you will breathe a breath so deep
it blows my hair behind my neck
which tickles my ear
and i hear you whisper a thousand secrets
in that tickled breathe
of how wicked, how divine you are.
and you will lean across this body
and your chest will heave mighty gasps
from mighty heartbeats
and quicked breaths.
valves that open and close like butterfly wings in pursuit
and you will lean across this body, my body
and i will feel your lips and they will feel as vast and endless and unforgiving as the ocean,
and you will lean, you will heavily... with all your might, you will lean across this body,
and you will grit your teeth like lovers will, when lovers want.
and you will lean across this body,
you will push across this body and you will grasp and dive, and fall, and tumble and
and you will lean across this body, my body, and you will kiss me
and i will wake.

sahn 4/29/2014

how many ways must i give you up?
grief is just a sport for lucid and the lame.
how many boughs till i break this falling-
to the mossy hill below?
where grief is just a shallow pool
with reflections of me beautifully crying
We ugly mourners live to talk.
selfish shallow pool of grief-
my yellow rainboots fall madly
upon my mirrored head.
i am just a puddle
and i wear it like a man because
sometimes...
grief is just a tailored suit
all dressed up in pawpaws best
neatly pressed.
the seams of your life sewn in a straight line.
it's easy to compartmentalize the times you weren't your greatest you.
in death you leave the lovely
behind
and take away the rest.
in life you leave the death
behind and take away the lovely such a wasted irony.
grief is valentine.
wont you be mine pinks and whites? sugared promises of time.
grief is a lovers candy heart. sentiments on marble etch the total of our time.
grief of mine, such weather beaten blanket. when did she become my lover?
cast aside your sadness.
grief is a friend of mine, grief is a friend of mine.

Sahn 4/22/2014

I missed you today.
With a suddenness, a bereft slap across my skin.
When that familiar hair ahead of me on the sidewalk
turned.
And it wasn't you.
I missed you in the hollow of the moment of the stranger who wasn't you.
And with resounding howl
Like a grieving mother
I missed you.
I remember in the sheets we'd tangle,
I smelled them. I smelled summer air and my perfume
I smelled  your soap and your musk in that minute second on the street.
I stopped and I breathed in deep. Inhale, Inhale.
Before you turned and it was not you.
Like a sailor's wife on the shore
I watched as the stranger who wasn't you turned back down the street
Growing smaller and smaller in the distance.
And a thousand piercing stinging blinding pins of light forced themselves.
They stabbed at me and took my breath.
Took your scent and the bed we lay.
On the street, on the street
as you walked away, the stranger.
Paralyzing me with your nearness only to be someone so very much not you.
I missed you and i stood in the street and gravity gave up its pull to laugh at my foolishness
and my eyes filled with tears to celebrate their perfect deception.
and my bones forgot how to hold on for dear life
and I slid to the ground
to the ground
because
I saw you today on the street. The stranger that wasn't you.
I have learned the art of hiccuping you inside.
Memory, hiccup. There you are now tucked away inside.
Kisses on the soft hairs at the nape. Hiccup that away too.
And all of the hiccups came out in a swallow of your name...
A hundred swallows, truth.
They flew wickedly around my head  gleeful in my faux pas.
And ten hungry vultures came to take the remains of my hope.
Pick away greedily at my anticipation.
Satiated on the last of my blind faith and now they are too fat to fly.
And I am too weak to run.
Because I saw you on the street today,
The stranger that wasn't you. My beloved. My adored.
Such a peculiar street.
I will not pass this way again.
sahn
04/09/2014

I'd like a sometimes-shallow river.
Just enough to dip my feet in deep until they land on smooth, cold stones.
I'd like a tree to hang a swing on a cliff that hovers over my cold water river.
I'd like a road soft on my wet toes
(moss will do)
-that leads to my swing that hovers over my sometimes-shallow river.
I'd like the mossy path to start at the front of a white wrap around porch
that hugs a cottage of the palest of blue with creaky steps to  my squeaky screen door that opens to my hardwood floors.
My wet footprints will leave ghost steps in my parlor beyond the porch.
I'd not sit in the fine couch that I'd  have only for the company.
I'd like to have some tea to warm me after my swim... I'll drink it in the sunroom
just beyond the white kitchen.
I'd like to see a vase of white daisies with sunshine yellow center white on white on yellow in the pristine kitchen of mine. The daisies-I've picked them fresh,
...From the garden
...that's in the back off my cottage and set them in an old jam jar on a worn-with-love wooden table.
I'll hang my daughter's summer jumpers on a line that runs from the willow tree
(she'll have auburn ringlet curls that gleam in the sun as she dances through the drying sheets)
-to the cherry blossom tree that I'd like to think would be right just below my bedroom window (so I'd smell them in the morning when I'd like to think of me yawning and stretching in a bed of pale pink lace and soft wide pillows)
I'd like to think the cat would meow and he would pet her lovingly.
I'd like to think he'd be kind to animals and to me.
Perhaps handsome with his crooked smile.
I'd like to think we grow old here. And grow happy.
And the children. Oh how the children have grown, lives of their own now.
I'd like to think we can dip our feet in that sometimes-shallow river, not that they are older and settled and it's just him and I.
Now that all the years have lovingly passed with ease.
I'd like to think.
Yes. I'd like to think so.

Sahn 4/30/14

If you don't love me the stars will no longer be flickering fairy dust
just dots of light that I can't comprehend.
If you don't love me the ocean will not play it's violin sing-song for me.
Just the tide sigh as she follows the endless whims of the moon.
If you don't love me the city won't be cradling me in kind looks and baskets woven from the crisscrossing of streets, the city will burn me with it's cold dirt floor and endless vacant eyes.
If you don't love me the song on the radio won't be winking at us as it croons our story, just a song on the radio for some other lovers. If you don't love me, I'll just turn the dial.
If you don't love me my fingers will still tap, words will still spill, the paper will burst but the content just vague ghosts of conversations we used to have, prepositions and verbs.
If you don't love me wine will not paint faint blush on my cheeks, make me clever and coy, twirl my hair round it's stem. She'll be wicked and horrid as she whispers the truth to my heart. That you don't love me.
If you don't love me my feet will keep up their silly game of one before the other. If you don't love me my heart will keep instructing the band inside how to move, to beat, to flow.
If you don't love me my eyes will blink from the dust of the road that you left on.
If you don't love me I will  wake up with you on my mind,
If you don't love me I will still wake.
If you don't love me I will.
If you don't love me there will be no more reading poetry to a firefly audience, if you don't love me the sounds of the crickets won't whisper, "kiss her. kiss her".
If you don't love me and the hollow of my shoulders,
and the yellow light of my eyes, sway of my walk, and the cut of my jeans and the hue of my hair and my skin against yours.
If you don't love my eyes that flirt and my sleeping tossing form, if you don't love me, then don't.
If you don't love me. Don't, then.

Sahn 3/24/14

He called me 'little swallow'  
Dark kisses like planting seeds, dotting the bumps on my spine.
Breathe sweet with curry promises heat pools on the skin of my neck.
My ******* he holds in the dim light as if they were the most precious fragile china.
Urgency and endlessness twirl as drunken dancers in my stomach.
Infinite and the finite.
Little swallow, he begs. Little swallow.
Traces of invisible letters drawn on his dark skin with such a soft rake of my nails.
He arches his back in a bridge from delight to despair as he digest the pain of lust.
I could trace the map of India on his neck, the constellations on his back.
"Little swallow," a whisper that comes out as a groan.  
"You are flight of swallows, living cloud.
That I could hold you still
a thought in my head
"restless girl with her heart beating fast."
Now he roughly pulls my hair back
and my neck whips with it.
He has my arm in a lock beneath my chest, kissing the side of my neck.
'my little swallow' he entreats in a dry cough of sound
and i trace Calcutta with my feathery tongue.