While I waited to be happy so much joy escaped.

Under a blanket of 
blackest wool
tiny darting stab wounds bleed 
yellow splinters through a night sky that borrowed it's blue from the bottom of the sea.
-In the up there.
       -In the out there.
And on our wooden chairs painted crisp bay white
chipped over the years,
so the layers of paint becomes a calendar -
we sit to watch
63 moons glide gracefully,
circle daintily-
We strain our necks and whisper tightly
say the things
that move from tongues to fingertips.
Wild gestures meant to
land sooner than the bitter words.
Under the nebulae where you once
gave me a ring
which you slung round a planet
with a ladder and rope.
And you gave me a promise that's still hung round the sun
so I jump up ride it when it orbits me close.
and I'll hide in its caves when the fear-dollies chase me-
and I'll dip in the tides of bubbling foam.
In a moment of tiny,
                              of small
                                            and of sooner....
                             in a moment that's billions of miles away
so before we've been born
and before we've been lovers-
a star somewhere tucked our whole story away.
I'll find us a night cloud
thick with our longings
I'll puff up it's feathers and send it to sea.
I'll send out a hope seed
to sell to the watchmen,
only to free it when they've gone to sleep.
Yes, I'll pack it up safely and keep it's core glowing
(for hope is a thing that you never keep kept.  )
As we sit in our garden,
and we touch close our fingers
As our babies are children and those children now men.
The night scented orchid blooms urgent around us,
like small fragrant fairies that scattered below.
The 64th moon has given you passage,
she's waiting impatient, I fear you must go.
Don't look for me, darling, for I will be waiting
on the bench in the garden
where the night flowers bloom.



Sahn 5/2/15  
Thanks as always.

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

When I am not stone,
When I'm not stiff with tears.
When I'm not cold to touch,
Love me my dears.

Sahn 4/13/16

I wait for the crashing fight.
for the tire screech,
the door slam-
for the lava words
that roll magnificent red from my tongue
and slowly drip ashen black onto the wooden floor between us.
I wait for the broken flute,
tiny bubbles, tiny dreams-
all absorbed by Berber Carpet
and mailbox stuffed
with molehills of mountains.
I wait for the heaving pressures
that blow things upwards,
that blow things inwards.
That makes canyons
and mushrooms
I wait for the fury that turns my eyes
cast with doubt, cast with coal dust.
my lungs puffed with indignation-
so little room to breathe
that I am high from venom.
I wait for the disgust to
wrap around me like a Sunday School wrap-skirt
colorful and gay,
and dropped to the floor without
consideration.
I wait for the hate to be early.
with hope already so foolishly spent on each other,
with faith so carelessly blown away
riding in invisible
paper airplanes-
such are the kisses sent across busy roads.
Waste, waste all these desires of the mundane
when lust drives
outside forces divide,
heat and sinner unite us
and I wait,
I do.

I wait for it to pass.
So as to get to the stuff a day beyond the splintered wood
past the love,
past the lush.
past the lace on my forehead.
I wait for it all to past so as to get myself wholly to you.
For it is not the very last of days
I wait to spend with you,
It is the very all of days I wait to spend with you.


Sahn 3/16/15

she is gone
like the waves are to the sand
she was there and
then she's not.
she is gone.
like a hand is to the shake
like the Eve is to the snake
like the sun is to the morn
she is gone.
She has gone.
like the path is to the lost.
like the trees are to the roots.
like the skin is to the snake
she is gone.
she is gone.
like the kiss is to the cheek.
like the strength is to the weak.
she is gone.
and still, and still he waits
like the river rock he shakes
but no movement will he make
she is gone.
he will bide his time like lakes
she will roll like tides
and take
what is hers and what he left
she is gone.
and still he waits
and still he waits.
and time will edge and clip
and she will
dodge and she will duck
she will shine and she will grab
and
still he waits.
still he waits.


sahn12/17/2014

like the Eve is to the snake
like the sun is to the morn

She has gone.
like the path is to the lost.
like the trees are to the roots.

like the kiss is to the cheek.
like the strength is to the weak.
She will stay still as she wakes
and still he sits and looks far out
hoping to remember a magic song
wnose lyrics he forgot
like the river rock he shakes
but no movement will he make
she is gone.
he will bide his time like lakes
she will roll like tides
and take
what is hers and what he left
she is gone.
and time will edge and clip
and she will
dodge and she will wander
allow her have respite in you soul.


sahn12/17/2014

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

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

I stretch, and stretch
up towards a place where my head is far
further above so
that I cannot hear the jet engine of your words.
I hear my bones creak
with the effort to get
away from the pollution
of your coal train ramming me.
I hear only my body
cracking like spring ice
as I rise, rise -
rise above your noise toxins
that settle like limp and sodden cardboard crowns
worn about your tortured head.
High above your hollow community
above your entitlement park,  
above your tiny-
tinny voice.
I hear it. Your hateful sounds like poultry jibber
so far down in
atmospheres
below.
I laugh to hear your wordless squawl!
I stretch but  now to bend
and see you
beneath my squishy toes.
Bend at the waist
to see who's nipping at my ankles
and I cry a tear of mirth.
A white rapid that
whisks your bitter apple groove
far away.
I stretch you gone.
I stretch you indifferent.
I grow myself pardoned, I grow my self free.

sahn
2/15/15

Here's this marble heart to give you
Sculpted by the schoolyard scrapes
And kitchens grapes
Fed one by one
Cool and sweet beneath my tongue.
A wooden heart that's held inside
These metal ribs to catch my sighs-
And when I feel the need to flee
I'll kick start this rusted knee.
Inside this ancient Chinese vase
Is my very lovely face.
Valuable to only me-
Filled with cracks that you can't see.
My fingers long, the wedding band
For I married sugar sand
My hair is heaps of fireflies
Who whisper sweet their bedroom lies
And you will take me by the thread
That pulls me back into the bed?
And you will take your time to paint
Straight lines that divide the saint?
And you will watch my crippled frame
See Monet inside my pain?
I'll open up the garden skies
To meet him where the trestles rise.
For I have met a man today
This time, I may not run away.
In my outstretched redwood palm
Fate has left me coins and calm.
Bite, my lover, as they quiver-
The lips that kiss you,
Bite the giver.




Sahn 4/13/16

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 took it back, today.
in that ***** office with the years of waste covering all the surfaces.
i slapped out of a box that held dulled wit and
and i stood so tall
that all my inches did their sun salute
and i took my space.
i took my broken, back
from the faded formica
wearing down from days and hours and shifts
and bodies
weighing
            down
                     on
                           it-
and when it said, 'i always wished i was marble'
i understood.
i always wished i had  marble too.
so i took the battered files
containing nowhere words
about the sick and dying
and i throw them
at the yellowed ceiling tiles
so they could shower down a jumble
of breaking through the wound barrier
and my heart beats until i moved around
like the quickening of this rebirth
and i leave
with my dignity
crumpled up with a tissue in my pocket.
And i leave with a humming in my ear
and all that i came with,
ill have it back now.
tied to a string, i attached to my belt loop
thrown in  bag that i hold by heart-
i take it back.
god-**** this succubus
but i will take this tattered woman back-
i will take this twisted spine
i will take this faded sense of righteousness
beautiful woman,
back.

sahn  7/29/15

Over a steaming cup of soup
over a frosty mug of ale.
Over and over
I've seen those eyes
peer and
peek
and absorb and dart
and deceive.
Over the black and white tattler.
over the child's cartoons.
I've seen those eyes twinkle
and the sides of them
crinkle and the lines
that have grown little by little
like a map of small creeks.
Over a mountain of colorful bills,
over the worn Ulysses
you've
tried
to read
for years.
I've seen your eyes wander and water,
close gently like leaves falling -
zigzag to the ground.
Bang shut fierce, like an old Italian closing the shutters.
Over certificates
and instructions
and declarations.
Over pots of soup
or stews or rice.
I've seen those eyes.
More my eyes than they are yours
as I have loved them a million times
and I have searched for them through seas of faces-
and always light a lighthouse, find them
and through those eyes
a young woman glows.
Not the tired and weary woman I am.
Behind a latte's steam
he sits
and startled he looks up at me.
"You're deep in thought",
he says.

Sahn 12/29/14

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

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

Willfully-
I don't see you from the side of my body.
Yet these **** toes like small children tugging on my hem,
"Come on, come on!"
They want to run to you
(and I do, too)
but I will not budge.
as I am quite intently giving you no mind.
Contented to just watch you from the blindspot as
I keep you carefully wondering
why if there is so much beauty in the world to admire...
Then why-
you would-
your whole body could
only
and against your own will
only-
not see me too.


sahn 3/5/2015

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

The stones I choose were
smooth and grey
to build a cairn
that marked the end.
So cold were they
I thought them wet
Laden with my dark regret.
As for all I could not keep,
I placed them gently, buried deep .
Frigid I
I could not thaw-
The fault was mine,
in the after all.

Sahn
01/15/17

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

Stringing my words together like
garland on the aluminum tree
whose lights flicker on and off haphazardly
bouncing from silver tin leaf
to silver tin leaf.
I stammer and push them
out with my tongue.
until I become my mama's face
from the effort.
Those words, they push to come out
a labor-
out into the world, newborn babes.
As i sputter and kick them
(no graceful exit
from me).
Yet the lush ones wont leave me,
my throat swallows them whole
with the smooth roundest effortless bite
that they are not.
And my tongue recoils, curls between letters-
hides in the punctuation
rears from the bitter.
So I stumble and
stammer
and quite a fool myself, make.
Gulp until I am knotted  inside
and I leave this foolish talk alone
at the bottom of the sea of bile.
I leave this talk to stronger folk,
or younger folk
or kinder souls than me.
I shut my face door.
Shut it, slam it
and leave this talk to better dreamers than me.

sahn
2/12/15

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

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

You want to kiss her.
Lip color makes a sunrise blush-
You have to know
If she'll be soft inside.
You want to taste her,
To figure out,
if she'll dart or will she wallow.
You want to kiss her
but you can't say why.
You want to touch her.
Watch her skin across the room.
You know the hollows-
want to trace them with your thumb.
You'd be so gentle, you'd move yourself
with your deft hand,
you want to touch her-
but you can't see why.
You want to smell her.
Scrub that cheap scent from off her clothes.
Get close and know her
with every sensory she brings.
You want to smell her-
like on the pillow when she leaves.
You need to smell her
but you won't know why.
She makes you achy.
You know the tiny things about her.
You gather pieces,
watching out from under lashes.
You'd wait for timing.
You'd wait for fate to give you courage.
She makes you achy
And you don't fathom why.
She makes you need her and
you can not find
why.

Sahn

I keep pain in my pocket
in a white ribbon packet
Burning while I kneel in faith
that I should dance
In God's good grace-
that I should love a cleaner way
So I may not scare the light away
with my tendency to
enticingly to-
lead with all my shattered pieces
lonely creases
sing their own enticing  song.
It can't be long
before it's heard and
once more there is fodder
another fool into deep water
And like a totem that I bear-
Hope remains, beyond repair.

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

There is a funeral pyre
I built as I walk.
A parade of orange flames
down the street,
blue centers lapping like puppies
trying to get my attention.
And I let that ache burn
with the ashy residue
that lies thick on
all my clothes
and the tongue where
I kissed you.
I left the love, I left the lover
but, Oh! the embers wear me round my neck like a like an sailor's orange sky
Struck a match to patch the hole.
And everywhere I go I am the mourner and the deceased.
Outliving the everlasting,
wearing thin evermore.
sahn
8/9/16

Warrior,
gonna paint my face in fighter's colors.
Gonna put on my tightest clothes
so all the more,  I can keep things close to the chest.
Gonna tie up my laces-
all the way up.
Up around my thigh,
up around my belly
and high around my heart.
You thought my heart beat like a scared bird?
Boxer!
It beats out a tribal rhythm to remind me
just who in the Hell I think I am!
It beats with my hummingbird heart-
fragile
and fast to leave
ferocity comes in flashes
and I'll kick away your insecurity you leave me at my feet
and  the shovel for your digs.
I'll plant deep  your innuendos
like some back bone growing ****.
I won't bother ducking bullets-
my metal cage of resilience
and keep it locked and ready to spring..
Your failure to thrive leaves me bored.
Motivated?  Oh, yes I am
- the upper hand that  holds the sun
will never die from burning.
Bring me your withering plant of a soul,
I'll still water it
because it's she who holds the hose, that holds the power.

What day was it, exactly
when you asked?
I'd never thought
not that far out:
But.
I want to sit by the mountainside.
Hear the brook every morning-
gather up river stones
build up a path.
Drive an old chevy truck.
Red.
With radio made for blasting.
I want a moonroof and plenty
of stars in the sky.
I want to see faraway places.
Hear funny voices say funnier words.
I want to visit-then
I want to come home.

To you.

I want to cook like they do in NY
And garden
and pick pretty flowers.
To grow older
and watch
as my babies grow old.
I want to visit  pyramids.
Buy trinkets at Parisian stores.
I want to see Venice-
make my way  
thru watery streets.
But then
I want to come home.

To you.

To that mountain.
by that creekside.
Feed the squirrels and watch red robins.
Write under a tree.
I might want to go west-
Drive down highways fast
stay up in Vegas,
Late.
Wear sparkly dresses.
Drink pricey champagne
close to the bay. Any bay
will do.
I want to find light in the India bustle
and color in Ireland's green
and then,
I want to come home.
I want four corners and
I'd love seven wonders,
But still-
I'd want to come home.

To you.

Sahn
4/11/15

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 not willing to
I am not wanting to-
I am not reckless anymore.
For you, I put my foot to earth
and make the indent deep in stone.
I am not able
to wake one second more
as myself without yourself
shadow me and watch
for I will touch the tree-
and there I will leave most of me.
I cannot breathe a single breath
and not hold on deep inside
that cloud of smoke
that I breathe in,
you are the air, the air.
I am water,
madly carving our initials
into the very earth-
for you to keep.
In the salt, in the sea-
I am full of sense
aware I am, of you.
I do not care for wars
I cannot carry causes.
My hands are full of us and we
my arms are heavy-
loaded down,
with all the minutes I have lived
without you.
I found them
and will rage and storm
with all the loneliness I didn't know I had
until you.
I'll lay in wheat fields yellow thick
and melt into the spiny swords and look
to see the sky has puffed it's cheeks with
playful, jeering joy
for you.
Beautiful you.
And I will touch my hand to all I see
The Stone, the sand
and every yawn from every child.
I will touch the fireplace
and dance for you a wistful
sinewy waltz.
I will hide in all the rain
and ride on gust of wind to blow your hat.
In earth and stone
you'll find me.
I'll keep you safe with silver coins
and all the places I can hide.
And all this I give  to you
because I whisper sorrow deep-
I can only be in one way now-
I  can only be for you.


Sahn 5/14/15

I'm waiting on that bench of ours,

where we kissed among the stars

and made a lullaby to sing

for a babe we didn’t bring.

I’m counting as the cars ride by

all the trips we didn’t try

and all the kisses in the rain

to make us feel in love again.

I’m climbing down the basement stairs

to bury secrets,  no one cares.

In the time of famine, dearest

We  devour what is nearest.

Considering your starving heart

you’ll  digest me part by part.

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

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

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

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

I can lose you in the crowd-
I can lose you in a train of thought.
I can lose you to the errant sock
the wallet left on a table,
that last marble down the vent.
I can send you down the wrong path
send you packing-
send for your belongings.
Send you away.
I can deliver you safely.
Deliver you to the doorstep
Sign off on your delivery.
I can get carried away by you.
Carry your grudge.
Carry the weight of the relationship.
I can blow off to the westerly wind
Blow up, Low blow.
Blown away.
I can mark the days
The mark of the beast
market day and slip away.
But I can't remember how to not love you.
Can't remember how to stop hope.
How to turn off faith.
I can't remember how not to look for you
in the crowd-
how to not listen for your laugh or your key in the lock.
I could lose you-
but I could not ever resist you.
and that's really the thing about it, isn't it?
Only one of these sentences matters.
Just one.

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.

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


Sahn 10/16/2014

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

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.

Broken piece pierce the atmosphere.
Rocket ships  to the floor beneath.
Shards of shimmering fragments form
Sharp edges rocking
Swaying to the music of momentum.
Just enough so one might see,
That beautiful whole that once was me.

Sahn 7.17

Blanket of blackest wool above
Bleeding yellow in the out-there
And on the  wooden chairs painted white
we sit to watch.
63 moons glide gracefully
and say the things
that move from tongues to fingertips
Because touch
Lands sooner than the bitter words
It was under the nebulae
Where you gave me a ring
which you slung round a planet
with a ladder and rope
and you gave me a promise that is hung round the sun
so I jump up ride it when it if it orbits me slowly
In a moment of tiny, of small and sooner.
in a moment that's billions
of miles away
so before we we've been born
and before we've been lovers-
a star somewhere tucked our whole story away.
I will find us a night cloud
thick with our longings
and send it out shining to sell to the night.
Yes, I'll pack it up warmly
and hold it quite tightly then send it out sailing on
night after night.




SAHN 07/18

I saw you over there, lustful man.
I braided **** ribbons in my hair
so they could make you think
of wrists
and feet
and places of interest.
Ribbons of heat
curling from
the effort of
not watching me.
The devil leaves a sinful man
who fights within himself-
The devil leaves the sinful man to battle
lonesome.
The devil knows what you do not-
you'll never leave as victor.
I pass my glaze of a glance of sigh of a slight turn-
you de-watched me too.
That is to say
you watched me so tightly
you had to un-think me with purpose.
You had to descend on those
deviant rungs
step ginger down,
rung by rung by rung
and you stopped half way
between me up here
and me down there.
and oh! what a glorious place you stopped.
The holy place of me- where I am still a Mary
and a Magdelene?
I've yet to be.


Sahn
3/3/15

Shards of the glass pierce my atmosphere-
Rocket Ships to the floor .
And as the red wine swells to pools beneath
I am swaying to the music of momentum-
Just enough so one might see,
That beautiful whole that once was me.




Sahn 7/26/17

I want each step to land my foot
tangled heather
ash and soot.
And lead to where the wicked go...
where the darling schoolgirls know
when to turn with redden hue
gasping their  intact virtue.
Yet I long my footfall down-
mossy sinfully buoyant ground.
Run to meet him by the stone
kiss him on it's granite bones.
And he'll swing me wide with wonder
pirate, he'll be, ravage. plunder.
I go where all the good girls shant.
all my christian vows recant.
Yes I will meet him by the river

and onward I keep
through the creeping myrtle, creep-
and the sinners sandbox
and painted ladies swings
(where I rest my chastity case)
that's covered in leather and ******* with lace.
Delight  
as I watch good girls gasp-
as I swing wide hips, wide.
Thier ****** ******* clasps.
And that night will give birth
to a wretched new way
I am wanton
and crafty
and
unwelcome at tables-where ladies
demure
and insist on "no more!"
and
need polite conversations
to endless relations.
I'll roar down that path
like a thundering herd,
like an air stream that carries the weariest bird.
I'm curved, I'm pillowed.
I'm chest out.
I'm willowed...
I'll have holes in my souls
all four of them dotted.
Or six of them spotted?
Like a cat's lives they'll feed
so that reaper, recedes.
It's this path, though, you see them?
The Glories
majestic.
Twined up the tree trunk
and my heart is arrested.
I'm put in the mind of those
sinewy women
and sin
comes in scent
where that glory blooms nightly
and clasp hold of
these moments
of recklessness tightly.

Sahn 1/12/2015

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

I'll have you know the movies love me,
they love my lovely face in silhouette
and they say, 'oh you are the reason we do what we do.'
I think you should know the sidewalk loves me,
they heave my great weight effortlessly
and say, 'oh, it's such an honor to hold your burdens up.'
You should probably be aware
that waters love me.
they ****** me in the most intimate places
and say, 'oh how can I not tickle you so?'
and luck, she burrows in the meager coins in my pocket
while she seduces a golden deity
to give me baby prosperities.
Blessings, those scamps, they just adore me!
Ringing and ringing their bright silver bells
so that only I can hear them...
throwing  butterflies down with the rain so the drops
fall
Softly
Down
against
my
skin
because
Time, he seduces me.
He takes me into the strongest hold and tells me stories!
Oh, the stories Time will weave just so I don't leave his lap and-
I'll warn you, the stars are mesmerized by tracing the shadows in my face.
They love to play hide in seek,
they hide in my eyes for days and I can't find them.
And Laugh!
Laugh thinks I am her playmate
and she shares whispers with no other.
With no other that is not
me.
I am loved the universe wide,
I am loved
Far reaches of the sky,
I am loved.
Beneath the sticking blades of grass-
yes, loved there as well.
I am loved,
Now hold my hand and
Love me too.

Sahn
3/11/15

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