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

As i throw it, watch it shatter
Pick discretion-make them matter
As i fumble for the clock
And **** upon his lovely ****
Because my tongue is sharp and wicked
You taste of lemons when i lick it.
Remember when I'm going down
This queen wears a jaded crown.
And when your grip has found my hair
Pull it till the devil's there.

Sahn 4/16

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

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 lay down my
vanities
like
oranges
at the altar.
i pour out my
pride like water
from the Krishna-
sodden ribbon of faith
runs around and over and
through your hands
and i lay down my
face on your lap
and i lay down my face
on your map of the world
and the oceans whisper under my ear
and the future
is a boxer inside of your chest
throwing fist-
bom, bom
after fist-
bom bom
at the shadows on the wall.
and i lay my faces down
all five of them-
six of them.
and i lay them down to
be eaten by the dogs.
while they chew merry on my
presentations, my false introductions.
i look to the night sky of your face
and it looks like it may rain.
sorrow rain. snowflake fractals falling on my
cheek-
great rivers of regret and sorrow
and restraint.
i look up
Rigel Kentaurus
is shining from somewhere deep inside.
and i find you, and i find my way
around the black hole
inside you and i move swift around the comet that is me.
fire, fire, pieces of planets and fire
fiercely forcing it's way through the universes until
i finally hit
a force stronger than i.
i shed my clothes.
as naked is the eyes that see me, true.
i shed my pride.
as forgiving is the soul that nurtures.
i wear your adoration like cherry blossoms blooming
i wear your eyes, i take them from you
to see me,
to see me
and i do not disappoint. i am naked and beautiful and modest
just as you said i would be.
beautiful vessel
the Gods choose well,
so i lay my silks and finery at your feet.
blossoms in the sacrificial bowl.
let me lay, just a little longer,
on your lap that is the world
let me lay here
while your hand of the softest gossimer fingertips
rides the bumps in my spine.
let me find myself in your lush silence
and in this divine be forgiven-
oh! That I find myself forgiven.

sahn
1/19/2015

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

He lies next to me in the big red bed,
hair in patches
and smooth in circles.
An elbow propped that holds up his head
as he gazes and traces
the letters of the alphabet on my
places of the universe.
And he sighs deeply
as he throws down his head
as if to say,
Giving up. I'm giving up on this
and I think,
On us? Or just giving in-
but I don't say
because the conversation is the
most beautiful I ever heard.
-And the man wiggles and flops
like a child
with energy coursing out of his fingertips.
He loves me.
Such a simple act.
Love is such a simple act.
Hate he says, takes 'energy he don't have'-
and like is just warmed up soup.
'Love is easy, mother girl
love is easy... be easy back.'
In the big red bed, I trace the veins in his arms
to see where they'll lead me.
They never led me where I expected them to go.
it's Sunday, in this big old bed.
'The sun's up, gonna go to church
and pray for sins of the moon.
We'll just stay in these hot red sheets and pray right there.
might make more-'
And he says with a snakes slow rhythm,
'It's Sunday,
everybody knows Sundays were made for redeeming.'
Sunday-
and there is quiet throughout the house.
Sunday-
and the world left us for just these few.
See that beautiful color?
Umm hmm.
We are up to the good things,
the touching things- the things we need to be forgiving for.
We are up to things that shut off the world
And we swim in these sheets
and we become red.

sahn 3/29/15

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

sahn5/12/14

Rotted soul of good intention,
mine is an apple core
on an old black road
in a holy heat.
Sinner, slow down!
Sinner stop your dancing
and start praying
for your people
-mmmyes-
that they start praying
for you
child.
'Cause it's gonna take a churchyard full
of bake sales,
mmmhmm
and it's gonna take a winter full of galoshes by the church door
whoowee,
it's gonna take a village to save you, child.
Heathen, pull your skirt down!
stop them hips swaying left, slooow,
swaying right, sloooow
as you walk down that dirt road kicking up dust
like you was a young colt running.
Oh it's gonna take a lot saving,
Yessum, it's gonna take a lake a dunking...
Oh but Lord! It's gonna take a lot of praying,
Hallelujah, gonna need a lot of rosaries
to save your eternal life, girl
I am as rotten as a pit of peach,
dried and without yield. no value, no good.
Child, it's gonna take a revival to save this soul.
Mama, start that revival and save your babies soul.


sahn
2/6/15

The ice I wear is silence.
As for diamonds, I don't own them.
I save ruby for my lips.
I save swagger for my hips.
I save crystal for my gin.
And the only thing I age is grace.
As for me I grow divinity-
The sin in me,
is confidently rising as I walk into the room.
If I make you feel I'm naked
when your burden down with fur-
"What does he see in her?"
If I make you feel uneasy,
and hold him just so tighter
because my steps are lighter
although my thighs are trunks
like mighty oaks they hold me high
so I can match Tiffany eyes
to the Tiffany colored skies.
Wear your silver, wear your gold.
And I'll wear nothing loud and bold.
How dare I not adorn.
Not care about your scorn?
I am the bracelet that wraps the wrist,
I am the earrings lazy laying.
Designers drape me in goddess garb
while your childish glitter is fraying.
I wear years like men wear watches-
Proud and vainly count the notches.
Watch me slither, watch me wander.
Helpless but to become fonder.

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

It all spins
gravitational pull
and I-
astronaut distance
orbit it sadly.
My only regret-
out in the black nothing
is not feeling my back
against brick
one more time.
Push me against
the cold and cutting
and kiss me with your
hands by my head.
Ever so cleverly
holding the wall-
holding the world.
Holding out on me.
As I tumble,
astronaut girl
and look at the blue beneath my toes
my only regret is
not learning how fly that kite.
Learning how to ride currents
with colorful
useless
beautiful
toys.
So very stuck, was I,
on all of the moons
That I never took
to dragons with tails
or red and black scales
and days taken hostage
and grass that can lasso
and pull me in earthbound.
Now I am anchored to nothing and watch
as the blessed and foolish dance at weddings
and funerals
and I watch from above.
Astronaut, I am
my only regret is that
all of this time
I've spent farming the stars
I never did learn
to correctly love you.

Sahn 4.13.15

The water that is crushing me
is keeping me afloat.
I cannot feel the ground beneath,
and I'm not sure I can stand.
The pressure that is bearing me
is holding all my insides in
No longer see a shoreline
and I can't know I won't drown.
As I navigate myself,
and twist to find my East and West
I realize I've made quite a mess-
Left my compass with a gull.
The bird you see,
liked shiny things
and as I thought I had no use
for which direction
I might take
I felt it
quite an easy trade-
the weight of choices off my hands
And the bird with flightpath clear.
The sodden feel of water now
has permeated all my pores
and left me to shed salty tears
My feet ache for the ground.
I will tumble like the seaglass
with each wave my edges blur
perhaps the the sea will make me clean
Stripped of sin
and stripped of ache.
Perhaps this long night will end soon
If I can just
keep
floating
just keep
treading water...
just a while more.

Sahn
10/30/17

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

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

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

No more to write another word
of my merry making
Or place you in the crescent moon
and tell the maids you're taken.
Take the ink from in my mind
and stopped my fingers writhing?
I'll think the biggest thoughts of God
then place you in the tithing.
If all the paper turned to beads
and all the threads unraveled-
I'd weave a poet's deepest fear-
in the darkest places traveled.
We are not the whispered tale.
Ours did not skip fleeting
It leaked its way
through pulse and vein-
to drum the story beating.
I have you in the scar on knees-
that leaves a child sorrow.
You have me in the set alarm
that gives one more tomorrow....
If I stopped a thief from stealing
if I stop a ship from sail,
If I stop a bride from blushing
take a train from off the rail:
If you take my words and wrap
them in the perfect silken bow
this lovers tongue, you will still hear-
this soul, you will still know.


Sahn
3/8/15

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

Temper-
now, now, there. He is
man of raging waters-
ease flees  his body
Like birds spooked by passing train.
Time and truths drag down his shoulders as
He walks his well-worn path to
Earn his well-worn dollar.
His arms limp to pick the tempest bottle
That fill his flaccid faith with the warmth of a hundred singing choirs.
Temper, now - hallelujah, hallelujah
He fills his cup - king of kings-
and pours it down the funnel of his spine,
And like the clown that blows up balloon animals
He blows up a lion
blows up a fighting ****-
He blows himself up into hope-into happy.
Temper man, mine,
I am branches of his trees
Snapping in the sudden gale
The storm that brews beneath his feet.
I am what he preserves -
what he destroys
Makes me like one of his castles
That
drip-drop
drip -drop
rise in the sand
I rise, towers blossom fragile
Queen of Drip-drop Land
- temper man watches it all wash away
I am sullen and silent and stirring
His madness alive
as he tangos with electrified demons on the beach where I puddle.
Oh how tiring it all is,
And he'll wake to drag his medal with him
As he walks the dusty road to clutch his dusty dollar
So he may do it all again.


Shan 01/05/15

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

I'm difficult and broken
-and not at all difficult and broken in that oh-im-so-difficult-and-broken-beautiful way that some women can be.
No.
I'm just difficult and broken in all the ugly ways it manifests.

sahn 4/10/15

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 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

Destroy me.
Take what you can from the middle.
Take that golden yellow moon-
that sherbert sunset in the center of how I exist,
**** it, take it!
And Stubbornly I'll be.
When all that is left is bones for the jackal to
satiate on
when all that is heard is bubbles popping
and the jaw creaking
from
the overuse of what was inside me-
When that dark and silken predator
lies lazy on it's back
with my contents fuming in its distention...
destroy me, do.
***** my remains
with huge heaving gusts of your gluttony.
Because you will.
Because I am too heavy to carry, I am too light to settle.
Oh, yes I'll be your posion,
and into every cell I will invade
marching with my army, marching with my anger
I will wiggle in your ear and chew through the pictures in your mind,
eating at the corners of everyone you covet most.
I'll call you in a singsong voice that does not end.
In every room you'll look to hear-
in every corner your try to hide from it.
I will flood your soul with my wrongdoings so you
carry mine as well as yours.
Yes, destroy me-
dust.
And you will perish from my digestion
and you will carry my heavy sins.
Oh, what is left? What is left?
Just the eternal weight of light
and you cannot eat that,
On light you can feast
but not thrive.
It will not still the noise
of the rotting wood
that sits solid and solitary
in the place
where someone stole
your exclusive rights
to feel
joy.


Sahn 3/26/2015

i want 75 holidays with you,
75 times you make me blush.
i want 75 languages to say the things that get caught in my throat
75 prayers and
ways to say 'i'm sorry'
i want days that end too quickly
and legs that drape in sleepy closeness.
I want 75 leap years left with you
mountains and rocks to heave with you.
75 holidays that end with dreamy
fireplaces and walks that take in
cold brisk air
and 75 sly smiles as
i hide salt in the sugar
and you laugh out the oatmeal
and chase me through morning-
i want 75 kisses,
were you lean in too close
and i feel with my palms
the brick of the wall.
and i close my eyes tightly
and get lost in the ship of
your face and your lips and
your 75 ways of breathing softly into me.
I want 75 tears to wash away.
75 times you broke my heart
and gave me doubts and fears
and wrapped them in the
ordinary days.
And 75 ways to forgive me,
and then more to forgive myself-
75 bones that creak with age
wrinkles under chins, and
merry in the corners of our eyes-
75 ways you're my best friend
and the paste of me, the guts of me.
75 % the best of me-
I want 75 more healthy days with you.
days when we remember
why we started this together.
and when the sun is setting,
oh lord just give me this-
i want 75 small kisses on your check
before i join you...
and then i want just 74 more lifetimes
to find you over again
and count this all over again.
sahn
10/6/15

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

You will learn my rhythm
and lean in when I talk-
The smell of me like petrichor perfume
will linger on your shirt.
Feel of my lips like
satin ties
of the ballerinas shoes
will wind
around your mind
and tie across the gooseflesh
on your arms.
You will know I have come
before my hand
lifts to knock,
and your heart will quicken-
echo percussion against the chambers.
You will remember
the last wet place
we walked with one umbrella.
And when it rains
you will fill buckets with longing
to fit our slick bodies
underneath its black shelter
again.
You will knot your tie
and straighten your collar
and your body will stiffen
because it remembers.
You will have a track mark
like the silver needle bullet
chasing through your veins-
that recalls us.
Like tongue recalls salt,
like  wound
recalls harm-
like child recalls
before being born-
like the prayer remembers
before being sung.
like the rock will recall that the ocean was there
and the cell will recall being painlessly split
and you will remember
with such vivid lust
and you will love in a timeless loop.
And I will love you over and under.
We will love till we're small again,
Love as time resets again
And then do it all once more,
Again.


Sahn 4.10.15

i watch his magic trick
in the morning by the sink
with the crunch of the blade
he goes from monster to man...
with the sleek silver rake
he goes from mine only
to the all the worlds.
and i am jealous of the world
my eyes watch him
as he clears the charming stubble
and tames the wild curls.
and i peek at his belly,
soft and pale
with sprouts of hair
like a man jungle.
and i watch him
with the cottoniest of cottons
ironed and pressed
shirt like a gift wrapped tight-
edges and clean lines.
i close my eyes and inhale
because next i will smell his smell.
and keep them closed
for him to lean over
inhale
and kiss me goodbye.
i don't want to hear the door close
but it does.
and i watch the hands as they
tick
tock
and i watch that **** door that let
him go
become the door that brings him back home.

Sahn
4/24/15

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

I got loadbearing feet.
-18 wheeler legs.
drag my demons and devils
in the tanker behind
I stand tall,
Oh this weight.
"She's a good one,"
they'll say,
not understanding
How fast I can leave.
"If you catch her-
there's  cement foundation
under the moss that
grows over her faith."
Hurricane glass in my ocean gray eyes
I've got steel framed thoracic spine
that holds my haul steady.
I tied down my baggage
with bungee and coil.
I've got road ready feet
as there's asphalt that's burning.
I've got weight bearing soul-
and spare beneath the hood,
I've got to keep it moving though
As I'm just passing through.

Sahn
2/9/15

Ginger beer
In the hemisphere
celestial haze
Quasar waves.
Shooting stars
and loud guitars
Wanderlust
and cosmic dust.


Sahn 07/17

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

The only time in an ordinary life that dying seems beautiful is when you are a teenager. That beautiful time where your skin is tightly wrapped around you like Saran Wrap and your mind believes every tear you push out of your eyes matters, counts towards something. You cry because your heart got broken? That matters, put it in your portfolio of beautiful broken pieces. You cry because you did not make the team/the grade/the cut/the audition/the clique/the bus … all of these things matter when your book is full of hauntingly empty pages. What nobody tells you is that once you fill your book with these small slights, you have less and less pages left for the big stuff that’s coming. The big stuff that should really fill your book. By the time you have something to write in your big book of beautiful broken pieces, you’ve filled it with so much crap and nonsense that there is nothing left to say.
I have nothing for you then.
Stop readingStop mother ******* reading.
I have nothing.
I am ******* empty.
I have nothing.

In that,
the tiny pushpins
that invade my clumsy pulse.
In that
I find you
in that-
the electric scarf
I wear around my neck
Insomuch I find
you choke me
so I am not wordless,
I am not without screaming-
dripping and falling from my lips
wrapped like gifts of mortar
more out than in
no I am not wordless.
I see you and tiny electric pulses
dance on me
dice through me
I feel you
touch so perfect
like a violin string
strung-
strung taught
tight against my mouth
tight against you leaving.
I am sensory.
I am sound that bounces angry
I am sound that chisels
the prayers of the prayer wheels
upon the bumps of my spine.
listen, listen
for your footfalls
and you will touch me,
perfect touch
of space and air
and fingertips that have no bones
no skin
just a note on a
cello-of a touch
and a kiss from behind my neck
a strangle,
such the kiss is tight.
tiny electric pulses through me,
oh, love,
for the tiny electric pulses
that bounce through,
move me.
prayers on the prayer wheel
spinning.
sahn 01/22/15

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

I am angry in the way that
bubbles in champagne
rocket towards air.
I am pretty-
in that beige and golden way.
That heat paints my face,
Scolds my cheeks-
like an iron to the crispest collar
of a well-dressed man.
And I am virile in the hot.
Lovely reds and pinks and
eyes that catch-
LaCross nets that
will not meet your gaze
lest you see the squall
I work so hard to hide.
I am breathless with my rage,
and oh, so beautiful! Finally.
In my pain,
I am dry and fragile
brittle leaves crunching underfoot,
the salt left careless by the sea.
Nothing grows in me-
nothing grows in me.
I am dead sea
and beauty floats boastful where
love cannot swim.
For I carry this grief
in the way a river stone
bears the weight of the rushing water.
The lovely
and the ruthless.
The heinous
and the clean....
the very worst of me
is the prettiest to see...
Naked before the judges table
I have no shame.
"Such a pity", they'll say.
"Such a beautiful girl,
all that anger in such a beautiful girl."

Sahn
3/24/15

i walked into a lions den
and tapped the beast upon his brow.
He turned to me with deep surprise
and let out a tremendous growl.
I said to him, I must confess.
I've come to be your meal tonight.
The lion looked me up and down
at all the tender parts to bite.
The lion let the kettle boil
But couldn't stop himself to ask
just why the sweetest tasting thing
would commit to such a gruesome task.
I looked that lion in the eye and
and spoke with an alarming calm.
"Lion, find my heart to be
Full of those that meant me harm.
take them, may they give you strength
when they could give me only sorrow.
Have them, may they feed your fire
i'll start finding love tomorrow. "

shannon april alice 1/19/16

And every day I look for the magic,
and every day he'd look for good.
Same, I said through a whirlpool of tongue
"Same" and it circled and crashed and pushed out the lie.
One will find sinners
the other  find fools.
and either way both of us
find why we came.
Kiss me then, hot
in the corner with your hands
above my shoulder on the wall.
Kiss me and keep me from looking
keep me from finding sad and hopeless.
I said, bind me then.
So that I may not reach out
and I'll find just the good.
And he came at me with magic tricks
and belly dances.
He came with divinity and bound my feet tiny.
Take smaller steps to reach heaven now,
And I fell to my knees kissing a dirt road
lined with stained glass fragments.
I crawled until the blood from my legs
matched nothing at all on earth
for I have taken all the
red from the sea, taken all the
red from the burn.
Taken all the red from child's crayon.
Taken all the red from the sun.
And he takes me and makes magic to me under this nothingness sky
and we find good,
in the chaos we find good.

sahn 3/12/2015

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 will love you with a fierceness,
coal burning stove hotness.
I will fire with the pistons
of the seven deadly sins.
I will love with  great sorrow
for all the widowed and the ghosts
of what is yet and
what has wandered
woeful, wistful warm and wry.
I will love you with a wetness
thick like oceans foam
and I will hide it-
All my anger
at the bottom of a wave.
So you can dance on the shore of it,
so you can wade in the salt of it
so you can watch it recede-
So you will know it must leave you.
I will love you like a clover.
In a thousand clovers hovered
in a field of the wheat and grasses,
long and itching.
tall and reaching
trap your ankles as you walk.
And in that glory green
I will be in the shadow patient
with your wishes, clover me.
I will love you like dark loves you.
With no motive, with no hue.
with your fears and self-flagellations.
with your faults and accusations-
I will love you as dark finds you,
in the shadows, in the grief.
I will love you.
And when I love you
you will know no other self.
When I am stone,
when I am marble
I will love you ever so.
When I am stone
and I don't grieve so-
I will love you evermore.


Sahn
5/7/15

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