Drunk as drunk on turpentine
From your open kisses,
Your wet body wedged
Between my wet body and the strake
Of our boat that is made of flowers,
Feasted, we guide it - our fingers
Like tallows adorned with yellow metal -
Over the sky's hot rim,
The day's last breath in our sails.

Pinned by the sun between solstice
And equinox, drowsy and tangled together
We drifted for months and woke
With the bitter taste of land on our lips,
Eyelids all sticky, and we longed for lime
And the sound of a rope
Lowering a bucket down its well. Then,
We came by night to the Fortunate Isles,
And lay like fish
Under the net of our kisses.

to know your skin
is to know the turmoil of creation
you are the visceral
the primal roar
urging its way out

i will shape you
mold you out of sand
draw your pleasure out
and ruin your salvation

you've given me a taste
so now i'll sniff out your blood
and crawl my way over
and snarl and scratch at you
and feast on your flesh

I, foolish lover
you, down-low *******
no loving for cowardice

In the cinnamon garden, hand in hand we strolled,
when dusk painted our hearts with crimson deep;
with a doting  look, you brought my flame alive,
*magic light, aromatic breeze, your eyes, aha! bliss

Upon a crest of ruby flames,
  Was writ a list of seven names:
Of gods and goddesses untold
  Whose quiet tenets never sold.

Mavis was the nymph of pallor,
  Patron saint of putrid squalor.
Watching, with a tender eye,
  The lives of those resigned to die.

Beatrice, with hair of scarlet,
  Took the throne of seething harlot.
Harbinger of crippling sadness;
  Queen of darkness, death, and madness.

Paul, whose eyes had never wept,
  Ensured that secrets would be kept.
Cursed with blindness, deafness, dumbness,
  A walking vault of tortured numbness.

Talim broke her mother's heart,
  And many others from the start.
She, the deity of glee,
  Knew ignorance and apathy.

Alastair, the golden thief,
  Toed the boundaries of grief,
He sang to people with his flute
  That there was more to life than loot.

Tess won't look you in the eyes;
  Mistress of the compromise;
Smiling, even as she hums,
  That "maybe next time" never comes.

Alex comes to break the silence,
  God of wishes, drugs, and violence.
Crashing through with mighty clamour;
  Hope the nail, and he the hammer.

Of all the deities we cherish,
  Even those whose memories perish,
None are sad as those who don't
  Beget belief. Or can't. Or won't.

And on a crest of ruby flames,
  Another list of seven names,
Whose carvings have been long forgot,
  Will sit amidst our trash and rot.

A whispered call to distant dreams,
  And sheltered baths in quiet streams.
The measure of a person's worth,
  My thoughts the minute after birth.
The bitter irony of a bitter end,
  A parting chuckle for a fallen friend.
Just ninety minutes in the sun,
  The breakfast of a lonely nun.

A symbol for the morning after,
  The memory of my father's laughter.
One season with no trace of water,
  The necklace that I never bought her.
Things I've said to peoples' pets,
  The hope on which I've hedged my bets.
An apology that's not been made,
  A favour I have not repaid.

The reason for a burst of anger,
  That one song I never sang her.
All forgiveness ever asked,
  All the glory in which I've basked.
All the wisdom I have earned,
  All the bridges I have burned.
And the finest of this short selection:
  The attainment of perfection.

For all the trinkets life has brought,
  There are many that I hadn't sought.
But as my tree keeps gaining rings,
  I must keep room for useless things.

There we were,
under the watch of the moon
and the distant traffic lights,
swinging from rope to water,
diving, turning, spinning.
Drunk on our youth,
we divested ourselves of our suits
and let the water sink around our bodies,
which glowed with untainted whiteness,
Clean&*****;&Free;
all at once.
We told each other we weren’t self conscious,
and maybe it was true,
but even if it wasn’t, it didn’t matter.
I have never felt so beautiful and alive,
as I did the moment I paused in midair at the apex
with the rope strangled under my muddy fingers
and let go,
my naked body under the stars and the moon and the sky,
flying weightless
through the night.

Two boys
and girls
unclothed each other
simply at a picnic
flush with wine
alongside
sun-flecked trees.

The girls,
easy as the
forest round,
burned,
delicious,
as the boys
eager and nervous
in unequal measure
partly gave up
concealing
their joys
at forgetting
or remembering
in flickers
their bare bodies.

It went on
over nettles
and half-hours
and clambered
trees and
photos taken
almost formally
(on film,
of course).

And boyish lust,
at first sinuous,
a darting tongue,
began to
soften against,
for instance,
the sheer,
unthinkable
texture
of the two
girls carved
now backward
over the bough
of a storm-felled elm.

And there
in the embers
of evening
they learned
to thrill originally
at the vast,
gorgeous
and astonishing
irrelevance
of what
might happen next.

To sit and spin
Our blood within.
Must travel & turn'th
For oxygen it yern'th.

So too the earth doth spin
Similarly warmed from within
It rotates around a point of union.
The generation of Helium from Hydrogen.

The sun releases its emission of light and heat
The catalyst that allowed your heart to beat.
So too the planets worship the star
Forever in view but yet too far

Although it can create
It can destroy without debate.
It shall burn until its fit to burst
And explode to what it was once first.

Stardust.

I see it everywhere
It's in your eyes and in your hair
That special way that you sit and stare.
Oh, to be part of a perfect pair.

Only such beauty could be formed from a shining star.
If only you were not so far.