we blossomed once
in the desert
two green weeds
seeking rootless pleasure
now flower bedded
horticultured—yet wistfully I miss
the *****
of cactus lips

Looking down from over their bodies - I count them.
My split mind at once rejoices in and recoils from that counting.
Peering back over my shoulder I make
dark associations.
It’s as if I was afraid of becoming lost
the way the bodies made a trail like bread crumbs,
leading back from the places I had been.
I walk with the Holy Light.
I walk with my dark companion.
I walk between the spines of the body shrikes.
They harvest all my crumbs and remind me I am lost.
They hook the bodies high from spikes
so I look up to make the body count.
I can see the Holy Script
but I can’t seem to find the way.
Red and gold beacons in the dream,
flickering off and on like syncopated declarations
as if saying:
Here I am
Here I am
Here I am.
All elbows and knees I slip between the webs of the
orb weavers and the cactus spines of the butcher birds
while they count the bodies for me:
Here they are
Here they are
Here they are.
Hang-dog and hard of breathing  I have my medicine.
I’m hanging from the sleeping cliffs over
hell’s half acre and the high deserts.
I remember my brother flying me to California on a great olive branch.
He fed me sushi and smiled while he watched by brain heal.
But I was coming for the bodies.
My count was smaller then, but it was high enough for him
and his hands were the keepers of the flame.
The fire there was exiled and quietly he laid it by.
My brother spread out over the carpet of time like
the faithful departed with the weavers and the shrikes and
mounted bodies in the sky.
A child appears before me on the walk - eyes like a baby deer.
His mother is two blocks behind, so he asks three questions while he waits:
Why are you smoking?
Where are your hands?
Is it getting dark soon?
He leaves me to wonder where my hands are and where the dark is,
the Holy Sage smoking at my side.
Like some dark sabbath.
Like some reading of the will.
Like some dark and holy delta sleep in a crib of red clay.
I have a feeling I have been gone a very long time and I
want to be home now,
but there is buzzing and chirping and a red light and
Saul of Tarsus holds a great tome before me and with my hands
I hide my eyes.
I am the dreaming of the world of dreams.
Therein the Holy Light rages like the flare of 1000 suns
while my eyes are shuttered tight
like old memories all gone beyond the sorrow.
The old oath keepers are all plates and screws.
The golden woven orbs and cactus spines are all empty on
the altar like a decommissioned slaughterhouse.
So I go and make a body count.

I'm sorry
But this song will be
My deepest apology
From someone like me

I should've treated you better
Not that kind of girl who
Give thorns from words in my songs
If you'd read this letter
I hope you'll feel better

I'm your cactus friend
Who tries to hug you
But instead
Give thorns that made you bled

I'm sorry I'm waving good bye
But this will help you fly high
So go chase that dream
And forget that I have lived

I'm your cactus friend
Don't worry this soon will end
I'm sorry if I'd hurt you badly
You'll soon be sleeping soundly

I just wanna say I'm sorry
And thank you
My dearest friend
It's me your cactus friend

Prickly cactus pins,
flurried toward my skin.
sinking down on sheets of lies,
my epidermis falsified.

Cells of blood like moss-covered bricks,
pierced right through by cactus ******.
The places where it stings,
lie deeper than I’ve ever been into my own flesh and bones,
and my heart would never condone,
but tonight I let it bleed,
to know myself a little more.

These prickly cactus pins,
dotted all over my skin,
I dare not try ever again,
to hide the contours of my brain.

Reams of envelopes lie in wait,
to say a few words to my mates.
The lies – they saw, although much of it they forgot,
and some were never for them to understand,
but now cactus ****** have serrated my heart,
only and only the truth pours out,
as the tissues of life, are ripped apart.

i was a pretty flower
in the sun

you came
and picked me
by the roots

i was so happy
and i gladly sat
in your windowsill
admiring the view

you stopped
watering me
and the clouds
covered the sun

but i didn't die
i grew spines

A cylclindrical clay cactus
Serves a unique purpose-
The cactus it contains
Sharply ****** at my
Fragmented emotions.

At this precise moment,
In my imaginary time zone,
The fine, sharp figures pierce   
My solemnity, and heighten my
Sprouting fear.

And so, I extract a finger, and
Unite the lonely  counterparts,
A sharp reminder that that the pain,
The loneliness, the frustration
Are real.

Amelia Blaska

The Queen revels beyond the realm of summer’s lurid light
Yet scorns the damp recess of shade where moss has laid its lawn.
Her pale and powdered faces flaunt the earth by starry night;
Though falling, faint and faded, by the cawing crow of dawn.
Her slender, waxen limbs are draped upon her chosen sire  
Who cradles her, consumed amid the scent of her perfumes.
Wherever out her branches bend; is loveliness admired
By fleeting bat and beating moth; by men and sailing moons.
Magnificent she flourishes; dry, dappled shade her nest
Where wild and unrestrained, resplendent flowers ever grow
So fair, and verdant framed, and scarlet tipped, and golden tressed;
With flames of bronze and ivory her lighted candles glow.
The chills of night cannot befall: the hallowed earth is blessed
Wherever blooms the Queen of Night; Selenicereus.

Black stained hands
Made me realize
That he who stares back is a man
A boy has changed from the feet to his eyes
Accepts no shame in letting lose a tear
Learned that you cant live in question with subconscious fear
Green cactus in the yellow sea