Scarlet lips done in roses. She kisses
the sun goodnight, leaving crimson
smears on the horizon.

She ties black orchids to her ebony
curls; copper-colored hands weaving
redolence into midnight gold.

The night holds her close. She caresses
the leaves and play in
shadows that move like smoke.

Her amber eyes catch moonlight like
glowing drops of honey. The tears from her
eyes always the sweetest.

Operatic tones held in drifting  
petals; zephyr notes from her
soothing voice played by trees.

The sun lights a bonfire on the horizon;
she gently kisses the embers
and recedes like the tides.

Fire drains into blue light.
Orange seeds dot the sky. They look
on and see him kiss her in the morning.

You are a star that will never burn out. Your flame will never be dim or washed out by others. You are the brightest star in the sky and you will always burn in my heart, but I will always be just another planet that revolves around you, trying to get closer day by day.

Give me adventure,
an expanse of possibilities,
give me everything
in the form of  incomparable beauty;
give me the universe,
and all its curiosity.
I want galaxies on jewelry
and dresses
and shoes
and ribbons to put in my hair.
I want galaxies in my eyes
and on my nails
and for my breath
visible in space's cold
to spool and twirl
like the milky way.
I want you to gift me
with things like no other,
I want you to take my breath away
with the views of above
impossibly replicated
and bottled
for my own pleasure and adoration.
I don't want the world,
not just,
I want the whole universe.

If “dying is an art,” you do not do it well.  I do not
have words, do not have thoughts; there is nothing inside
of me anymore.  I am vacant, hollow, and if this is what
time travel feels like I do not want any part of it.  Racing
past the stars, past the planets, past Andromeda's spiraling, galactic force,
I am light-years ahead and then light-years behind—I am
                two years                    too late.                  

You cannot know, you will not know, how
Auriga is waiting in the sky to whisk you
                                                                 away,                away,                            away.

Th­e bubbling of your oxygen sounds like the water fountains
you used to pass as a child, but there are no pennies at the bottom
of this.  And I wonder, with your eyes closed, if you feel like you
are swimming.  Barely treading water, fighting to keep your head above,
choking on salt and brine as you try to kick your feet, try to
swim to Lake Michigan’s shoreline.  I want
Poseidon to spit you out of sea like a cork, want
Neptune to come alive through the mosaics of your bathroom and
lead you away from the great, black, wave of stars that is
breaking and crashing and barely brushing your bare feet.

Some fish were meant to drown.  You are
not one of them.  Pisces is meant to swim                   forever.

This time machine has dropped me back into my nightmare again,
but it is not only mine, it’s yours.  I am trying to read
the constellations, trying to map the planets, trying to figure out
the moon cycles, but I fear that this is a language I had learned once
and tried to forget—we are now digging each others graves.  
The nurse in blue, the doctor in white, the sun in gold, and you,
red as dead and clotted blood, have merged into a new dialect
that does not mirror what I know the way the
Gemini twins mimic one another in the cosmos. (I think
                                 I have lost my ability to speak with angels
and this terrifies me.)

Is God whispering the secrets of the world into your ear yet?  Is Jesus
showing you how to be holy?  Are you tearing the bread for communion
and feeding it to the birds?  Are you taking shots from His heavenly blood,
getting drunk off the possibility of closing your eyes, leaning back, and
watching Perseus fight your battles for you?  
                                                        Do you want to be a constellation, too?

I am eighty miles away from you, but it feels more like
eighty light-years.  I am watching you through someone else’s eyes and
choking myself with my own hands as I try to show you
what you mean to me.  My hands are cracked and bleeding from
pounding them against the wall you constructed around yourself, but you
don’t have control over that wall anymore, do you?

You are too young to ride Pegasus in the night sky, too young to
build your own wings, too young to fall and drown like Icarus.  You
know how to swim.  You are learning how to fly.  There is no
reason for you to shake God’s hand yet.  Put the halo down—
                                                           ­                                                you are not ready.

Recorded off the cuff: https://soundcloud.com/user4081486/the-observatory

...You remember doing that with me?
Sitting on the couch or just standing around
Watching TV
Playing darts
You remember talking about shooting stars?
The size of the universe
Where we came from
Where we'll go once we're dead
Dead...hard to accept, but we'd talk about it
You had your views and I had mine
I found yours to be beautiful
And remember how I wanted to take you
To the observatory?
I never got to take you on that date
I doubt if anyone ever will
But I wanted to see you look at the stars
Or look at the planets with your own eyes
Just how you'll do
After you die

As seen through amber in the colors of Venus and Saturn;
Sun opens upon her face as gold spills in spun blonde,
And the rose’s thorn brings about liquid rubies
That drips on the youngest lily of the valley.
Butterflies aligned with the unseen Mars on the horizon
Scatter as their wings seem to burn away in the
Brilliant firelight, touching the water that reveals
Sapphires in liquid form; an affinity for Neptune that
Dangles on her fluttering eyelashes alive with what she sees!

More rubies fall in the emerald vast as her fingers move
Across the vine, and the crystals tear through the dahlias
Like the storms of Jupiter this canopy veils!
They rest among the pink rhinestones that resemble
Cherry blossoms in perfect discord when the last one
Is drained of its color under a wooden bridge at
The foot of the forest; an old bridge covered in patchy moss,
Showing its long years of absent footsteps.
They are only distant memories to the *****,
Who emerges from the brush and drinks
From the stream in constant relief.

I watch her majesty fading her vibrant colors at sunset when
Uranus drifts. The colors fall into onyx when the sap of
The trees resemble amethyst in the moonlight.
And Mercury holding more silver falls in the stream with her
And all of her plume that we cherish as much as
Her earthly leaves, for we use both as covers for sleep.
Daydreams entwine with nightmares and become as cold
As Pluto. Ice lingers as tanzanite tears in those bright eyes;
Diamond eyes that cut through the towering clouds to discover
Stars that are made of everything here!

The Universe
It's full of stars, planets, stardust
It's infinite
And in all of its infinity
I can't find anything, anyone
I would love more than I love you

Planets are like islands in an ocean of infinite space

Terror-rium


We had an aquarium

A river, a lake, a sea.

On our desk—the ocean.

Our exotic fish, fished

from the very river, lake, or

sea which we have now.

On our desk—we provide forage,

food, plants, water, and fish.

The aquarium had us.

…

We had an insectarium

An arachnid, an insect, a butter

-fly. On our counter—the air.

Our countertop full of flourishing

flowers, fluttering wings of broken



butterflies, falling from feed, because

they drink—and we pluck their

wings, tape them to tapestries to

stare. Say, how pretty they are.

The insectarium had us

…

We had a terrarium.

A desert, a savannah, a floor of sand.

Our room is lit by a woodland, a

jungle, a place we’ve never been.

African violets decorate our reptiles,

all scales and shells and condensation.

It rains today—the lid which collected

our precipitation. Our pebbled floor,

formed over our marbled kitchen.

The terrarium had us

…

We had an arium,

and we destroyed it

to keep them on our desks,

nuzzled between family portraits and pens,

to remind ourselves of what

We used to have and

what we’ll never have

again, but at least they are

pretty, and no one needs

National Geographic to stare

anymore. We have our countertops.
...

This was read at the University of Kansas on May 10, 2013:

http://shannonathompson.com/2013/05/10/contest-winners-and-poetry-from-my-ku-reading/