I only prayed to the moon after it rose beyond
my window, the white sill a frame for waning
crescents and gibbouses--milk-drowned gods
dripping stars as they climbed skeleton branches--
some nights resting behind flood-heavy clouds.
People say the moon has a face, but
I have yet to see it sneer at my sins even as it tastes
my ocean-drop tears, evaporated into sky-bound veils,
brushed along the shadowed craters ...

The moon itself bemoaned imperfections in midnight
wind creaking branch against branch until I woke
slow from sleep--sad light staining my walls
pallid, pale as my own skin, glowing in muted
television shows left running while I dreamt
the moon spilled a star between my ribs--
dim luminescence radiating warm,
and the star, seeping through my pores, thawed
the ice I had prayed to melt in the first place.

I had been in recluse for a time.
First due to sickness of the body,
then the inevitable sickness of spirit that tends to follow.
I wanted to see no one.
I was happy to be alone
in silent isolation.
For days I lay, refusing call
from friend and foe alike,
the latter mostly being the women.
They were the ones who
pulled at me the most,
but the sickness was strong
and I remained apart from them.
When it was over I found
the friends gone and
the women gone and
the loneliness dragged in me
where it been freeing before.

What is one to do?

I walked to the park
and saw a man and his dog,
running with clutched
frisbee in mouth.
I saw a young couple
walking hand in hand
in that sacred paradise of two.
I saw pigeons peck at
scattered seed and
trees looming in dark shade
over various occupants of
the shadow,
and the sun above peering,
like me,
through wide-eyed gaze
at the all of it.
I had not known how cruelly
I had missed it,
and atop that,
I had not known how cruelly
I had not been missed.

How curious that life continues.

I would build an altar with which to worship you,
    your beauty, your sensuality and your love.
You truly are an angel,
    my heart.
Such a remarkable woman.
You can never  know the depth of my love for you as words and actions alone cannot capture it,
    yet I will try.

I know of a place,
where it only rains ash.
The sun doesn't shine,
it was swallowed en masse.
By an ominous void,
that's now stifled the grass.
I'm loathe to return,
but I'll lead you if asked.

We'll journey on over,
to death's little home.
Where graves fill the fields,
in neat little rows.
Not a songbird in sight,
just cackling crows.
Nor will flowers you see,
where the bone roses grow.

When opening up books you get
Black pages
White pages
Even grey pages at times
yet the day I decided to open your book
I have colour pages
Which fits beautifully
into our Rainbow Nation

A man at my local zoo
Once showed me how snake venom
Effected human blood.
While dripping a drop of the acrid mess with one hand,
He held a small container of life in the other
And with a drop and a swirl of his wrist,
The blood was coagulated
And obviously unable to flow.
In that moment I knew
That love
Was the venom
And I
Was the blood,
Slowly congealing and
Falling at my only purpose:
Staying alive.

everyone i've written about
has left me.
so you must understand
why i will not immortalize you
with my words,
why i won't turn you
into a poem.

maybe this way
you'll stay.

I never wanted it to go this way,
though it was my actions
that catalyzed the death and
the following internment of our love.

I never meant for it to be like this.
We have our prides and our
angers and our unbearable
emotions.

My finger still won’t bend from
that parking kiosk. I was so mad.
I don’t know if I would’ve jumped but
*******, it was a toss up.

I am sorry you saw that side of me.

The demons that normally vent out
through the line breaks of the poems
as they line the walls of my computer
numbering the thousands.

You should read them
all some day. Perhaps gain
a little perspective into
how I am who I am.

I never meant for it to be like this.
This broken record of arguments
and excuses and tears that never
seem to fully stop.

You’ve put your guard up.
Distance is a distinct enemy
of love, so is pride/anger/regret.
—Insert the adjective you wish—

I hate myself for you.
Most likely more than you do,
though you would tell me that
it isn’t possible.

Your anger is beautiful
to me, even though it
is the loaded gun barrel
lodged between my teeth.

Your passion for us was
something I have grown to
envy, even seek to emulate,
now that I understand it.

I never showed you how
I felt, never let myself believe it.
Now I am begging for a
second/third/fourth, chance.

Perhaps the boy has cried
wolf one too many times,
and now must face the inevitable
jaws of a love now lost.

I never meant for it to be like this.
Stuck in this terrible place,
this awkward stalemate
between loving and letting go.

I hear the woman underneath me.
She’s sore, tired.
Worn out from some
other man, I’m sure.
She croons in my ear.
Make love to me, she whispers,
take it easy, nice and slow.
Not too much, not too much.

And the man at the bar next to mine,
talking to the bartender,
cautiously ordering a drink.
Can’t have too much, he says,
can’t get too drunk, he says.
Not too much, not too much.

It seems everyone is taking
it slow these days. Too much
caution for this shotgun
existence. Too much fear. You can
smell it on them like cigarette stench
from a guilty smoker.
Everyone is rolling up their windows,
staying indoors, under the covers.
No one lives much anymore.
Not too much, not too much.

I down my drink at the bar and
break the man’s nose.
He doesn’t fight back when
he gets up. I spit and walk out.
Home to the woman and
she’s crooning in my ear.
Not too much, not too much.
I am violent and rough and she hates me,
I can see it. Still, when it’s over she leans
towards me and asks if I love her.
She says it with hurt eyes.
“Well, do you!?” she cries.

Not too much, not too much.

Renovate yourself.
Whether it is once a year or twice a month:
Become new.
Roll up in your bedsheets and feel the chrysalis change you.

Don't stay the same.
No, don't you dare.
If you stop moving the darkness will catch up
Destroying your dreams,
Your love,
Your hope.
Everything that kept you steady.

Renovate yourself.
Whether it is once a year or twice a month:
Choose change
Before it chooses you.