I don't desire a fairytale story,
I desire pure love.
A love that makes you want to dance all night.
A love that makes you want to explore and venture.
I desire a love that comes so effortlessly,
and leaves
only to arrive back with more.
I desire a love that is so authentic.
I could wait patiently however long it may take,
for it to reach my doorstep.
And acceptingly, I would invite it in.



i.v.

There are cemeteries that are lonely,
graves full of bones that do not make a sound,
the heart moving through a tunnel,
in it darkness, darkness, darkness,
like a shipwreck we die going into ourselves,
as though we were drowning inside our hearts,
as though we lived falling out of the skin into the soul.

And there are corpses,
feet made of cold and sticky clay,
death is inside the bones,
like a barking where there are no dogs,
coming out from bells somewhere, from graves somewhere,
growing in the damp air like tears of rain.

Sometimes I see alone
coffins under sail,
embarking with the pale dead, with women that have dead hair,
with bakers who are as white as angels,
and pensive young girls married to notary publics,
caskets sailing up the vertical river of the dead,
the river of dark purple,
moving upstream with sails filled out by the sound of death,
filled by the sound of death which is silence.

Death arrives among all that sound
like a shoe with no foot in it, like a suit with no man in it,
comes and knocks, using a ring with no stone in it, with no
     finger in it,
comes and shouts with no mouth, with no tongue, with no
     throat.
Nevertheless its steps can be heard
and its clothing makes a hushed sound, like a tree.

I'm not sure, I understand only a little, I can hardly see,
but it seems to me that its singing has the color of damp violets,
of violets that are at home in the earth,
because the face of death is green,
and the look death gives is green,
with the penetrating dampness of a violet leaf
and the somber color of embittered winter.

But death also goes through the world dressed as a broom,
lapping the floor, looking for dead bodies,
death is inside the broom,
the broom is the tongue of death looking for corpses,
it is the needle of death looking for thread.

Death is inside the folding cots:
it spends its life sleeping on the slow mattresses,
in the black blankets, and suddenly breathes out:
it blows out a mournful sound that swells the sheets,
and the beds go sailing toward a port
where death is waiting, dressed like an admiral.

a quiet discontent
seeps slowly into my bones.

a steady stream of despair
floods my whole perspective.

I cannot escape the weight
pressing quietly down on me.

A slow steady death of my own making.
How do I escape this maddening numbness?

I cry out of the darkness out of a deep dark hole.
A glimmer of hope comes in the form a voice.

Someone climbs down into the darkness with me,
and tells me that he  can't lift me out, but
he can share with me how he dug himself out.

Hope rises from strange places,
and mine began when
I experienced love from strangers,
and realized I am part of a We.

XXVII. TO ARTEMIS (22 lines)

(ll. 1-20) I sing of Artemis, whose shafts are of gold, who
cheers on the hounds, the pure maiden, shooter of stags, who
delights in archery, own sister to Apollo with the golden sword.
Over the shadowy hills and windy peaks she draws her golden bow,
rejoicing in the chase, and sends out grievous shafts.  The tops
of the high mountains tremble and the tangled wood echoes
awesomely with the outcry of beasts: earthquakes and the sea also
where fishes shoal.  But the goddess with a bold heart turns
every way destroying the race of wild beasts: and when she is
satisfied and has cheered her heart, this huntress who delights
in arrows slackens her supple bow and goes to the great house of
her dear brother Phoebus Apollo, to the rich land of Delphi,
there to order the lovely dance of the Muses and Graces.  There
she hangs up her curved bow and her arrows, and heads and leads
the dances, gracefully arrayed, while all they utter their
heavenly voice, singing how neat-ankled Leto bare children
supreme among the immortals both in thought and in deed.

(ll. 21-22) Hail to you, children of Zeus and rich-haired Leto!
And now I will remember you and another song also.

Broken conversations,
empty lungs,
doors half open,
hearts almost out of love.

We used to talk of how
we used to be infinite.
But now every second now feels
like a stroke against an unforgiving current.

Our conversations broke
as the flaws of our souls
fell through the cracks of this glass foundation.

These upset words that escaped you
left the air around me a little sad,
a little awake,
and with a lot of echoes.

My lungs went empty
talking you down.

I left the door open for you.
So you can walk in
and slip in quietly-
I won't say a word.

And this heart could never go empty,
not mine.
Yours,
at this point,
I know not.

Flowers never lost their color
as long as you walked this earth.