I've heard of a secular priest
Who counted beads on a string
Kneeling by a pillar
Looking down at the sinners.
And they sung and they laughed and they drunk
And spilled red wine on the pews and the rugs
And cut fingers on Stained glass windows
And trailed blood on His broken bones.
And the ****** cried as they smeared her face
And saw red through broken window panes
And tears mixed with blood and blood turned to wine.
And so they drunk and they laughed And they sung
And the sun spilled red on the pews and the rugs
And a sinner wobbled to the pillar
To ask  forgiveness
Of a priest
With a fistful of beads
Who knocked his teeth
right
in.

I smell the scent of your perfume,
Cheap liquor breath brand
To make you swoon and
Zigzag straight lines,
Hanging in balance
On threads of gravity,
One foot Here
and the other,
Somewhere in Hell.

Sometimes she forced herself to stop.
She had kept her feet off the brakes for too long that,
The sudden change in momentum
Knocked the words right out of her mouth  
So that they spilled red onto the dashboard
And left her gasping for air.

You can have your Freedom.
I'll take my Liberty.

It was dawn when I awoke,
And felt for your arms usually close,
And frowned when I found only bed sheets
Where your body should have been.

It took only a second for the panic to hit,
For my heart to sink and skip a beat,
For my thoughts to drift back to yesterday,
And wonder if I had somehow pushed you away.

The whisper of a voice reached me first,
Laced in an accent that was entirely yours,
As you tiptoed around our messy nest,
Careful, as to not disturb my rest.

Then the smell of bait and coffee reached my nostrils,
Unexpectedly, making my forehead wrinkle,
As you stifled an early-morning yawn,
And I shifted and pretended to sleep on.

You took a minute to fix your hook,
Sat down to lace your boots,
Picked up your fishing tools from the floor
And made your way towards the front door.

I winced at every departing steps,
As the floorboards sighed in protest,
But instead you tiptoed to my side of the bed
And placed a gentle kiss on my forehead.

And just like that I forgot about my worries,
All of yesterday’s bad memories,
And smiled as you left the room.
I wondered if you somehow knew,
Of my breaking dawn blues.

One day, you’ll fall deeply and irrevocably in love
with the nape of the neck and the lobe of the ear
you’ll want to nibble just above the edge of the jaw
and run your fingers through the tousled spirally hair,
but the slight quiver of curved lips will halt you in thoughts
as the darting pupils furtively flutter behind closed eyelids
searching for a break of dawn in the shadows of a room
where dust hangs heavily then settles in unsuspecting lungs
making the rise and fall of the chest raspy and laborious,
making nostrils flare up to make room for something less heavy
something more familiar, more light and less lugubrious,
something like a touch on the curve of the neck just below
the edge of the jaw and a whisper of something gentle
that nibbles on the ear as erring fingers run through spirally hair,
sending waves of shivers that make curved lips quiver and
darting pupils flutter enough to one day break open closed eyelids
where you’ll fall deeply and irrevocably in love.

When he calls again,
Do Not pick up the phone,
do not wonder about lips that judge
ignorant of the fines he owes.

When he calls again,
Do Not throw the phone,
you have ran as far as runaway thoughts,
a shattered screen won't carry you further.

When he calls again,
Do Not scream at the ringtone,
the cacophony of broken sounds
will not chip away at the memory of his sins.

When he calls again,
when he begs for forgiveness,
DO (Not) tell this manchild that
to forgive is mercy,  
and only God grants mercy.

I write subtleties,
Thoughts that randomize in the wee of the morning,
The lover longing for something past its expiration date,
The curtain billowing in the breeze of the dark,
Fingertips reaching blindly for hems coming undone.
Bits and pieces to pluck away,
In the wee of the  morning,
When thoughts randomize.

There is nothing in space,
Only pieces of debris,
Like this shooting star which,
When it collides into Earth
At 14 kilometers per second,
Will leave nothing but a 98 feet ****,
Enough to permanently wound my heart.

There are secrets hidden between the lines of these pages
which crease like the sheets on your bed when
you turn and overturn them with a
misplaced foot or an erring hand in search of
bits and pieces of mahogany scattered across your seabed after
tumultuous waves rocked the ship back and forth
back and forth across the seascape where I learned to
let go and swim good and
break to the surface gasping for
your breath infused with the aroma of imported coffee and
the lingering aftertaste of sea-**** on your taste buds between
the hidden corners of your cheeks within
the hidden corners of your mouth,
I delved deep, swam good, delved deep,
swam up and down, up and down,
until the tumultuous waves swelled up and tossed
my body back and forth, back and forth,
slamming it against solid rocks into
bits and pieces of mahogany scattered across your seabed.

I knew a man who knew how to tear down walls
He was no patriot but he saw the fall of the Berlin Wall.
He told me that to build is an art,
But the hand that lays down the bricks
Should be ready to tear down the walls
When they serve geopolitics.

I listened to a heretic who preached that
Social boundaries limit movement,
Only when one hesitates to toe the line
And break out of confinement.

I stood with a revolutionary who picketed
White picket fences and  manicured lawns,
Watching from a concrete sidewalk,
Where grass learned to sprout between cement cracks.

I traveled with a wanderer
And searched for the North star in the dark,
Until I learned my footprints,
Like the constellations in the night.

In the picture
they stood
criss-crossed  
poised
in white gloves without a speck of dust,
perfect... still.

They had learned how to stand,
each finger elongating
throughout time
straining to stand still.

They had learned how to move
after the fore-arm then the arm,
had learned how to be  raised, palms outward,
four fingers pointed in salute
motionless... still.

In another instant which
survived in a momentary
tic-tock, tic-tock
******* stood
on a trigger, aiming point-blank...still.

But this was not in the still of the picture:
They had known how to mold clay
until it surrendered under able fingers
and took shape
how to be passionate
how to grasp
how to give caresses, and
squeeze oranges
how to twirl another during the Varsouviana.
They had known how to hold a baby.

...He came in like a tornado,
Abruptly.
He created tides in his wake
Disrupting my shores...
He leaves the same way...

Only then were they innocent
in their revelations to each other
like the call of crickets in the night
under a starry sky,

Only then did they not realize that
twinkling stars held more promises
in their connect-the-dots game of
the ****** and the Crab,

Only then were they prisoners
in their ignorance at playing the fools,
as if puppets in a circus show
to enlighten depraved hearts

Only now do they see the wound,
a deep dark-red spilled and
slowly spreading on the ****** paper
an Œuvre d'Art produced
by an imp’s capable hand.

It’s in the glance,
calm and dark,
In the cadence of the steps
In the rise of the chest,
And in its quiet descent.

It’s the bubbling of a laughter
In a hopeful seeker,
A desperate witness
To a corrupted innocence.

It’s in the silver threads
On a young boy’s head,
A presage to the wise mind
Of a young man.

It’s in a longing smile
A beckoning eye,
The confidence in each stride,
It's in the rise and fall of
My head against his chest.