Unwrap me
I am a gift
A brazier radiant in the dark
Redeem me
Before I burn myself up.

I said my goodbyes
Wherefore then, this surprise
This unannounced monsoon
In my eyes

Oh this?
It's just the dead
Rising every now and then
To haunt the undead

I was looking for you
I found you
Explored you
Lived with you
Knew you
Too well.

I'm still looking for you.

If you could write me
And I could sing you
No world outside
Would intrude

My heart hurts
An implacable stormfront
Elephant goad driving
To abased shame

Older much, wiser a bit
Don't chafe at it
Swim through and with
Not against.

Yearning to float, to drown
Once more, in limpid warmth
Chase and catch forest flame
In scalded hand
What you would embrace
Is lost

This half pierced thorn
A sore
...a scabbed waif
Bathe it, home it
This stray tortoiseshell

Acquiesce to her reign
Her comfortable disdain
And you perhaps,
Will learn peace.

To two lone wolves
Baying together at the midnight moon.

Why does broken heart
Taste of grit on the tongue

I need you to lift
As a shroud
Off my being.

Bared myself to you yesterday
Today I cloak me from you and the world

Of hurts translucent
Washed threadbare soft
Of sorrows scrubbed sheer
I swaddlings make
Pleading with my stubborn gaze
That will not tear
From your strange, stilled form.

One last dirge, I croon
'fore I cocoon
you love, in this weave--
May it keep you warm.
Cradle close in grieving arm
Safe from all bruise
Dash no more
'gainst stone rampart
Sleep now, my tattered heart.

The leave is took.
Passengered in gentle palm
little bird, now ascend
--to the back of the topmost shelf.
There, in steel chest
You will rest
Expunged from my breast.

There are heartless
Who are cruel
And there are the bereaved
Who walk, heartless among us.

You wrote of shrouds, once
Now I write of wraiths
Same difference I guess
Only,
The difference outweighed the same.

Twenty four carat
Is fool's gold
Dazzles the eye
Confounds the hand
So too, pure love
Resplendent in thought
Unyielding in deed
For love unalloyed by fear
Is not love
It is the slave owner's fondness
For prized chattel.

Not young enough to care
Not old enough to not care
Eyes move on
Pen weeps still.

I used to wonder
Who those people are
Whose eyes tear up when they laugh
Now I know
They aren't people, they're wraiths
Wraiths that need reminding
Lest they forget, and dissipate.

Long circles of the wheel
Was I arctic flat
The singing was sterile craft.

A brief bubble
Reflection rainbow, I
The songs unsheathed, alive
As hot pulsating rain
And scorpionweed suffused the desert spring.

Even in Chernobyl, the birds chirp now
But inside my holocaust heart
Black quiet gropes.


They tell me I make progress
I am now a mud cottage,
Solitary on the slopes.
Mice nest timid in my roof
Skitter, chew holes
For the breeze
To squeeze in
The gold dusk peeps
The door creaks
The leaves brittle, rustle
The motes swirl
There is music, again.
The castrato sings.

What end making measure
Of what has flown beneath
An eon is passed
Since the bridge
Was swept away

I pour diamonds into it
Flowers, and rainbows
And it looks pretty
My bejewelled grave.

When I'm ash,
Pour a handful of me
In a palmful of sea
And churn
till they are one.
This distillate, relay
To a poet's inkwell
And pray
She gently lace
My final resting place.

Frequently, of late
I catch myself contemplate
This inscrutable beast called poetry
What is banal, what has worth
Does anything I birth
Surpass a manual of carpentry?

And yet.. I reach, therefore I am human.

"ছি ছি কুৎসিত কুরূপ সে।
হেন বঙ্কিম ভুরুযুগ নাহি তার,
হেন উজ্জল কজ্জল-আঁখিতারা।"

Femmage to three
No less my inner imp
For why should it be
Inscrutable only to me?

"নহে সে ভোগীর লোচনলোভা,
ক্ষত্রিয়বাহুর ভীষণ শোভা।।"

Unfinished, I
Beautiful in no one's eye

Words staccato, clumsy
Opus magnum, not. Just a WIP.
Much beset by
sporadic, erratic editing.
But, like that manual of carpentry
It fills a need.
So I, maybe
For somebody?

Because starvation is my fate
I wake up only
To ingest fantasy
To lull my demon slack
..lax in torpor
Still it floats
A beautiful wraith
A sandwich..a hunk of chocolate
A maddening prospect of dopamine ore
An apparition.. an iced pastry
Coaxing me
.. abandon reserve, dignity
For a while
Begging me,
Live this one life!
I let the thought sway
Swirl and play
Tickling my forecasts
Seducing what is, for what never could be
Then I gather my shards of faith
And I say
Not yet, my love
Not today.

In the sunrise tides
I am fragmented by five
Opposing gravities
In the hectic noon
I am Brownian.
Only as the black quiet
smooths perception
And lesser celestials recede
Does my orbit bare
its spiral trajectory
...velocity broke escape,
And I will be crushed
In the singularity
Of you.

I visit this wasteland often
I know nothing grows here
Yet I come
Looking

Sometimes I think of you and me
And the things we could be
But I'm human again now
I work, worry, laugh, eat
The salt falls just that bit short
Never mind
They say a bland diet is good for you.

Purple skies
Are nice
They're not
Sunny blue
Or silent gray
Or angry red
Or nostalgic yellow
Let's you and I
Agree
To fly
In a purple sky.

Are you over me yet?
I'd ask
Only
I don't think
You ever were under.

You are black not quite
more white
A bunch
Than I'd rather.
But we all know
There's no free lunch
As I sow
I must gather.

Let's take stock, now
I've starved you
Neglected you
Dragged you to dreadful climes
Placed you in invasion's path
Then subjected you
To chemical warfare.
Hacked at you in a hissy fit
Then blamed you for bad pictures.

I'd atone
For all the sin
But biotin
Is woeful expensive.
Yet staunch ******
--valiant mane
Though life's had its way
With me, once and again.

Survive, sass
Unstylable badass

In her I see you today
And I pray
That tomorrow may
Be kind
Because of all I did
Despite all I had to do.

I seal my rift
With cake.

You could tell me
It does not matter
The heart does not matter
As much as
The expanse of space.
But I was born human
Fashioned
Of the very space atoms
As was the hearth.

'tused to be
I'd venesect
And feel free
Unburdened, briefly.
Of late, the septic core of me
Is out of reach
No blood to purge
E'en gifted leech
Finds it hard going.
I must, ere I merge
My strength collect
For a last arrowing.

You think I think
Too much of me
You think I think
I'm pretty
Well you're wrong.

I thought you thought
Too much of me.
I thought you thought
I'm pretty
So I beguiled
Myself awhile

That I'm pretty.

Neelix went home.
When will I?

You cannot write just yet
'tis unruly, the frank red.
It needs cool, congeal
Then, in a year's time
Or twenty maybe,
Your words glow,
Ripple slow
On the luminescent
milky sea.
But bide not too long
Lest that flake
and disperse
Which could have been ink.

'tis not you I mourn
'tis hope.

Inside
I am a pirate reckless
A six foot seductress,
snake lithe
And a five year old child
Consumed with delight
At the funny tilt
Of a cat's ears.
This shell
Is quasimodo
A regret
Unfit muse
To epic's knight
But inside
Inside,
I am dew, I am air, I am love, I am light.

This morning
I touched
My primordial stardust
This evening
I capsized.
I helm a fickle craft
My blue poise belies
The leviathan's sudden rise.
Springtime rivulet
Monsoon burst
I wish I could flow
My glacier cold.
I stumble
From dawn to dust
Chasing fool's balm
That last becalm
Always, just off grasp.