The sky falls at such a fast rate.
The ground crumbles beneath the weight.
We can't go
       p
     u
We can't go
     d
       o
         w
            n.
Our feet cringe
With anxiety.
Where to go,
We'll surely never know.

The magnificent stifling of a beating heart,
Supported by the cobwebs of regret and second-guessing,
Can be explained in the song of her drowning irises,
The streams of stellar jays and icicles gleaming.

A moment of weakness is sacred and cathartic,
For minds wander between truth and self-doubt
The pieces of you being put back together
Are letting the rays of your honesty out.

The best days of my lonely nocturnal ways
Were complemented by your steady rays
And though fear has consumed your future in waves
The rose-pedals and ashes are one and the same.

So let yourself lonely this dark summer's night,
Knowing you're only a full day away.
I may be craving to make you the master,
But you'll be the highlight of my day.

Listen, my children, and
clear the cedar smoke from your ears,
the firelight from your eyes.
Lean back and gaze
Gaze into the darkness
until you may better see the stars.
For it is in the stars
that you may catch his shape
and when you are bent and crippled
(like I am now)
know him as I foretold his coming.
Listen!
And I will tell you of what lies beneath
his white shell
in terms you will know and understand.

He is thunder.
The downpour breaks
under the weight of his voice.

He is the tsunami.
The white horses crash
under the whip in his arm.

He is the quake.
The tremor that ripples
under the pound of his boot heel.

He is the hunter.
The predator that vows
under the sheep hide you need not fear.

He is Modern Man.
The bloodtide that comes
under the guise of knowledge.

He will take our ancient earth
and call it "New World"
yet seek to make it like his old one.

He will make slaves
of man and beast.

**** and eat more than
his stomach needs.

****** his brother
for sport or pride or money.

He will promise much
and deliver only lies.

He will, with good intent,
   bring you gifts
   guns
   alcohol
   disease
   clothes
              dishonor

He will, without a thought,
   take your "gifts"
   food
   land
   women
   beasts
              blood.


You do not understand these things yet, my children.
But someday you will.

As for me, I favor fire
in its various incarnations
its many supple siren bodies
its many sultry, scorching fingers
sensually curling
dancing for me like a woman
stirring perspiration
warming my belly

I inhale its ashy breath
as it explodes in an ******
of light and dark
yellow and black
blood orange and ink
scalding, searing
shaping, sizzling
starving, swirling

hissing like a serpent
cackling as it devours
hungering and growling
reaching, desirous
for anything in its path
ravenously sinking teeth
into paper edges
licking bark of trees
******* the air and sap
like marrow
and leaving behind only dust

insatiable demon
that feeds on flesh
irresistible angel
that warms the soul
how would that I
could match the inferno
of your white-hot gaze!
evolve your overwhelming
unquenchable thirst for life
the ability to destroy
and to forge.

So as for me, I say at last,
I favor fire.

You
Yes, you
You’re not supposed to know
About the parts of my body that shiver
With pleasure at the purchase of a glossy Spider-Man comic

And
You
You’re not allowed to know
How I want to dig my fingernails into
My brain matter when it’s racing light-years ahead of my emotions

And
You
You’re a stranger who shouldn’t hear
How I jettison ideas like bullets, poetry like shrapnel
In hopes that it will hit someone’s beating heart and make it bleed

And
You
You’re not obliged to absorb
My metaphors for how martyring it is to be alone
And truthfully how much more terrifying it is to belong to someone

You
Yes, you
You’re not allowed to read this
Barrage of brokenness if you found it under my bed, only
When I whirl it in cyberspace, shotgun-like, to blast you in the face

Yes
I said
You’re not allowed to read this
But truthfully?
All poets lie.

We are all planets; orbited by moons, gases, comets.
We fear when they escape our gravity.
Why? Suns fix our revolution, not they.

We each consider ourselves the martyrs of our own tragedy.
We think our pain is paramount -
that no one else could possibly understand.

We might be less anxious, more content, tranquil
if we realized we are satellites.
Not stars.