I look up..into an blackening sky
and imagine a wonder as I fly..
gaze upon Cygnus the swan
and think of X-1 residing inside..

A spinning hole of fourteen solar mass
as black as the devils devious ***
enshrined in belts of orange and red
energy stolen from the star that has bled

Into its fierce companions consuming hole
gnawing on the sun like deaths own toll
blasting out jets like an angels glowing trumpet
swallowing stars like a streetwalker strumpet

Its partner a sapphire star seriously suffering
the loss of mass with no way of buffering
its pull into the black holes continual maul
matter tattered like an old beautiful shawl

six light years away from our Earth
as a massive star its original birth
as a super nova mass playing its role
shrank into a carnivorous black hole

X-1 sprawled as a devouring creation
cruising through the Cygnus constellation
event horizon spinning 800 times a second
even as it grasps and continues to beckon

deadly beauty dancing in an obsidian gown
wearing the stars matter as an elegant crown
energy it has stolen and devoured whole
lost forever to the mouth of a black hole

I am a beautiful song
Humans do not see me
But the stars besiege me
And my vision is for they.

For they see me truly,
In the night sky we play.
The humans beneath are nothing
I forget them now.

(A sign for us alone
We who see beyond
The swans we are are seeping
Into the great pond.

Past the way of milk
We've lost the bounds of silk
Woven for the lost souls
Yoked to sirens' ilk.)

We see.
We sought.
And not for nought.
We sing, we.

You remember that cow they told us about?
The one that jumped over the moon?
Well.
It never came back.
It’s hind legs were so powerful,
it’s hooves so sturdy
that he jumped from here,
on earth,
all the way over the moon.
All the way through the asteroid belt
past Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune
and even Pluto,
that tiny little sphere of ice
those *** holes at the International Astronomical Union
declassified as a planet in 2006.
The cow died before it got there though.
Maybe because there’s no oxygen in space
though I’ll never be certain.
But his body kept on floating.
Still propelled by the force it left earth with:
a dead black and white cow
sailed out of our solar system
and into the Arm of Orion.
But the light from Rigel and Betelgeuse
chased him away.
Blue-white and red supergiants have that effect on people.
Or cows.
Even dead cows.
And so, our travelling hero, who I’ve now named Frank,
spiralled through 0-gravity
and ended up
on the other side of the Milky Way.
Cygnus. Cygnus’ Arm is what caught him.
Cygnus and Frank became good friends.
Who could imagine!?
A dead cow and swan made of stars!
How preposterous.
But eventually they spread apart
(as all friendships eventually do)
and so Frank was left without a companion
and drifted off through space once more.
And we haven’t heard from him since.

I see you in the stars
Somehow you have been changed
From how the mortal eyes have seen you
Your mouth which used to speak
Of hatred and hope oblique
Becomes a beak without your teeth

Rage was born
But it will die
When its thrown into the fire

A brittle constellation
An ancient observation
You invite your guest to **** them
The poison of your being
These wounds caused by your sword
Let Heracles avenge them

All night
I look at you
Such beauty born from hatred

The knives in your hands
Cannot be be held by wings
Your arms that change until you drop them
The blasphemous skin
And fingers meant for ripping
These are the feathers that replace them

The sound of blood
And ugliness
Becomes beautiful music

-The stars in the sky have done nothing,
-Nothing, I think, to deserve their immortalization in verse
-They are the gas lamps still burning
-From the Universe’s Victorian Anglophile phase
-Old lights we haven’t looked at long enough
-To make them fade away

-The stars are dull and distant
-And yellowed with age
-When you step out to confide in them
-On a clear Winter’s night
-And instead find yourself starstruck
-To be surrounded by shattered sky
-Collapsed at your feet and dazzling only for you
-And the deer
-Picking through this fallen snow
-In quiet meditation

-Maybe the snow dazzles only for them
-It knows your heart looks skyward

kayaking, on the same lake
since college, two score before
by the tiny bay ice fishermen swore
was haunted--having lost one
of their own, only last winter

if the dead man's spirit lingered
he hadn't heard or seen it, and the bay,
though small, was deep, calm

he rowed daily to this big cove
a treasure trove of quiet and color
without a house or pier in sight

as the sun was sinking
into the lake one August eve
he heard a hissing from the thick
stands of pine

webbed feet, he did not imagine
could be as treacherous as talons
but the were, and the knobby beak
of this mad mute swan felt like pliers
when it yanked on his ear, ripping
nearly half of it off

it took but one sharp blow
from his oar to thwart the attack
and the giant bird disappeared
into the dusk

in its wake a pool of blood
and pain he had not felt since hot shrapnel
pierced his young shoulder
in that crazy Asian war

the battle lasted
but a few manic moments
as is the case with most wars of the flesh
though long enough to end his silent sojourns
on this still blue glass, now shattered
by flapping limbs of man and beast

I’ve been sitting here
Sitting here on this distant planet
For what seems like years
I ran away to get away from the dark.
Away from a broken heart
 
I’ve sat
And I’ve stared at the little dot every night
That little dot that I had once called Home
That no longer was Home in my heart
 
Then you appeared
A cluster of stars
Peeking out from behind the clouds
I wanted you
in that very moment
I needed you
 
This distant planet I sat upon knew
It Knew you were the one.
The one I needed to call Home
so it sent me off.
 
And I took flight once more
Soaring through the galaxies
Past the planets who nodded at me
They too knew
Knew that I was headed towards you
The cluster of stars.
 
When I arrived
It was unlike anything I had ever seen before
Your stars,
no longer a random cluster
they had a place
they had purpose
they had me mesmerized
 
when I met you I was reborn
reborn into a star
a star who’s only purpose was to be with you
to complete the cluster
the constellation
 
you became my favorite constellation
you ARE my favorite constellation
WE
Are my favorite constellation.

you smell like water boiling
with maybe a teaspoon of salt in it.
like safety, like a prelude to food,
like the reason everyone gathers in a kitchen during a party,
like home. which is cliche and sappy and ultimately true.
my least favorite poems tend to talk about how
cliche they are and how it's true anyway.
it's true I don't know another way to say this.
not yet. i think i'll learn.
there are constellations that you can only see from the other side of the world, that i've never seen.
the southern cross, phoenix, carina.
constellations I've seen over and over again.
orion, cygnus, the pleiades.
I've never seen them in your eyes. I'll never see them in your eyes.
There are still a whole universe of stars behind them.

I like to imagine the sky above me, a canvas,
floating in the sea of the sylphs, and I,
a paintbrush, white and orange on blue, and green
when I steal from the fields and farms of unsuspecting families,
and red, too, like the dirt under unsuspecting families,

—like on the hill to the pond when I first met you,
a blank canvas colored the colors of the rainbow, like
your voice, your eyes, your dress of feathers, flowing,
a crayon of light on the asphalt of life,
dyeing, dying, the color of Orion's bow-hand
as he slings your legs, one meat crayon after another,
one color after another, and finally you, my most beautiful,

—and as you looked toward me with eyes of dusk,
I looked across from my triangular wings of summer,
and saw that the night sky is black,
just as the asphalt is but a grave for crayons of the rainbow
because too many humans are artists.

Give me the chance
To show you how to paint the wind.
We’ll be streaked in marigold and
Calypso blue, acrylic staining our
Hands and our faces and our legs and
Our lips.

Give me the chance
To teach you constellations at night.
I’ll point them out for you, each
Star comprising Orion, or Cygnus, or
My favorite, the Little Dipper;
We can trace them all with
Our fingertips.

Give me the chance
To dance with you in the rain.
Water droplets glistening in hair,
Lashes, as we twirl silly in
These sopping clothes— still tight,
Our grip.

Give me the chance.

Give me the chance
To whisper something in your ear.
A delicate sensation, like lace or
Light embrace, my words
Fluttering into your mind like
The butterflies we caught when
We were kids.

Give me the chance
To look at you a little longer than I’m supposed to.
I’d forget I was staring and then you’d
Turn towards me and I’d turn
Mad red because I was caught, and so I’d think to myself,
“Look what you did.”

Give me the chance
To get lost in your voice.
Language becomes a different entity when you speak;
The way your words wrap around me is
Mesmerizing, and each cadence strikes some
Chord deep within me that I thought
I hid.

Give me the chance
To ensconce myself in your heart.
I know I am small, and obscure, and odd, but
You are a Divine Truth, and before you
I knew only lies, and deceptions, and a bland and colorless world which now
You have blessed.

Give me the chance
To think about you every hour of every ******* day;
My entire being revolves around your existence and
Your beauty and your overwhelming goodness and
I try to stop but
These thoughts will never cease because you are you and
I am obsessed.

Give me the chance
To love you with every fragment of my heart.

Give me the chance.

If music were Arrhythmic it would consider us
On tinsel wire lit into net to beads
Eternally reaping
The clink of solar windmills
Echoing, echoing until it becomes flesh,
Tired, ringing decibels
Filling with water and becoming eyes
So that Death is a character
Swimming just past the horizon;
Collisions become heartbeats
Become locomotive thoughts
Charging westerly winds
Until our faces hone, stormed
And born.
Only my soul is left to fall,
Cygnus x-1 in a pool,
My life a distant call
Catalogued by the stars,
Noted for declination; classified pulsar
My words are dust in another’s space
But they recall fire and I blazed;
                                              Numerically, years;
                                               Physically, rage
And the only thing that breathed were dreams
And they sail, eternally, past the rhyme (Time)
They’ll still float when I return to haunt you;
They cast no light but they guide and sigh.  
Alive

i slowly cave in on myself
and the sky smells of falling stars—
i can taste it, leaking in through
the cracks. i ascend, like a hot
air balloon, my body filled
with moonlight, the dust
falling off the trail of a comet.
the night is dripping paint,
navy blue and black, the ravens
are cutting holes in the air and
neptune shines through, a minty
frost, ice and starlight. my feet
are far above the clouds—an
icarus floating in the dark,
dark sky, and i reach for cygnus
—no more light pollution here.
lyra plucks its golden strings
and the moon sings a lullaby,
sweet and slow like drops
of mercury. and there, as
stardust glows through my skin,
replaces sore organs with light
and swallows each aching bit,
i sleep.

Selene's bright torch cast light through blackest night,
Unmasking gaped ravines in jagged rocks
That plunged down seeping cracks to Hades lair.
Mist-drenched ice-laden claws of winters bite
Tugged, scratched, gnawed bare cut fingers to the bone,
As limp, up mountain *****, the straggler climbed.

His face, a mask contorted by ordeal,
A coney cloak adorned his weathered back
Bent low by weight of many a mortal sin,
And hoof-like feet hid snug in blackened boots.
Half-shuttered eyes attested to the cold,
Whipped without mercy by the frigid wind.

Vile taunting voices mocked him from on high,
Each screeching laugh, an arrow to his spine,
Pointed reminders to his dismal plight,
Urging him up with heart-filled hatred pain
That surged like Zeus's lightning through his veins
And pushed him on to scale fresh heights above.

They spied, with venomed eyes, his trialled ascent,
Shifting from foot to foot to ease the cold,
Waiting till blood-drenched fingers stretched in vain,
Then leaping up on wings of patterned bronze
They took to flight, squawking in wild delight,
To see him slip, then stumble to his knees.

His failing arms flailed madly at the birds,
Hopeless to reach, lest Zeus should grant him wings,
And there upon the jagged mountain peaks
His tested will was hacked, cleaved, scattered wide,
As she who passed before and took his mind
Now lay, in darkened places of the world.

From deep within his cloak he pulled a flute
And shook the reeds, and rattled with a din
To shake the Gods within their hallowed halls
And of his fury, none has ever matched,
And fright took taunting voices from the birds
Who fearing for their feathers, swiftly fled.

Alone atop the world, the flute he raised
To tight pursed lips began a mournful air
That trembled over freshly fallen snow,
Recounting days forbidden love was chaste
And chased in answer to his endless lust,
Unsated by his many mortal sins.

Each fluted note sang long unto the night,
A serenade to all Selene had bade
Into her light, and then upon the wind
A voice as clear, as bright as Cygnus, came
In answer with a song like as his song,
So mournful that it crushed his broken heart.

satisfaction when falling
into the bottomless
two minutes slip by

all my lifetime of trying to recognize
spiritual masters, instead -
potential parents
flood the tunnels with the bad manners and
dressed in dark grey and green

such repugnance -
decadent as **** malevich
i crawl into his smoky rib cage
forget that the language
is dead.
he pauses, rushes and pants
paints his face skeleton
eyelids blank like i pictured - but
no seattle sound. math rock and machines going off they rocker
no rolling stone
**** her string along that neck
come back reborn. shut the door
collapse in the bathroom, throwing up
into the telephone -
sa ding **** made up words
or looped cuban songs -
back in the day is gone
not anymore not anymore

what do ripped jeans mean to you?
or 16th century persian poets?
when your mind is set afire
swarthed
you like women in klimt’s canvas
light beams through your slits
so you won’t drown in
ruthless thoughts stream
when your deafened ear catches
the ovations
pervading, dying blue note
still not the ending

madame blavatsky unfolding the envelope:
i’m the circle on palm leaf manuscripts
with a dot in the middle -
you’re the reason. the clarity and the void
the eye in between
the missing capstone, i am the folklore
strange beings with fishtail and
i might be the lizard
king, violet violent dressed in crimson
you squeezing them lemons
tequila so creamy
when spiky black leather rips through
the wires, sound effects are your favorite
print shops, in them zines. your dialect
you savor - licking your lips,
saturated and smeared, paranoid
black sabbatical
moon-kissed.

i know you all umbilical visceral
bite your teeth into and cut
catalonia - two halves, dry mouth
and scorching sun
you know i’m subtler than the red
a lotus flower growing in the west
silk sheets in ultraviolet, as soon as
you come to rest
i can smell the war in your curl
jet black and charcoal -
no matte.

no hole in your chest - yet
microchips, they flicker
under your skin as the muscles twitch
in the rem sleep;
black madonna’s humble soft gaze
through the painted veil. marble or onyx
did you feel defeated? when you’ve fallen?
into the bottomless - unknowing
fungus-like growing
upsidedown along with the
torus

cycles and waves, when it’s not subatomic
i wish we’d perceived past the
electromagnetic; distant planets and stars
tease my potential. if only
i wasn’t eclectic, if only
i was in zazen

i accept; sit back sense the vibrations
mind-vacuumed perception not split into parts;
a black whole: if you, color, still there
up high; this deceiving metronome
sound time-travelling in circles
splashes across; carmen in carmine
a girl walks home alone
feline; l'via, cygnus,
jimi,
come on
why don’t you set me free

although, not the exalted mythological
constellation
of the hunter orion, so proud
or cygnus' impressive wingspan
you are still clusters of stars.

but i am the light wondering if my
flickering
is in reality, darkness, left over.
my bright reaching everywhere and nowhere
all at once.

I don’t know about Scutum-Centaurus
And I don’t know about Perseus.
I don’t know about Norma
And I don’t know about Sagittarius.

But in the Milky Way’s Orion-Cygnus
I’ve looked at every single being.
Among them all in their cosmic realms
My Galactrix, you are the sweetest thing!

The stars call
But we can never answer
We can but look
But never visit

Fuzzy beautiful images
Sent back for study
By machines
With names of great ones
Long since dead

Swirling nebulae
The most beautiful colors imagined
In shapes of horsehead and *****
Butterflies and other fantastic creatures

Stars form connect the dot pages in the sky
Named for Greek myths', and animals
Pleiades, Orion, Pegasus, Andromeda
Ursa major and minor, Cygnus

The deep field picture
Show us the breadth of the universe
Galaxy upon galaxy
Rings, and helix, and discs

Planets we discover, the possibilities
But we just know they are there
Because of a wobble, or a dimming
Of the star they orbit

Light years separate us from our quarry
Unsurmountable distances
With today's technology
Perhaps some day

Concentric dancer on
Rolling stage
Great surfer of solidified
Waves

Spins like a hula hoop
With his rollout group
Then pivots on a concrete
Mountain

Observe Cygnus on a beam
Statue of perfection -
Momentarily
Jumps off the trampoline

Where he does 'The Walk'
A flip
Snake surfs on the waves

King city ballet finale!

She hopes for angels
And maps the pathos of disease
Cygnus x-1 ignites its plasma
In the key of God leaving

It is a play, this Man
Its words loosened from earth
Soot and gravity rendering arms
Imagination and the Bible verse

She took what was the motion of a butterfly
And from it made Believing
Under Sunday tides of breathing
She damns this Life for its Being