It's been three years
since I was madly infatuated with you
with your hair (curly, long, dark)
your freckles (sprinkled across your face)
your nose (straight-bridged, strong)
your eyes (dark, warm)
your lips (smiling, laughing)
your voice (like a river, like molasses)

summer camp isn't the best time
to fall for a girl
for me
(and god, the secret had to stay that way)

but after three years
you're the only person from that summer
I still have on facebook

so it's been three years
since I was madly infatuated with you
(but if you wanted
I would be
still)

The metal makeshift flowerpot sat in the middle of the sundrenched floor, and she breathed deeply.
She was hot to the touch, but nobody did, and her metal shoulders were loose, and she smiled (as a flowerpot could).
Linda came in one morning, stepped to block the window, arms full of magnetic reeds.
The metal makeshift flowerpot sighed. Oh.

For afternoons that piled, she sat in heavy dark,
Immobile from the magnet arms and blind from her favorite time of day.
Linda thought she looked so pretty, and the room was as she had imagined.

The metal makeshift flowerpot was glad to help the house’s market value, but she couldn’t hold the magnets any longer
So she held her breath instead
And Linda never knew the difference.

I hurriedly pull my street dusted , golden brown Toyota into the middle of a gas station war zone. The kind that turns neighbors into enemies, fighting to gain the only valuable piece of real estate around – the gas tanks. The drivers collectively sport the exact same exhausted and frustrated grimaces. A rusty and dated “ Exon Mobile” sign stands tall and strong against the sundrenched sky. The day is coming to a close, and the sun seems hurried to set as if it is exhausted from the day’s labors and expectations that it must rise again tomorrow, just like the gas station’s patrons. This station, to most, is just another stop. Another errand that puts itself between you and the warmth of home. This station, is just another stop. Another errand at the end of an endless day. But to me, this place is full of promise. This is the one place on earth that gives us life. It gives us the chance to see the world and to explore uncharted grounds. This place brings us closer to adventure and myseries, to happiness, to heartbreak, to feeling. This is the fuel and the energy that is waiting to help you make it to the hospital at 4 am to see the birth of a child. This old and worn pitstop let’s us fall in love with the world, with what we can see, with eachother.
But there is this silver truck with tires too big and a man two sizes to small in the passenger seat. There is a prominent dent in the left side door that has remained unchanged, unhelped, in weeks. As this silver, dented piece of metal sits in the way between me and my pajamas, I have the chance to stop. Not to stop because I’ve finally got to where I’ve been trying to go. Not to stop to pay the McDonald’s cashier in shameful regret of another broken new year’s promise. But to really stop. For an unexpectedly and disappointingly long time. To stop with no expectations. To be forced to just stop. And to wait. And to look around.

I.
I want to walk out
into the ocean’s gentle swells,
and feel God’s palm
cupped around me.

II.
I want to step,
over the smooth, fluted stones,
and the whorled shells
of bright abalone,
to sink down
onto sundrenched
sea-ground
and close my eyes
to see my blood-red sun-lit lids
flicker and flash, as
shuddering net-designs
dance, threaded and lacy;
as they curl,
tangling across me.

I want to slide my fingers
through the slithering white sand--
the grains carved into
ivory ripples by the
currents’ deft hands.

III.
oh, I want to lie
and close my eyes
and feel the soft lurch of each wave
jerking overhead, its
strong tug like a kite,
watch the shining fish
scything past above,
and let each dancing point of light
reflected
from their scales
scar my pale face.

IV.
Oh, there is a howling, starving dog
that circles on the shore,
alone.
he’s keened his frantic misery to the
deadpan moon
for so so long
that no one listens anymore--
they gave it up long ago
and just sprawl, licking the dunes;
they lie and swear the grit quenches their
aching thirst
until they choke on their sand-covered tongues
and die.

V.
You see,
I want to see the moon rise,
quivering through
deep-water blackness;
listen to the dolphins’
ghostly shrieks and clacks,
and the whales’ deep, grieved noises.
I want to forget
the sound of human voices.

I long to close my eyes,
sink,
and never rise.

VI.
bright, irregular globes
flutter from my mouth
quick,
coruscating orbs
of prayer,
they shudder and
dart upwards

VII.
saltwater, salt tears,
ask Him if He hears
you gasping.

I awake from my dream of a sundrenched bay
To find I have been swallowed by emerald black,
Emerald white and streams of emerald grey.
Those shadows share goose bumps with my back.
I check my alarm, but the night’s just begun.
The emerald ghosts will have to stay.
Any night is better than a sleepless one
For you’re tormented while you pray.
Hours and hours, yet sleep there’s none
As suffering’s brought out on a tray
Please, soon, the suffering will be done –
An insomniac needs a glimpse of day.
And there it is a glimpse and some
Hope that the Earth might be okay.
God has had his sickening fun,
And now I see that strand of hay,
That thread of hope, that beam of sun.
First a strand and now a ray.
The night fought well, but the day has won
And my room has become a sundrenched bay.
That emerald has been replaced by white
And the thoughtless torment now a pun.
The day at last has replaced the night
As I am moved by the morning sun.

~

Ensorcelled in effervescent lingerings
sifting through moonlit seams
Soft flavored drippings of ecstasy
melting slowly within the fever
dancing across my skin
as your fingers trace
the outline of my deepest secrets,
mysteries lodged in seductive breaths

Your love my ******, addictive enchantment
Stimulated senses heightened
Sundrenched moans, silver lined
adrift on satin sighs
Floating delirious within
hallucinogenic eyes,
seducing my mind in eternal desires

Trance infused emotions
cling to each nuance of mesmeric longings
Swirling smoke ringlets
penetrate whispering decolletage,
culminating in lustful motives
atop gilded sheets
drenched of our rapture,
etched in euphoria
Two silhouettes saturated
*in this dream called passion

Dimlight breaks our time in two
&I; slip on the stillness of morning
like a new, clean dress.
Soundhues cover the chaos of my mind
in almostsilence.

Can you hear our nostalgia brightening?

Your voice, from forever ago,
echoes&dances; on the wings of sundrenched birds.
They greet the sky as an old friend:
soundhue hellos harmonize.
&I; am awake, finally.

O’er windswept conclusions a’ mist in the air
In fragrance that comes to my heart ever share
Of sundrenched magnolia beneath empty shade
To steal every ounce of your caring my way
I touch to the heavens a wing and a prayer
Belief in the joy that is felt everywhere
When the oceans fall further than all eyes can see
This love will eternally find you from me

When clouds of confetti, the song of the dove
The sweetest rendition of musical love
Does float on the breezes of everyday flow
A’ twisting and turning until it can show
Those mountains of glory that stand in the way
Exceeding the plan that we set forth this day
Can not comprehend what my pure love will do
No matter the hurdle, I send it to you

Since dawn hath approached in a place before time
So simple the earth as our life does unwind
Nor flowers of blossom still yet find the ground
A desolate nature lies lost in its sound
Lone rivers of feelings that one can not see
O’er rain cast endeavors drop life from the sea
Till all that is new shines a star up above
The light of its journey shall bring you my love

From deserts of sand to a sandy white shore
The pain shall be nothing each day I endure
I crawl through the thicket, my hands and my knees
If only a moment your sweet life to please
Not depths of the valleys found in them so deep
Nor locked away caverns of which I do creep
Shall keep me from finding the pathway to you
To bring you a love that is ever so true

this was how
i
liked her best:

pallid roots
spread
some soft wet
in their twain
drawing
an oral sepulcher
to dine
on hertenderleaves

(i bent my lips
in grinning countenance
at
that infliction
i did
visit upon              a
lovely sundrenched
tree)

1

held  against   the mouth
  sentenced cleaved to silence, what is around me
 is all this is: wire. quartet of birds. aqueduct
 as arrest and close range tap of rain on face
 rippling in the eye foreclosed and reasoned is
 this image's return -- what is it like to live
 far away from home and not hear me say
 regret as study of attitude? News carried
 bombardment of inner cities. We were hesitant
 to leave place and borrowed skin instead,
    if not borrowed then grasped for, what is the answer? if coordinates lie, what are
                   we trying to discover.

2

held  against  the  temple
   not a barrel of a gun, but similarly, a chamber if not
  a mouth breathing in sulfur. the day has spun
  out of, and in between clipped reminders of
    the calendar:
   today's broken notes on the tablatures are
 the daily. Do groceries. Pick the freshest fruit,
   take the sour out of the scale. Gut the fish
 and not word it so over the kitchen counter, I will
 watch behind a clutter of earthenware and furniture. Might topple the glass
     once and catch your attention. I do not deny your
  effect     on   my  soul.

3

  today's forecast of rain   is body staying in.
  the children are seized by terror as scattered displays    of  lightning   paint their faces
       petrified with a lack of hue -- listen to the
 intermittent, coarse static of the television
     when it happens, your face ripe for arrest.
  there   is   nothing to do in  a home
     holding  its  breath  when  you walk,
   do not   leave just yet. the water   is  rising.
      it tells   you   to   stay  in. triple your  presence
  across the  dining,  rain as if out of the  shower
      barely  drying   yourself,   leave  water
    i will    not   drink,  only    test  swimmingly 
      a  dream  out   of   sleep and   so real
       a   twitch of  fish    out   of   ocean.

4

  outside  you are  no longer  than  the   transit
  of   birds   seeking   canopies. Wind   disrupts
  the steady  arm  of   cables. Slosh of water
     from an   oncoming  vehicle  as if  beside  the
   sea crashing into   me   are   waves,

   What need   is   there  when  your   mouth houses
      water, your   *******, warmth?  Contrast as
   habit   of  alternatives. In verbatim, this is how it
    sounded from you, "We  are   very   young.
          Remember me   this   way."

  Now i  wish  voices   could  be bodies. The next irreconcilable   face   as    hearth.
              Fingers   as   assuage,   distance  as  dearth,
      grasp   if  not  borrow,  translatable  to
   signal,  my  body   heeding,   fraught by taciturnity through the   caught  wind
      through the  furniture, once your   body being   groped for like any
     other   sundrenched day.

Sundrenched Pathfinder, scraping up pieces of the past beneath mossy stone

Trail Bird whistling to the tune of the falling bombs.

Tall proud tree peak flinches at the venomous bite of percussion

Sundrenched Pathfinder, mountains burying us beneath ashes

what a sad slip of a boy
who wears grey jumpers and hats
sitting in the dark of his bedroom
writing stories of the past

a haze clouds his eyes
for the future he cannot see
grief-stricken and dissociated
he does not realise all he could be

the solitude comforts him
as he's pumulled by history, the sundrenched kisses
wearily typing
imaging all of his tragical wishes