Her heart pounds, a thunder in he veins
Pulsing bright and red and deep within
Courage took farflung flight long ago
Before the journey was to be made

Feet crushed the ashes spilled
When they fell in a spiral across the village
They left the buildings empty since
Fire takes all

There was silence before this, quiet as a grave
And the streets were filled with happy feet
It slept alone then, on all it found to keep
No overlap or closeness to be feared.

Feet crushed the ashes spilled
When they fell in a spiral across the village
They left the buildings empty since
Fire takes all

And then life wasn't what she'd been promised
He threated a hell on earth should she think even of what she knew
Blows came when the words stopped coming
Maybe there wasn't anything in the big white clouds up there

Feet crushed the ashes spilled
When they fell in a spiral across the village
They left the buildings empty since
Fire takes all

So she left alone, running away from it all
Nowhere to go and none to care what happened out there
Feet chased a path along a clif's side
Found another path hidden inside

Feet crushed the ashes spilled
When they fell in a spiral across the village
They left the buildings empty since
Fire takes all

Came upon the sleeping one
Belly deep in shining rings, golden plates, precious stones
All of the leavings of those that had gone before
It earned them all fairly

Feet crushed the ashes spilled
When they fell in a spiral across the village
They left the buildings empty since
Fire takes all

Surely they wouldn't notice just one cup?
One cup for freedom, one cup for a new life
One for the time she spent running from no escape
So she took it and fled

Feet crushed the ashes spilled
When they fell in a spiral across the village
They left the buildings empty since
Fire takes all

A stirring spread thourgh that scaly pile
Orange orbs snapping open, knowing something was gone
That cup the mother'd drank from at the king's court
When magic was still thick and the world thought less of monsters

Feet crushed the ashes spilled
When they fell in a spiral across the village
They left the buildings empty since
Fire takes all

Wings unfirled and death came that night on quiet wings
Fire broke the night, people died, fleeing anyway they could
Those earth riches where all that's left
Before men came and took what they thought they owned

Feet crushed the ashes spilled
When they fell in a spiral across the village
They left the buildings empty since
Fire takes all

Day rose to a ruined place
Choacked grey black, shifting with winds
Villages left that day for the reasons where not known
But she knew and it did as well

Feet crushed the ashes spilled
When they fell in a spiral across the village
They left the buildings empty since
Fire takes all

Journey came with baited breath
She knew it would come again with hot breath and burning eyes
Maybe there would be nothing left again
Death would come again

Feet crushed the ashes spilled
When they fell in a spiral across the village
They left the buildings empty since
Fire takes all

Head raises, hissing scales of ash, long strong neck
Those eyes shine brighter now
Tips of wings touch staggered points of topside
Ready to reclaim a life

Feet crushed the ashes spilled
When they fell in a spiral across the village
They left the buildings empty since
Fire takes all

Quick and slow she bends, quicker hands holding out
Uncurling fingers flex apart and the cup is placed
Once more in its rightful place
Them or her, chosen to make right

Feet crushed the ashes spilled
When they fell in a spiral across the village
They left the buildings empty since
Fire takes all

Thin wings settle again to the strong sides
Ribs show their ridges against the jeweled belly
What's this human who would give back what it took?
Dangerous points part in black stone gums

Feet crushed the ashes spilled
When they fell in a spiral across the village
They left the buildings empty since
Fire takes all

You'd give thisss for them and what you ssstole?
Hissing air breath, a volcano's hiss
Wide eyes and hesitant hands reply
"Many more here that you don't deserve but they don't either."

Feet crushed the ashes spilled
When they fell in a spiral across the village
They left the buildings empty since
Fire takes all

Slow shifting seething motion
Tail like rope unwinding from the center
Weak legs bend and don't break
Eggshells lay safe in the last grey curl

Feet crushed the ashes spilled
When they fell in a spiral across the village
They left the buildings empty since
Fire takes all

Small bones, little skull and empty eyes
Young mother happy once then
Men broke the home with sharp points
Young mother no longer

Feet crushed the ashes spilled
When they fell in a spiral across the village
They left the buildings empty since
Fire takes all

She sees broken bones, human heads burned
Nothing could bring the hatchling back, piece the pierced back
It had stayed to die in silence no reason left
No food to be found, no water to drink

Feet crushed the ashes spilled
When they fell in a spiral across the village
They left the buildings empty since
Fire takes all

The girl leaves and goes
A secret to keep for the old mother
Until the body lies forgotten and the earth takes back
No one to touch the shining seas

We are cousins
Related by blood
Growing up
Together
Like
Siblings.

But we are cousins
And cousins don't get jealous
Cousins don't cry
When the other
Loves another.

However we are cousins
And everything is wrong
You crave for the wrong
And I dread the fulfillment
From the sins
We are
Committing.  

"We are cousins, right?"

You say sweetly to me
We lay in bed together
Hands intertwined
Under the darkness
And the comfort
Of the thick blanket.

I say nothing
Uncurling my fingers from yours
I turn to
Face away
And shut my eyes.

It was dark
It was quiet
Yet it felt so bright
So noisy
Under the uncomfortable
Silence.

You say nothing to me
And wrap your arms around me.

I flinch.

A sweet whisper
Flows into my ears
Sweeter than any other

Simple words
Simple meanings
Time passes
New meanings.

Wrong meanings.

The hidden bitterness
Starts to show
I shake
Uncontrollably

I had no words to say
To the words you had
We are cousins
Relishing in our sins.

You, who wanted this to go on
I, who wanted this to all end.

You, whom I cared for so much because I watched you grow.
I, whom you needed wrongly and mistakingly.

*"I love you."

You know it's time to talk
when the teapot empties
itself, forgotten steam
whistling in and out
our ears. Tell the truth, it's
all about the mist, crawling
in and out of our heads.
delicately painted china
empty of all but dregs
spilling out patterns
depicting surprises
unreadable to all but the blind
changing the addictions
to colorless schemes
of the bitter sweet taste
lingering on our tongues
uncurling to let out the truth.

I've watched you
all winter, holding your beauty close.
Protecting it from the snow and cold
in your grey-green fuzzy casing.
When the time is right,
you release that protection.
Giving you the freedom to unfold your splendor.
Like hands opening.
Like fingers uncurling.
There is hidden beauty in our winter.

Harsh wind screaming
moaning
with the crisp bite of Autumn night

Dark shadows dancing
tossing
with the branches of bare grey Elms

The lanes are winding
uncurling
in the pale orange glow of headlights

Sudden hedgerows
green
edging the limits of the night

Power-cut darkness all around
silhouettes
strange in the headlight beam

No farm lights distant on the Tor
guiding
beacons of open field and place

Cottages shuddering their thatching
thrilled
chimneys smoking message-morse

Pub signs banging wildly
flapping
in a crazy dance
inside candles flickering
distorted
patterns in tiny panes of rounded glass

Old stone steeple steady
dull toned bell
catching
a ride on the wind to the copse

And still the lanes thread out
beam-born
a ribbon of pebbles and stone
stretching into the night
until they melt
into the flat black tarmac
of the motorway.

Like a new river forging it's first steps, or a flower first taking bud, the end result is never clear.
It cuts through you. Carving out canyons, gorges, through what is you.
This thing will start to erode you, and it will create eddies. Stagnant moments of spinning in pointless circles surrounded by all the **** emotions bring. The drift wood of the heart.
Soon you will escape and see the new petals of flowers uncurling, nurtured by the Sun and the eddies you were so sure you would drown in.
These flowers will line the shore of your river. Of the canyons chiseled into the corners of your smile. The paths of this river will twine and twirl through everything. Breaking apart and spreading like the roots of a tree. Endlessly growing and flowing. Reconnecting in days. Years. Feet or miles. Only to trickle apart once more.
As all rivers must, so will this flower lined flow have rapids. Small ones. Large ones. Waterfalls too. Tossing and turning up the water in white froth. Dropping off the edge of cliffs. Falls you never though you could survive. But you will.

And eventually your flowers will die. Your river will end. In fruit, or nectar turned to honey. In dried petals on the shore. Or maybe a pond. A lake or reservoir. You will be swirling in pointless patterns again. Stuck. Hoping to finally be washed ashore. To dry off, laying on the thistles and dandy lions and cattails surrounding your lake.
You will not though. You will keep swirling and swirling and then you will come to understand that these weeds, these thistles and dandelions and cattails may not be the pretty flowers on the banks of your river, but the have beauty all their own.

And as is the nature of water. Of lakes and ponds; of flowers and trees, as is the nature of love; a new river will break free and spill from your sullen body of water. It will begin again. Carving new canyons. Following old. And it will grow new flowers on its shores.

Among them will be thistles.

.                                                                ­            WNTR, o
                                                          
                                                                ­  the     earth


                                                                ­  is how long

                                                               ­                           
                                     ­                                                      )in you?

                                                           ­       crisply perhaps

                                                        ­          stiffmuscling die erected
                                                         ­         foal trees. Barely skinned

                                                        ­                       ,

                                                              ­                    .

                                          ­                                           '

                                                              ­                     .

                                                              ­                 ,

                                                              ­                      .

                                        ­                                                 '


                                                             ­                       .
                                        ­                                           H
                                                               ­                  e   A
                                                               ­                     V
                                          ­                                       y with
                                                            ­                 light dying
                                                           ­                of    shadows
                                                   ­                  )between

                                                       ­                             o
                                  ­                                             WNTR
                                                            ­              i skip a penny
                                                           ­                    across
                                                          ­          Bu
                                                    ­              g e
                                                               ­  yed june

                                                           ­                        (Ag
                                                             ­                        irl inn

                                                            ­                      ot enough
                                                          ­                   clothing


                                                      ,cuz it was june o lord it was so hot i could feel my sweat across the

                                                       palm of each hand go slick like oil across the cool common pinch
                                                       of the fuzzed in ***** tinter grass.

                                                       i o and uncurling stiffly went like the shoots off of roses: topaz
                                                       i went red like the bitten ******
                                                       of girl tingling
                                                       unchastely
                                                      ­ snowless hips
                                                       )without WNTR which
                                                        sof­t of hard
                                                        and hard of itch
                                                        itch­
                                                        and     ­                     itch
                                       ­                (in WNTR to please
                                                        re­move me my health
                                                        an­d barely skin me
                                                        a foal tree

                                                           ­                      untwitching

The smoke from the lantern was the misty grey of an uncertain sky.
Brother, sister and I were gathered around the dim light attempting to play a secret game of cards, because mother had told us it was bad for our eyes. Moore was losing as usual, he was barely five, then we heard the all too familiar voice of thunder "What did I tell you children about playing cards in the dark?"
This, this was the recipe for all my favourite memories as a child.
Outdoor mattresses and hand made fans were all we needed to spill the secrets of the day. Falling asleep, one child after another but mother stayed up to chase the mosquitoes from our skins and the nightmares from our dreams. This, this was our language of love.
This was where we found God.
Yesterday I tried to count how many hours we've spent together in the last seven years. I stopped at zero in the last fourteen months, I couldn't go any further. I'm forgetting what lantern smoke smells like. I'm forgetting what your smiles look like. I've tried and failed a thousand times to wipe your tears over the phone. Distance doesn't take kindly to sympathetic lovers.
So I miss you like fingertips miss palms when uncurling a fist to embrace the cold, knowing it's for the best. We tell ourselves it's for the best, that roots like me have to branch out to break ground. That apples don't fall far from the tree but must roll away from the shade to see the sun.
My mother is the settling dust that brings the best out of all of us. So I know what she means when she says "don't come back."
She means be the best you can be, the world deserves you as much as we do.
Wear your name as tight as your skin and if they say it wrong correct them.
Today I found an old lantern in a store on a street somewhere too far from home. The smoke doesn't smell like I remember.

As the cold crept under my skin
so did your kisses
as you planted them softly
on the carpet of goosebumps
that covered my body

As the wind slapped my face
with chills
so did your hands
as they cupped my red cheeks
holding it still
marveling at the beauty
that has bewitched you

As the rain damped my hair
curling them with winter surprises
so did you fingers
as they hypnotized me to sleep
uncurling all the disadvantages of the day

As the flakes rested on my lashes
so did yours against mine
as you got close to me
synching your breath with mine

As January embraced me
with layers upon layers of wool
so did your arms
as I roll under
my sheets
feeling my skin
against
yours

is that what grass is?* i said in awe,
a child once again, wide-eyed with desire--
to explore, to roll and tumble over vastness
crest and trough of hillsides breathing in the sun,
then nap among the cows, pet their broadness
blinking there in ease above the buzzing vale.
am i a child still? i cooed into the wind,
watched it stroke and flicker bright the woven green
atop the next, and felt it in my breast.
am i akin to you? i squinted closer still
at gaze of bovine wakefulness to my refrain--
uncurling there against the matted fresh
with yawning tongues and udder slosh,
bounce of calf, frolic laps, then bullish
mimic make in sport away from watchful eye





.

Somedays I wake up,
and I pray to whatever is above me,
whether it be God or something else beyond my comprenesion,
isn't there to wake me up.

Somedays, I lay there,
In my bed,
surrounded by the warm layers of fabric that seem to hold me together,
and wish that they would just curl tighter around me,
and constrict me closer into myself,
and pray that they can gently convince my lungs to stop working,
so I can just not wake up.

Somedays, I wonder,
Just gazing around me,
If i can just stop the clock, and stay right where I am,
safe and sound comfortable in myself,
away from all of the anxiety I feel as it would
rise and fall in my chest and bury itself with the confides of my stomache,
and all the other nitches that it can find,
and I dream of not waking up

Somedays, I win.
Somedays, I lose.

I usually lose.

And I find myself uncurling from my happy prison of warmth,
and I feel my feet on the cold hardwood floors,
sighing as I run my finger thrugh my ***** hair,
wondering, not praying
how I ever was able to wake up.

the man began by pointing at the spots on the baby’s head and then he looked to us as if we were to answer for each.  he turned the baby’s head carefully- it might’ve been an old globe to him.  he apologized more than once for his age pocked hands.  his apologies were unsettling, each one moreso than the last.  his assistant minded none of this and sat reading an upside down newspaper while curling and uncurling her bare toes at no discernible prompt.  when the baby squealed the man went pale and dropped it and his coat opened and we saw his naked wrinkled middle turn to ash and we saw the baby scooped up by the feet of his assistant and then saw the baby fit in her mouth.  she never moved from her chair to do the scooping or the placing and we were horrified as she righted the paper and silently admonished the man for being momentarily vacant as to the whereabouts of her shoes.  he went to his fours and nosed the shoes to her feet and we said amen to the tail of his coat.  the assistant then stood and as she did so the man made swallowing noises and because we’d said amen together we were able to form a search party from which we periodically broke to *******.

Not a banana, my life is like the leaf.
My youth uncurled straight and tall
like the opening of a translucent banner.
Sensual curves waving to
the florescent lizard to guard a hunting place.
The warm breezes ruffled my maturing skirt
as I grew in fiber strength.
The warm night rains weighed me down
heavy with diamonds sparkeling in the sunlight.
Unseasonable winds whipped me
into a double fringe.
In my golden year
my fiber strengthening a base for the uncurling of youth.

oh the world
(smoothly electric)

which turns 'pon
a thread divisible

assumes such shapes magic
(hurling singly rotund)

to smash by impulsed fabric
with savagery so sublime

fists should
(uncurling)
turn from bruises


                                          into wine

It seems like the entire world knows
how to dance except for me.

There must be a metronome
that ticks the tempo
right out of the torso
of Mother Nature herself
but I cannot seem to tune in.
Everywhere around me
I can see a rhythm that refuses
to run through me like it somehow knows
that I am always going to be that one kid
left standing with my back against
the gym wall and the beat is just another club
that cannot afford to let any losers in.

I see the leaves—crisp hues of
yellow-bleeding-into-orange,
orange-bleeding-into-brown—
being directed by the air that they cut
as they learn to dance the American Waltz
left box, right box,
underarm turn,
hesitation step
spinning to the ground
and swell approaches the shore
carrying forward a small roar,
energy circling from deep to shallow,
waves shoaling, rising up,
moving along to the Foxtrot
feather step, three step,
natural turn,
hover cross
uncurling onto the shore.

But still, after all of these years,
I am here with shoulder blades pressed to cinderblocks
trying to tap into the meter while I tap my toe
inside of my shoe so the mountains will not shed rocks
like tears that come along with steady laughter.

life, i cannot begin you to describe beyond my dreaming self your how divine moments of simple nothing.

your body is not, and i love it the how it is not. it is

and not it's


some muscles firing with hurt
seething to ache
so horribly
wondrous. it's driving

to the beach

too early in morning and you're heads not clear the sky is so wide and the sun is barely. it is

the uncurling of your fingers between
dishwater
and the winsome triteness
of the caving instant of your breath
caching in your throat
as you realize the dying
of your frail self,

clutching furiously the mundane heady song
of a coffee cup

(and in perfect silence emitting
the most enormous roar
of surging electric stillness)                                .    Life

you are half terribly
painful to. and life, you
are half splendorous to ****

sweating in the heap of your
car behind

the creeping sweep
of raging vein. Life

you are perhaps nothing. But lifE

you are the most,

and nothing hurriedly to slowly
take between the unutterably tiny *******
of snowgirls

their coldest song of closing lips,

and speak something hot

(something big).

morning
you cruelly who
in lust Springfully come

your mouth wet
feels in dew lathered




uncurling

brutish





pinkat
the fringes
cool steaming
in the jeer of rounding light
pierced at the aperture of closing
darkness by a ***** of slothful mounting earth upon earth

it nonsensical that i'm cynical
when love has always been  my pinnacle
i created a false dichotomy
between being loved and never being hurt
but that's just it, loving takes a lot of me
and it's covered me in years of blood and dirt
but that can't bury it's worth
i plunged my hands into the earth
expecting a dagger that laid dormant,
but the beauty that i found was stark, and storming
sharp, and thorny,
but with petals too, uncurling
not yet in full bloom, but soon
A  white rose will come under another moon
licked by drops of blood,
pricked from my fetid wounds.

like a flower blooming
petals uncurling
exposing their silk & velvet insides
vulnerability wet like nectar
waiting for killer bees
who don't want the sweet sap
just the thrill of destruction

Those tiny buds blossom;
Like miracles,
Or prayers from the dead.
Uncurling like a baby's fist
White then pink then red.
I forgot how I missed
Those precious beads of life
A transient ode to the suns' first kiss
An end to unending winter,
death, and strife.
The start of new life.

there is the world so much i think i have felt it

have felt by it
and by it felt

so much it
(the world)

who in droves presses ugly Spring against me
who in heards comes dying and immortal
who in sleeping flowers laughs most
(the world

by sting invisible
impulses each rotund death
of lungs upon heaps of dying
to go out and wear more gladly it

it girls laughing
it boys sweating to be first
it arcuate of hips
it thundering of industry
it of millions tinly each


each pointless
each fathomless
each more than last
each next than other
each the other than the next

i think and i have seen by it
and have i?
way north over the barn where goes the winter
when in neatish crimson hulking ****** comes

first small coming

then steadily gargantuan

Summer

in deep veins of failing gold
only to brittle
only to fold and tousle
only to rubble and quake

alas

and i have thought

alas

and i have read

alas

and i have felt so proud to get at the meanings of poems

) but ever have i known it?

No.

i have not been my feet to push of it a million splendors

i have not been my throat to scream so loud my body shook

i have not been amongst its people

i have not tasted

i have not been by the skinny bank of a winding stream in the middle of Summer when the cool water tickles across the span of each toe the wholeness of being

i have not kissed so long to love

i have not breathed so long to speak

what then can i say?
but do i say it?
of course

i say it by hands between quick thighs
uncurling hurting bruises of hot sharpness

i say it in the hunched play of a girl's wetness

i say it in the calm stroke of a withered dog's scalp

i say in quiet moments as in loud moments

i speak(and i always speak)

and i think i have the world so much by it felt as to know it

and i think i do not know it

and i think it is not so much

and i think i have not felt it

The soles of my feet
     kiss the lush blades
     that never harm or
     undo me.
     It's the sound of
     jays in the trees
     and the wood burning
     fragrance from
     Autumns offering
     What magic is this?
     is it the work of a witch?
     Or a God that knows
     full well of their creations.
     Do they master the landscape?
     deciding where to place
     every work of art,
     like fingers uncurling
     to breathe life from the dust.
          One single motion,
           scatters us all
           to become runners
           in all the colors of fall
           Blank canvas of winter,
           Cherry lips in spring
            blooming fully in summer,
            I know the way to
        make an offering
        of thanks,
        I kiss the face of one
        who knows the pace
        Of my heart through the seasons
        giving me reasons
        to never fear the leap
        or the break.
             They know my footsteps
             won't regret or forsake
             The adventure of
             discovering beauty in
             Both joy and suffering
             because life is as fleeting
                     as seasons.

Last night I had a dream
That I was
F
A
   L
    L
     I
     N
      G.

I wasn't falling down,
Nor falling in love,

I fell  a p  a   r    t.

It started slowly at first,
A single thread that fell out of place,
But then each strand expanded,
From inches to infinity,
Revealing flesh,
Bone
And the unwanted parts in-between.

Like Time and Space
I continued,
Relentlessly uncurling
Until I was nothing more
Than a tightwire
That even my heart
Could never walk.

The world proves itself to me by its motion.
I know the world because it moves and is moved.
I know hidden parts of the world by the shadows of motion these parts make.
I speak with my world in the language of movement.
I know things the world cannot tell me by learning the rules it uses to tell me what it does.
I know the weightless motion of veils.
I know the movement of what I cannot see move by learning how motion must act.
I know how motion must act, can know what moves even when I don't see it,
all by knowing how the world could not otherwise work.  

Life is life because it moves.
Life that does not move becomes death.
Death is life without motion.
Death is an invention.
Death is just another name for a life that cannot move ever again.

The motion of my mother proves to me the motion that came before my first movement;
my first motion when
my left hand's newborn fingers moved from the cradle of
my left hand's newborn palm to squeeze
my mother's elegant, shaking ring finger and felt
my father's elegant, shaking ring finger;
felt my parents' wedding vows,
their promise to each other;
felt my parents' wedding vows,
their promise to me;
felt them hold me between their chests,
them,
their motion within me;
me, my infant body learning its life because they first moved;
my small, soft limbs reaching out slowly,
soft limbs moving soft in the soft, moving world
uncurling new in every new direction.

Everything I learn by motion must come,
finally,
to move within, and move,
me.

Cursed, blessed,
I am my only source of reason.
I am my only source of insanity.

I am, to me, my greatest safety.
My greatest danger.

I am the only thing I have to know how love feels.
To know how loving feels.

I am the only thing I have to know
the beauty of this motion,
the world.  

I destroy myself, I destroy the only thing I have to know motion.
I destroy myself, I destroy the movement of the world.
I destroy the world's movement, I invent its death.

I destroy myself, I destroy the world with me.

Destroy myself, destroy my mother with me.
Destroy her elegant, shaking ring finger.

Destroy myself, destroy my father with me.
Destroy his elegant, shaking ring finger.

Destroy my parents with me.  
Destroy their promise,
their promise,
promise,
never,
to stop moving.

when feels driven by some impulsed curing
of day into swift clumsy night i

am flung by silence

into the only mystery of love a spangle
tinly which ekes from splendor
slowly tumbling over end over
between the ******* of thing girls


           A finger of light

(cooing)i


                      a breath shake



                                       from



lips hotly tight in coiled something
furstroked and lurid with my lips
part (destroying)


and bruise into white

a fist of painful.      

                                    Uncurling

She is the foam of the sea
Untouched and innocent
Smooth dancing on the waves
Every so slight movement making her seem vulnerable
But still in the most dominant way

She is slim so she can fit into the distance between his fingertips when he spreads his arms to beg for her
She is drowning him
He is inferior

He is the travelling wave
Never loosing his feeling of rythm
Playing the same song every day
Dancing to it
Looking for his perfect match

I am the puzzled Sand
Sticking to everything but nowhere wanted
Uneven, rough and misshaped
An offence to every coast
I am out of place

He is an unfinished artwork
Beautiful look of imperfection
A clear water beast
Rising explosive and
Settleing gentle
She loves the song he sings
It's like he is singing to her
The foam clings so good to the shifting water

And together they create
The perfect sea
Every edge uncurling
The unremarkable sand in their way

But with every dance they dance in union
Parts of me are teared apart
And send to every cardinal direction
By the fair-minded elements
Until nothing of the sand remains

So the sea is eventually merged
Joyfull dancing and singing
The song of freedom and affection

She is the foam of the sea
and he is the travelling wave

I am washed away

Dad has told me since i was born that theres a shark out there with our name on it

Thats why i never go as deep as my shoulders in the ocean

warnings rattle around my head and a sense of abandonment wraps around my legs

maybe the riptide felt like gentle hands leading him home

he’ll find us one day

i wonder if he’s talking about the shark or neevie

often i imagine him living in puerto Rico, having found his way among the waves he would reside in a tiny hut near the ocean side

listening every night as if to receive a whisper saying “come home”

the sole reason of dads birth being to replace his mothers only son

stand in for a deadboy

came out looking the exact opposite 

blonde hair, blue eyes

stevie, her sweet boy

pouring all the bitter, ******* she held into him

didn’t they tell you the bruises left behind were just love marks?

cherish them, it means she cares

mommie dearest loves you so, did you not know?

the closest form of loving someone is hating them and he’s got that down to a science

thoughts of prying the jalousie windows shut during winters in west tampa

counting each bullet that echoed in the distance

sitting on cotton bags skinning potatoes as his father prepared dinner for the navy ship

uncurling himself late at night when the sound of the door opening would alert him that he could finally stop hiding and embrace the warmth his fathers smile radiated

uncurling, a yawn
wandering back from the black
unfurled toward dawn

breeze is dependent
on just a single breath drawn
negating oaths sworn

to lie in darkness
yet not let light become us
dark death leaves us torn

you are built into my skin,
but my love for you is not chemical, it is not
godly, divine
for we are godly, divine enough for love
if we so choose
and we so choose.
so come back into my arms and we will
dance a million dances
and watch as we come apart in each other’s arms
like hurricanes uncurling and leaving only rain.
you and i are storms with no eyes
so when we touch we are lightning-alive and flash-thunder
boom
i can feel the humming of barometers in my bones
and you can feel the pressure rising in our hearts
but our love is not chemical
it is heat-seeking, face-flushing, dancing
like oven bricks leaving dust like stars
across a sky of skin
because we so choose.

My head tangled up in
knots I just can't hide,
they can never crawl out of my mouth,
the words I say feel like a draft,
a draft of my mask uncurling
but there is a time where
all my monsters come out to play;
they've learned to swim in my craft...
don't you know hurt stains a person
the same way a permanent marker
stains skin?
I cannot keep this masked
habitat within me.
Time to tear apart the veils
before Anti declares me its bride
and when the sun goes to sleep
behind a curtain of black sky,
I'll survive, I'll survive
Resist the pull to the other side.

-

Cats possess this thing
about their rears that they
flaunt with impunity

wielding it to express their
unique personal opinions
at the moment

uncurling outwards and
upwards and around then
back downwards

sweeping around table legs
swishing side to side and
then slipping underneath

towards no one
in particular

they sometimes will
form the shape of
the letter "C"
coil into a "S"
straighten to an "i"
or if startled, an "!"

but not a "Z",
never a "K"
and no "E"s,
definitely
not—

and certainly
not an "X"
unless two
stand end
to end

maybe four of them
can gather and
form a "W"

but given their nature,
would they not
question "Y"—
? ...


s jones
© 2008


.

moon pulls the traveller
along sea beds and tides
cloaked from adversity
in black ink disguise

an uncurling of limbs
leave us all in a trance
she moves with pure grace
in her hypnotic dance

amputations of limbs
embrace freedom in kind
regeneration of self
leaves old paths behind

is the way
you look at
me
only a function of the way
you hold your hands
there, in your lap
closed, slumping
closed?

if I closed mine
would yours suddenly open
uncurling
would they grasp and
catch
at the air, open?

mine is not the heart
of a flickering butterfly
or a candle in a howling wind
a fragile thing
and while it is tempestuous
arhythmic
it is not fragile

the heart is a muscle
it pumps
it is not a glass ornament
for you to peer at
on hours, afraid of shattering  
it, it is to be fed
with iron
with density
blood and touch
-and it cannot be
blocked up.
it will fail.

they're colliding —
coming together and dancing,
breathing with one another

their bodies, magnetic —
orbiting slower than photons
perceive us to be moving

— at the infinite speed of love —
spiraling into one another:

an interaction as primal
as celestial bodies taking shape —

...amorphous shimmers of light
frolicking on the surface of a happy lake
rippling in sync with its intentions...

From these throats come
undulating warmth, as misty as
the sighs of trees in the brisk morning —

wisps of transparent cotton,
lilting in the breeze —

motions uncurling into actuality

thoughts unfurling on the forest floor

...a fern reaches for a piece of the sky
dripping from the branches above —

tendrils of starscapes opening
as a book read by the wind...

a trillion crystal orbs —
suspended off the ground,
aglow with golden sunlight:

the presence welcome