I can lose you in the crowd-
I can lose you in a train of thought.
I can lose you to the errant sock
the wallet left on a table,
that last marble down the vent.
I can send you down the wrong path
send you packing-
send for your belongings.
Send you away.
I can deliver you safely.
Deliver you to the doorstep
Sign off on your delivery.
I can get carried away by you.
Carry your grudge.
Carry the weight of the relationship.
I can blow off to the westerly wind
Blow up, Low blow.
Blown away.
I can mark the days
The mark of the beast
market day and slip away.
But I can't remember how to not love you.
Can't remember how to stop hope.
How to turn off faith.
I can't remember how not to look for you
in the crowd-
how to not listen for your laugh or your key in the lock.
I could lose you-
but I could not ever resist you.
and that's really the thing about it, isn't it?
Only one of these sentences matters.
Just one.

He lies next to me in the big red bed,
hair in patches
and smooth in circles.
An elbow propped that holds up his head
as he gazes and traces
the letters of the alphabet on my
places of the universe.
And he sighs deeply
as he throws down his head
as if to say,
Giving up. I'm giving up on this
and I think,
On us? Or just giving in-
but I don't say
because the conversation is the
most beautiful I ever heard.
-And the man wiggles and flops
like a child
with energy coursing out of his fingertips.
He loves me.
Such a simple act.
Love is such a simple act.
Hate he says, takes 'energy he don't have'-
and like is just warmed up soup.
'Love is easy, mother girl
love is easy... be easy back.'
In the big red bed, I trace the veins in his arms
to see where they'll lead me.
They never led me where I expected them to go.
it's Sunday, in this big old bed.
'The sun's up, gonna go to church
and pray for sins of the moon.
We'll just stay in these hot red sheets and pray right there.
might make more-'
And he says with a snakes slow rhythm,
'It's Sunday,
everybody knows Sundays were made for redeeming.'
Sunday-
and there is quiet throughout the house.
Sunday-
and the world left us for just these few.
See that beautiful color?
Umm hmm.
We are up to the good things,
the touching things- the things we need to be forgiving for.
We are up to things that shut off the world
And we swim in these sheets
and we become red.

sahn 3/29/15

Destroy me.
Take what you can from the middle.
Take that golden yellow moon-
that sherbert sunset in the center of how I exist,
**** it, take it!
And Stubbornly I'll be.
When all that is left is bones for the jackal to
satiate on
when all that is heard is bubbles popping
and the jaw creaking
from
the overuse of what was inside me-
When that dark and silken predator
lies lazy on it's back
with my contents fuming in its distention...
destroy me, do.
***** my remains
with huge heaving gusts of your gluttony.
Because you will.
Because I am too heavy to carry, I am too light to settle.
Oh, yes I'll be your posion,
and into every cell I will invade
marching with my army, marching with my anger
I will wiggle in your ear and chew through the pictures in your mind,
eating at the corners of everyone you covet most.
I'll call you in a singsong voice that does not end.
In every room you'll look to hear-
in every corner your try to hide from it.
I will flood your soul with my wrongdoings so you
carry mine as well as yours.
Yes, destroy me-
dust.
And you will perish from my digestion
and you will carry my heavy sins.
Oh, what is left? What is left?
Just the eternal weight of light
and you cannot eat that,
On light you can feast
but not thrive.
It will not still the noise
of the rotting wood
that sits solid and solitary
in the place
where someone stole
your exclusive rights
to feel
joy.


Sahn 3/26/2015

I am angry in the way that
bubbles in champagne
rocket towards air.
I am pretty-
in that beige and golden way.
That heat paints my face,
Scolds my cheeks-
like an iron to the crispest collar
of a well-dressed man.
And I am virile in the hot.
Lovely reds and pinks and
eyes that catch-
LaCross nets that
will not meet your gaze
lest you see the squall
I work so hard to hide.
I am breathless with my rage,
and oh, so beautiful! Finally.
In my pain,
I am dry and fragile
brittle leaves crunching underfoot,
the salt left careless by the sea.
Nothing grows in me-
nothing grows in me.
I am dead sea
and beauty floats boastful where
love cannot swim.
For I carry this grief
in the way a river stone
bears the weight of the rushing water.
The lovely
and the ruthless.
The heinous
and the clean....
the very worst of me
is the prettiest to see...
Naked before the judges table
I have no shame.
"Such a pity", they'll say.
"Such a beautiful girl,
all that anger in such a beautiful girl."

Sahn
3/24/15

I stretch, and stretch
up towards a place where my head is far
further above so
that I cannot hear the jet engine of your words.
I hear my bones creak
with the effort to get
away from the pollution
of your coal train ramming me.
I hear only my body
cracking like spring ice
as I rise, rise -
rise above your noise toxins
that settle like limp and sodden cardboard crowns
worn about your tortured head.
High above your hollow community
above your entitlement park,  
above your tiny-
tinny voice.
I hear it. Your hateful sounds like poultry jibber
so far down in
atmospheres
below.
I laugh to hear your wordless squawl!
I stretch but  now to bend
and see you
beneath my squishy toes.
Bend at the waist
to see who's nipping at my ankles
and I cry a tear of mirth.
A white rapid that
whisks your bitter apple groove
far away.
I stretch you gone.
I stretch you indifferent.
I grow myself pardoned, I grow my self free.

sahn
2/15/15

Rotted soul of good intention,
mine is an apple core
on an old black road
in a holy heat.
Sinner, slow down!
Sinner stop your dancing
and start praying
for your people
-mmmyes-
that they start praying
for you
child.
'Cause it's gonna take a churchyard full
of bake sales,
mmmhmm
and it's gonna take a winter full of galoshes by the church door
whoowee,
it's gonna take a village to save you, child.
Heathen, pull your skirt down!
stop them hips swaying left, slooow,
swaying right, sloooow
as you walk down that dirt road kicking up dust
like you was a young colt running.
Oh it's gonna take a lot saving,
Yessum, it's gonna take a lake a dunking...
Oh but Lord! It's gonna take a lot of praying,
Hallelujah, gonna need a lot of rosaries
to save your eternal life, girl
I am as rotten as a pit of peach,
dried and without yield. no value, no good.
Child, it's gonna take a revival to save this soul.
Mama, start that revival and save your babies soul.


sahn
2/6/15

it's so perfect.
so divine.
inside she finds
that safe place and
like
a marble is blue
like a gesture
is small
like yeast must rise-
like the cat's eye,
paw at you.
because
as the cat waits
with the sunbeam she plays.
the tea
and the teacup-
exquisitely she waits.
she waits.
empty she will.
so
deny
still
exquisitely
majestically  
instinctively she waits.
on her own bone china
pretty little fragile
thing
on her own
she waits,
exquisitely she waits.


sahn
12/4/14

I have climbed 300 steps
and sat beside the butchers pets.
I have etched in marble stone
and rose in blankets made of bones.
I have danced with withered ******
and laughed with sinning pirate bores
I have taken flights of mind
marched in armies of mankind.
I have burned the church yard down
danced on every hot red mound
and dug out wells with pails of red
and to the children gave ****** bread.
I watched the sea swell with delight
Gave hope to those with endless night
I grieve by every paupers grave
like lovers tears for the newly saved.
I have sold off squares of skies
to melt them off in poisoned pies.
I have squander endless gold
from rich men's purse that I've cajoled
And I will drink my whiskey straight
and make a list of what I hate.
I will jump off areoplanes
crashing through cathedral panes
And I will topple endless trees
upset the nest of surly bees.
And if you don't contain my spill
keep your promise in good will
For I am simply lost at sea
waiting that you come for me.
For I am simply biding time
waiting for that love of mine.*

sahn 9/9/2014

I saw a man who was buying time
with the last of his pennies in a threadbare coat.
He whispered to me on the train that we caught
that a love that will waste, is one caught in one's throat.


sahn 11/9/14