Saturday, August 13, 2011

Moon-tides


It was on this day that your Lord had made
that I reclaimed my tender mystery. My destiny
shook beneath me, settled itself between
each of your folds, shattering against the shore
as a collective sigh, one wave. And to think
you thought you were something
without me. To think
of a lover’s stroll along the coast
without the clamoring voice that I gave you,
of the angry release you inflict upon the earth
until I strip your high tide away.

I do it all with a whisper, what you attempt
in Triton’s scream. To dance our waltz
you chase the curvature of my hip,
navigate each intricate step through
desperate fingers in my hair. You take pride
in this slavery, swell with joy as the corners
of my mouth soften, a smile to break
the barrier between earth and sky –

my permission that molds us to one. So
with clasped hands, intertwined, with the hunger
of fiends – your sea foam illumed by my Luna’s light,
my moon, ever brighter, because it’s touched you.

But be wary, my seamen, when the smile fades,
when the moon woman wanes, retreats to her sky.
Be wary when I fade for your new stillness
will haunt you, left alone to your devices, nothing
in my wake.

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Le Premier

in the iron, we are clad
we were won by something mad
that drinks fools empty. in the earth
in the fire, in the wind, that
sweet, sweet water
we are still what we once were. in the

moments that I find you,
when I sink, dissolve inside you
i am breathing for
your name. but my wind
it cannot reach inside the part
of you that preaches
false desire

i can pick us up as ghosts
who left their entrails in the hallway
where i met you. i’ll show
the heart of every haunting
the beating of the drum
pounds soft inside you. but when

i crawl back in your bed, hold
your head between my hands
i’ll know i’m holding something less
than the man who reached inside me
grabbed my lungs and eyes to blind me
and ripped my air straight from
my chest. if you see me

softly ringing the bell that sculpts each
wasted second in your memory
get on your knees, say your hail mary’s
pray that i’ll still be here standing
in the ruins of our love. that love

erupted life inside me, built a fortress
from thin air, put the poetry in the words
that i once spoke, and as I stand
here stone in stone weezing heart
and broken bone i can’t help but think
that you might be the one.

Saturday, January 8, 2011

The Lover of a Ghost



I’m the lover of a ghost swallowed
by Arachne’s famished aspirations,

by her beguiling professions, her
ever-soft asphyxiation
her sweet gossamer grip, the shackles
seeking love requited. I have

heard his faded testimony, I have seen
him take the choke. I fell upon him
with my midnight veil, and in the center
stood my eye— waxing, approaching full

bleeding out my soul’s conviction.
And in my lightness shone his chains—
his spider’s art, her labyrinth web
and spoke the moon to a dying man,
“I promise to help you live.”

He begged for me to wane, he pushed me
through the velvet night. He almost loved
Arachne’s bites and chains, sweet throbs
of fruitless guarantee.

Yet I’m the lover of a ghost who spins
his own web of indecision, I’m the lover
of a man who can save anyone but
himself.