Breathless

I can't help but to imagine your face.
I start at the tip of just one hair on your head,
and that is about as far as I ever get.
I try to conjure the taste of your breath;
but I get stuck at the word 'taste,'
I talk about the meaning of 'you' for ten minutes
and by the time I get to the last word
my mouth has forgotten how to breathe.
I said the "taste" of "your" "breath". Without your breath
I could not taste a thing, without your taste
on my lips, I could not take a breath,
all taste is yours, the taste of the tasteless,
without 'your', there is no life, no eye
can discern the veils of the word 'you,'
else the mirror and its reflection would be one.
Because of 'you' there is no me, only the aftertaste
of that first mortal kiss, and that first breath
after the beautiful death of a world without mirrors.
In the broken corner of this intersection between you and I
I am dying for a 'taste of your breath.' Let me die,
and remember the 'your' before 'breath' is deathless
Let me die, and become the breath of the breathless.

We're all the 1%

We think ourselves higher than all else

yet we don't have the patience of trees,

or the loyalty of a dog.

We don't have the mercy of water

or the tolerance of great spaces,

we don't have the freedom of the wind,

in our greed, we try to hoard the sun

and confine the stars to our prisons. 

*****

All this talk of who's the 99% who's the 1%

I'm tired of playing the blame game and
getting up on toy horses and pointing fingers

when we are barely the Earth's 1% 

confessions p 13

These tears are not my own
randomly shed dreamscapes
passed down the hands of time
bleeding into my pores.
Strangers begging audience
they're flooding profusely
over my clutching hands
believing me into unbelief
stripping me of every absolute.

To whom it may concern

I owe every word
to anyone who ever played a part in my life, near or far
every emblem of pain or symbol of beauty
every fire that burned me to life
every cold wind that will one day help me die
and to every traveler on this journey of the heart.

a sneaking suspicion

I have a sneaking suspicion:
that when we move the stars watch with envy
 that this moment is timeless, and hence eternal
  and that we are all on a pilgrimage.
I have a sneaking suspicion:
 that there is an ocean inside every one of us
  that there is a potential supernova within our breasts
   and love, and love!
I'm not talking about the excuse of the word
that we package n sprinkle with a bit of affection
to ration out with so many strings attached-
and the fine print! oh the fine print.
No. I'm talking about that complete consummation
which leaves no room for the consideration of self.
And the eventual eruption of that dormant volcano      
that makes you want to stab through your own chest
so the fountain of your torn heart may write in blood
that poem which no pen can write!

confessions p 12

I'm hanging on to the bottom rungs of this ladder
like everything depends on it
as if I want to be alone among the stars
as if their cold light could warm my belly.
Fuck reaching for the stars
I'd rather know the constellations that shine
in the dark sky of my own heart.

the alchemy of tears and dreams

Some days I leave these pages blank
but when I hear the passage of seasons
whispering of setting suns
and I remember that I have
only this moment
then I am so overwhelmed
with what I have to say
that I can speak only in tears.
I live to turn these tears to words
to give them expression.
I am a drop, a trickle
a splash in a stream
singing in praise of the sea.

the walk home

I land on the middle of my feet
gripping the dew drenched grass
with toes bent, tendons taut.
Heels drive downward
clenching at the knee, calves
quads and glutes flexing and firing off.
Every step is a surging thrust
as my hips work furious, legs a flash.

The overnight moisture on the green stretch
kisses the dirt off my bare feet.
The odd protest of a thorned bramble
is crushed beneath the callouses of my soles.
One arm holds firm a laptop bag
strapped and creaking to my right
as the other pumps piston-like
reaching forward and stroking back
with the blade of an open hand
as though through water.

The dress pants rolled up over my ankles
whisper swish swish, faster and faster
as the terrain changes
and thirsty asphalt soaks up
the damp memory of my footprints
left behind like nostalgic notes of a former lover.
My heart beats on a countdown
ticking faster and faster
like a caged bird fluttering its wings
maddened by whispered promises of freedom
in the taste of distant winds.

For an instant, I see the card board cut out
of a passenger on a bus driving by.
I barely notice
weaving in and out of dark shadows
cast by the overflowing fullness of the moon
peering like a pale Apollo through a rippled film of cloud.
As the moon's pocked and pitted face
reflects the terrible serenity of the sun's rays
so too is a refraction of that light
glimpsed upon the mirror of the clouds
and as they catch the Sun's gaze
the whole mass-like threadbare cotton
bursts through with pearls of color
perforated with metallic hues of purples and blues
like a dark rainbow iris around the moon's dilated pupil.

Mirror upon mirror
the sun gazes upon the moon
the clouds gaze upon the earth
each deafening in their promises to one another.
As I hurtle toward the silence
trying to outrun the echo of old oaths

***

to be cont'd

Watch me

The hairs on my body start to rise
as I feel at first what can only be described
as a low thrumming vibration
and then a discernible rush of blood
to my head, chest and hands.
Face heating, eyes blurring
the muscles in my scalp contract
my whole body stands on end
and I feel like the Universe is watching me.
The night sky bares Her soul,
and between the stars
I see the questioning arch of Her brow
the unflinching mirror of Her gaze
both whispering a challenge
saying:

Show me! 
Let me taste the breath from your breast! Let me see what lies inside your chest!
Is that a heart on a countdown, less alive with every beat?
Or a ticking time bomb--waiting to go off and burst through the prison of your shell and explode out through your lips, hands, and feet--every time you hear a sound that reminds you that you are alive?!
and I whisper back
"...Watch me"

Break your vows of love

If your eyes say yes
I will become less and less until I disappear from myself
I will die to myself and that broken basement of regrets.

If your eyes say yes
I will tear my heart out my chest
I will forfeit my king-piece in this cosmic game of chess
I will love them no less that you have left me so blessed
And before I return this body's lease, I will ask for wings from my dreams
To fly my soul to that final destination before death takes me there senseless

If Your eyes only say yes
The four cardinal directions I will bend
Until the past of the East merges with future of the West

If Your eyes only say yes
I will cut out the pattern of the constellations on my breast
Until the stars themselves in my hollow spaces coalesce.
I will go back in time to assassinate the past and pre-emptively kill the future
So there will be nothing but the present left.
I will trample Time and stamp on Space's head.

If Your eyes only say yes
All of this, one day, one day, I will contest
Because today I am compelled to confess
That it is only Man who can leave himself dispossessed
From that which even the stars haven't been blessed.

You see, Love and choice were never made for the mountains, oceans or heavens
Love and choice were never made for even the angels to invest.

...But tell me, truly, dear wonder of the universe:
How can something borrowed love another like itself?

I am a temporary flux--the smallest vibration of a red blood cell
Coursing through the human veins of god.
Everything about me is conditional!
I did not say "Be!" and simply decide to exist.
My every moment is borrowed
Even the intangible between my heart and mind are on lease to me.

How can I make any of these borrowed parts the object of undying Love?
How can I make a vow of Love under the temporary roof of this halfway home?

Are you beginning to see why the ultimate goal of our Love cannot be one another?
We are borrowed beings and we owe ourselves to Life.
We are receptacles for Her blessings.
All of us, in all our differences are Her children.

So you see, I can not give you my heart
It is not mine to give away, and neither can I accept yours
Because our hearts--those mirrors of light
Ultimately only belong to the source of all Light.

Come, throw off those chains around your ribcage
Stop making a gift of your alchemist's stone
To the Earth's passing travelers.
Come, unveil your heart
For a jewel is still a jewel
Even if it is wrapped in the rags of mortality
And auctioned in the marketplace of yesterday's desires and tomorrow's demands.
Come! let us leave this throng of clinging hands!

Let us burn through the frozen shores of our half-loves
And sail past this bay of endings forever born!
Let us stay up all night just to tell the Dawn
That we remember our birth among the stars!
With hearts broken open, let us turn to the sky
And reflect those rays until we flood over with light
So that we just might be like the Sun for one another
Even if it is just for one moment.

untitled

I could stand here
and tell you everything about myself
I could tell you
that I am a child of the revolution.
That I have lived
through both religious and material ideology.
That I was born on the longest night of the year
and that to this day
I spend almost every hour of the night awake.
I could tell you
what keeps me up at night.
We could talk of love stories
that put the ink on paper to shame.
I could tell you how the night
is secretly an alchemist
how She turns my tears
into pearls of laughter.
But how will you really know
what drives me?
Or what lies at the heart of my heart?

We see the world as we are

and so I ask
Where is one who has the being, the presence
to see beyond their self? 
Where is one who can close his/her eyes
and see things as they are?
Where are those remnants of stardust, shining
and watching the sea of the universe
without so much as a judging glance or lingering gaze?

confessions p. 11

I don't come to these pages
to write poetry, or any such thing.
And yet, sometimes my words
seem so strange and familiar to myself
in a way only a poem could describe.
I come back to this pen and paper
to reclaim my sanity
which is itself an act of insanity
in the confines of this language.
In reality, I come back to discover a new language
so I can go out and use it in the world.
I come back
through the late hours of the night
bouncing thoughts off the wall facing me
building up the muster to ask
what I am too afraid or busy to ask during the day
and in the company of others.
Sometimes I am transported by a flitting face
in a wave of memory. Sometimes
I see the spiderwebs of my intentions.
Some nights my heartstrings are unloosened
others, they are fine tuned
for the impossible harmony of beauty.
The night is always my confidante.
She is the keeper of my hearts' secrets.
She is my unforgiving mirror.
She knows my words so well
I can only speak to her in haiku poetry.
I whisper to her, yell at myself
and sometimes she reminds me to laugh
and I do, until the sky shakes
and the stars become blurred streaks.