Will

Does the wood pigeon know?

when he calls his coo into the night

the cats who stalk will slink toward

the smell of blood and feathers

as I have gathered myself into quills

and spices sealed in alabaster jar

the sum of me is traveled

through moon and sun

like a cut orange leaves her

stain on wood, sticky and bitter

as your imprint has become

my mandala and the furtherance of us

defies life and death

shaking itself off like a dog released from bath

will hurtle, maddened, toward nearest escape

I grew my vines in your wood

my embers are your fire

this melange of you and I

twined like grapes gathering sunlight

before first frost

and the women take in the clothes, hanging on frozen line

even as they capture the day’s warmth

you stretch in this paper thin life time

sew the jagged edges of my need

with your ivory needle

as if we were part of the same

garment

held up

by

sheer

force of

will

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Big Sur

This is about you

about your long-legged stride and the way you shield your eyes

too light for the orange center of Californian sun

This is about you

it is called; Sorry I don’t see you every day because

if I did I think I wouldn’t care that we both burn

or our former rules and preferences

they were just defenses against the unknown anyway

what really counts, like you say in that dogmatic

tone I find so worldly; The soul it’s all about the soul

of course you are right

and not because you have lived 5 life times

and here’s where you correct me and say darling;

it’s eight incantations thus far

and you put on my accent and make me laugh

as the bog gnaws the bone that came by Amazon

along with my book and if I could

climb into that box and send myself

the version you see

not my own diminished copy

who forgot how to laugh until she ached

I surely would and we’d

buy a Streamliner like you said

hitch it to my track and

take Highway 1 past Carmel

you talking of Hunter S. Thompson

and Henry Miller

me remembering how Anais Nin

wrote; “We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.”

How true, you reply

this is why you and I met

so you could learn to appreciate

the love of mountains and that stillness

in the sea when the sun begins to set

spreading her fingers across diminishing light

like a lover

and by an old cantina we drink

vintage cocktails from a hot water bottle like Some Like It Hot

as fireflies lay thoughts in the air

just as you

self-assured and possessed with a quietude

I find magnetic

roll up your shirt sleeves and

penetrate my hesitation

with your certainty

there is a film reel in my head of us

you’re watching me sleep against the car window

chinks of light hitting my cheeks like

bursts of fire

I’m pretending with eyes closed to dream

wanting you to take

that last distance between us

like the 13 Beaches Lana Del Ray sings of

low and throaty on thirsty radio

as if we were in Patsy Cline country

except we both hate anything

reminding us of then

we’ll make our own now

in the placement of moments

your eyes a question

my mouth an answer

and the photograph of Sandy

staring out against sunlight

her impossibly beautiful breasts

the languid tongue of her Lurcher

imagining his sleep with sun warmed fur

what was she thinking?

all nude and lovely and how do

people born of ordinary circumstance

inhabit her shore

and find their own

abandon in the dunes?

You say you know the answer

just as you seem to know

my making and my depths

and I cleave to you

as the rock erodes against sea

carving greater beauty in

wild grass taking up what was once

submerged

perhaps you are silver

in darkness and your touch

fills me with the laughter

I held underwater these

many years

waiting for an explorer

someone unafraid of

great depths

to find the way

to Big Sur