Weather vane

Before they laid bricks on her and called her a place

not a thing of flesh and light

before she lost her ability to mimic cat

and jump unheard

out of open windows

before her arms lost their ache to

live unbridled unburdened in

the clear surround

of joy

she was a light footed creature

listening to no scold

obedient to no rule

her father called her willful

her mother, spirited

her grandmother covered her face with faux shame

though she hid a smile

cousins were told to mind themselves

around her urging sprint

lest she rub off

some of her mercury

some of her wild saffron

the thing compelling her shine

when all seemed still and lifeless

a hurtling progress to wholeness

they forecast her early demise

said nothing, nobody could subsist

as fevered as her run

Zola Bud without shoes

temerity pulling her strings

as if puppetmasters were sea sprites

fashioning their dreams on tierra

with undomesticated weather vane

bound tight to wildest storm

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Untouchable

l.

I slept though I did not sleep

onboard the memory of you

wrapped around my legs

entwined we touched, we did things

in real life we would not

like thirsty vines found purchase

I wake hot with a sore-throat

for calling you in dream

you stay just far enough away to be

exquisite, painful

still, you are with me

all throughout this fatigued day

my hair matted with thought of your voice, your mouth

heart faster for desire unspoken

recollections like film reel

thin wrists, strong arms, long neck

slender back of an archer sending her arrow

colt legs as brown as sundown eclipsing

autumn leaves

the bedroom lure of your perfumed eyes

I saw it years ago and it pierced me

as keenly as a real knife might

cut through something willing and laid it open

to conquest

I said nothing then,

my tongue in my mouth

longing to taste yours

stays quiet, stays quiet, stays quiet

for to break the spell

is to wake.

ll.

If magnolia trees did not take an eternity

to bloom

I’d plant one and plant you

watching your volumineuse petals

open and fracture

my thirsting heart

with your uncertain entreaty

I lie awake at night

unable to breathe, to sleep, to be still

able only to replay

the expressions of your face

with such easy unconscious grace

my cheeks burn from laughing

smiling, it is as if

a new sun was born in the softness of your hair

one in which I felt desire

something hidden in dark too long

my hands tied, I sit in a high backed

chair sipping my penance, my lack of ability

to ever be close to your ideal

for I have never competed and I will not

share you with all the others

trying not to be noticed when I glance

again and again, at your smooth legs and arms

why weren’t you mine all along?

I had thought so then and now

wordless, I did nothing

for you are made of crystal

catching all colors

my prism is just one

I will the rain to come

drench us both, obliterate sound

words I would say if I could,

if I could

if I could

silenced, in downpour

I walk away

I stay, watching you

until you are the storm in my eyes

or tears, growing their want

ever, untouchable.

This dance is for the dead

Would that you would stay

would that you were ever mine

would that you knew how

you strip and stir those tender passions

sterile of any other life

I am blackened with desire for you

I am white with inordinate stifle

see the end of the bottle how it glistens?

With promise and her velvet touch she

summons,

turn to me, burn with me, set me alight

leave me wrecked on your shore, blistering

this is why I breathe, to end in your gaze

this is why I ache, to imagine just a glance

this is why I die, to lose you without ever

having

there’s the rest and there’s one girl

she’s a woman, she’s rage, she’s not gentle

she can’t be caged or capitulated

the stroke of her fingers on metal

she’s tearing you up with her untouchable ways

ruining others, for they seem tame

comparison is the enemy of the weak

she laughs at your charade, your belief

she’ll ever want a thing from you, nothing

further could be true, she’s so far removed

reach for her, she’ll bite you in half

try to be tender, she’ll laugh in your face

howling another’s name just for sport

indifference is her game, she’ll toss you

aside before she’s arrived with your petty

longings and your wounded heart

she’s little and she’s huge, she’s magnification

and cruelty and searing everlasting beauty

I imagine lying next to her and it’s a joke

the nearest I could get would be a parallel universe

made of pins and needles, volcanoes and tsunami

your beauty is a storm of urges unspent

my secrets just flowers of passion unsung

feeling your way in the dark is your favorite dance

you’re roaring in your sleep and breaking the sound barrier

you compete for breakfast and throw the weak over

for the sharks

there’s nothing between us except everything

even if I were not myself, I could not be close to you

you abhor connection, you loathe obsession

fearless you parody their love of you

with mocking abandon like a ballerina

needing no shoes

you write songs with the pen of a bloody mad woman

you tattoo desire into my chest with sharp knives

thrown from a mountain

all the while not knowing what you do

for I do not exist and neither does time

it can harp and beat for a hundred years and I wouldn’t run out

of want, just the means, just the methods

just one time, just in a dream, just fantasize

shut your eyes, turn off the light, stand still, run

your voice over broken connection

nimble fingers strumming a line

from another time, one where you give me

one moment, I stand behind you, watching

the shape of your conquer

chaos in the surge of everything

anger, rage, beauty, madness

you can move someone without touching

you can devastate someone without speaking

no injury and it hurts worse than breaking

egotism in a glass vase to be shattered

where we go, nobody will know

children of night, children of satiation

I heard you sing in the past when I didn’t know

names and places, people and feelings

I was a dead thing dancing to numb haunt

you stepped toward me and I saw you

a dervish in halo, a god within a devil

nothing else, the crowd cleared, it was only you

so sure, so dark eyed, with your torture

curling me around your laugh like a rocket

I burned and drank it down and the flames

made me golden

plug me in, I spin on electric want without power

you stop and start, you shout, you demand

you scream at the complacency and kick the rulers

I am a dead star above your night, I am

the person you were before you were born

I inhabit your meaning like a false note

there is only nothing and nothing comes with

a voice until you speak

into my freeway, driving at 100 mph on

drowning streets, they cry for your attention, you

giggle in irreverence

no fault of yours the whole world adores

someone who cannot be won, or succumb

to usual rules, to anyone’s need, it’s always been

about you, about you, about you

i’m happy here, stretched on your rack

beginning to enjoy poison and its benefits

for we make aches out of wants and wants

never cut too deep, they die as they are

absorbed into daylight, scars making scars

you are the eternal night you pull me in

I struggle against your tide, you want to drown me

with your sharp loveliness

it’s your control, it’s what you know

you have the bravado of a broken angel

words leave me struck through with arrows

secrets are best left buried

dig me up, let me whisper, I would say

it’s always ever been you

say it once and I drop to my knees

I was told it was wrong to worship

I was told it was wrong to believe in

perfection or need

you open your red mouth

i’m watching, I’m writhing

how are you still moving? Didn’t you

die? Didn’t you stop breathing?

Turning in betrayal, you can

only betray when it matters

nothing matters to girls made of stone

they sing to the siren and the siren

blesses them

this dance is for the dead

desire so long it’s bent double

it hurts to enter the temple

you burn me every time you don’t notice

but that’s your way

that’s who you have always been

untouchable

untouchable

untouchable

 

For you are

In simmering evening glow

beheld in jewel

moon, its pearlescent oval

hushes barking day

quiet.

For you are

held in my long hand

a heart engraved

rapture slavishly wound

about my making

as roses grow

thick in fragrance

nearer their petals

touch.

For you are

a sound etched in dark

slung over time, carried far

played years later

still we hear

the raw crocus

of your emergence

from stillness.

In unfolded stymen

this pollen we bequeath

each other

wordlessly with

oiled grace

are songs

unsung by

felted lovers.

For you are

my undoing

this life rented out

if you, indigo bird

solace in sweet brine

did not exist

nothing bearable

should survive.

In the marbled cave of our

entreaty, we

pour together till

stiff with purpose

a stalagmite to

behold the

ambering of

our union.

For you are

without comparison

touching that center

blazing and forgotten

sweeping landscape where

birds fill low trees with

their heavy cries

I catch my own voice

beneath your

urging form, we

merge together

softness a dream

to float upon.

In all the days spent

making sense of emptiness

the curve of your jaw

meeting high cheeks

eyes darker than ink

nothing replaced this

urgency to never

leave your side.

For you are

tasted between

consuming sweetness

against

the mellow fruiting

of

my

only

love.

Auction

Our love

is a silent auction

I raise my hand

and bid

on the deep of your brown eyes

falling each time

we piroet about the other

orbiting stars catching up

for the lifetime we spent apart

I cannot get closer

though each time, I try anew

to become the parts that are not me

when you are absent

my world dims as if cateracts

attach instantly

robbing me of clarity

out of focus

I can stand the temperature

of this betrayed land

the sorrow she buries

beneath each leaden day

If you continue to exist

grace me once or often

with the warmth of your regard

you see, I am born to live

only by your word

and when you put me out and say

make your own way now girl

I turn to filament, to pencil lead

crushed beneath the dismissal

fade away

only seen

by your gaze

waking me from loss

bringing life in your gaze

like a black cat

stalking gently

convinced the game

of hunter and prey

is beautiful

Closed curtains in day time

The dust of you is still impregnated in my palm

I run you through my hair, over my cheeks, down

my neck, between my rising breasts

like washing without water

our hair pressed into the sheets as you

pushed me deeper with your own weight

our magnetism inflaming the very air

your scent is my obsession

carried in my skin like rare perfume

only you possess

I hold you after you are gone

in a thousand ways

words have never touched you

in the darkness when I say

the silhouette of you drives me wild

I do not have fingers enough to

press into your skin and leave my

indent of love

you smile a weary smile, for you are

already thinking of other things

and I am only building desire to

a higher pitch

as if tasting you once sets me aflame

and I burn again and again

with the memory

lighting the way to never ceasing

if there were a hundred years

I’d still be aching for your touch

my thirst

never sate

a need to climb inside you

and fuse into one

reaching across

where you lay

the outline still visible

in the weak light coming through

closed curtains in day time

 

Is this you?

Is it you?

the girl who knows lustful eyes are on her back

is it you?

talking to your female friends

when a man enters

you reveal your choice every time

the man comes first

women only afterward

is it you?

thinking they don’t notice

when your eyes drift

from female conversation

to a man’s deeper tone

as if attention were garnered toward

the male of the species alone

don’t you see? you put down women

with every favor you give a man over

she

and whilst you may say

no that’s not true I am an equal opportunist

an observer will note

the change and variance of your attention 

you are a creature of men

owned by their regard

choosing them first in every scenario

sadly undermining

the worth of women

it is surely what lets us down most

the value we place on each other

being less than the other gender

call me an old embittered dyke

biased in her choice

if you need to

but truth speaks

louder than worship

and I must ask

is this you?

It’s a girl

You try to convince yourself

but the only person who believes you

is you

with your hands in the warm water of the sink

faraway you hear the sound of dishes being washed

see a woman standing straight backed

her toes inverted

she’s staring out into the night garden

wondering why she believes herself

when everyone else can see she’s a fraud

a pretence

someone who subsists on delusions

like age doesn’t matter and

success isn’t measured by attainment

her thin veined hands

busy with pots and pans

to keep from stillness striking her dumb

 

behold her truth

she has gone through life with her mouth sewn

tied into knots of her own doing

and a few given her at birth

when they lifted her out into the stale city air

and said

well I see that

it’s a girl

SHE

She has not answered the door in many years

even when she had a door

even when there was a bell to ring

or wood to pound

she recalls once

feeling as if it were only herself

and the world

miming in pirouette masks back and forth

echoing on either side of a shard of glass

and she cut out that feeling with thin lines

blossoming under the bath

bubbling their way into unconsciousness

until lifted from reddening closure

she could not recognize afterward

thin on blood and holy water

her face in the hallway mirror

though she saw how badly the brass frame

needed polishing

perhaps if I smooth the glass

it will show me as I feel

not the scars and the fear

dancing across with pointed shoes

every year she remained patent

underneath the mossy dander

listening for the interupted caller

watching herself grow in reduction

a vile experiment in self exile

once a color, become ash in circles

for her tongue to lap

words left beneath earth

chanting dieties

and her child

was in a bottle set out to sea

playing mahogany violin

that could be captured by

circling satelites looking

much like stars

 

 

The loveliness of her

Coffee percolates

hot gurgle to wake the fog

her long limbs against purple

her abundant hair tracing to her waist

she stirs

I see

in that very little time

the reason we are

slaves