That silence you hold around you like a mink
is just a stuffed head with loose teeth
meant to rattle on long voyages
if you had the guts to take them.
Do not go beyond, to that infernal
evocation where haunted,
camouflaged people trade real glass
for plastic and suck deeply on
the opiate pipe.
Stay here, pealing as we are, beneath onslaught
Et je fus plein alors de cette vérité
possessing real in hyssop, amaryllis and anise
you say it’s getting late, I say it’s still
early enough
people fall away like pealing clementines
at Christmas, tossing orange skirts on
low fire, see them eaten by flame, till
blackened over, their pride is absorbed.
You climb winding steps away, concertinaed
in your certainly we are ruled by time
reducing from me in sleep
tucking the parts of you filled with shame
like moths will beat and beat and beat
herself against electric light.
I cannot show you the tinder of my heart
convince you of my worth or your
premature funeral for us
lying next to you, as you curl outstretched from me
further into your onyx shell, you
learn to inhale holding your breath
underwater.
Would I were, more courageous I’d
pry your fury into edible squares, pick
them off one by one, scabs and
scars you press dearly, leaving marks
of harm against molested hope.
In our fight, we share an appetite
to return through time to a past
emptied of doubt and pain, if I
were able I’d take you there, a
reminder of solaces discovered in each
other’s dusk and shape birthing music
in forests, surely you remember?
How can it have wiped you clear
of trust? Of knowledge, in trying to
shut yourself, squeeze into a box
tie the string, send it anonymously,
some far place without me, will you
find yourself again, when you arrive?
A stranger to touch you as I once did, with
boldness, there are only so many times
before rejection builds walls, disbursing
bitterness like jasmine growing wild
will perfume even the smell of death.
Disguising ourselves as other people
we step from the ledge, falling into dishonesty
like the fools we become, scoring wood
with our determination to undo crimes
past, often brings empty places at the table
we are removed as we are staying still.
In your mind a stranger takes you violently
against a wall, on our bed, through this unlatched window
into sweet void, you fly clasping your climax
to yourself with embarrassment, for
there is only strangeness in the fantasy
of others, surely as they will sup on your
verge, claiming purity with a red arrow
now lost, now loosened from our fold.
I have called your name until my throat
is raw and scolded with rejoinder, you
are not coming home, she echoes, this body
no longer mine to behold, we are now
photos in a frame, gathering dust
for future inspection, or forgotten entirely
to be crushed beneath footfall
how can such intensity fade? And
turning a page, become no more than
whispers against encroaching sea
lending her wrath and depths to
flood, even the gentlest memory.
Ah, you in my arms, my fingers beneath
your back holding you close, we arc and
move together, inside each other, tongues
salted with exploration, urging for
summit, we climb as one, reaching
mountain top, viewing our world
douce maistresse touche, pour soulage mon ma
just to tumble, slow and sure, clasping
damp skin, sticky hair, hands entwined
the lure and melting red possession
and with one slam of insolent door
you are emptied of such tight intimacy
as if it were nothing less than
a skirt to be discarded. Left behind
worn and used, torn by prior
dance, now abandoned in
savage hollow, to turn no more
in softened movement
hitching up, riding against
my skin, your arms crying out for purchase
eclipsing each other in thrust and
joining, meeting only to burn, lost, lost then
do not go, do not change
yet in this sounding evocation
that is exactly
who we were together
no more, a fable
may-hap children
shall recall in
skipping to
some primal
chant made
insensible by
the drawing of
years in chalk
and pattern lost
to all but I.
The things we hide on the inside
TheFeatheredSleep 