He Walks on the Banks

He walks on the banks of a book
and gauges her shallowness -
kept from her flow and stalling all music,
he sits his eyes on the surface
and dreams of a thirst he doesn't feel.

The river gravitates to dark recesses 
and shrinks into a memory of life -
he drinks this memory and dreams of desire.

And Tonight

And tonight he would take a poem to bed -
remove his glasses and let her be blurred -
he'd trace her with his fingers and she'd shed 
her form, her meanings, all titles conferred.

And tonight he would read her with his lip,
turning her being into a warm whisper.
And tonight he would all the darkness sip,
leading himself to the light that is her.

The wind will be hitting the windows and
Time would stand holding a golden lantern -
and tonight he would his existence hand
to a poem to forget himself and learn.

And tonight he would take a poem to bed,
listen as he speaks the forever unsaid.

Hymn, Him

Hymn, him -
a brocade of dryness
on lips hit with a song
that sunk into the gut,
wasn't sung.

A river of light
leapt into life,
coiled a snake
around my eyes -
I read the hymn,
him.

An anklet, a sore -
he held me an oar;
my trance, a spoonful
of music and pain.
Every time I part the waters,
I remember him.

Scrape me into sand,
drape the wind around me -
aboard the air, I'd recite
him.

A Taller Shadow

Drenched in the dryness
of autumn leaves,
consumed by the crackling
of their silence underneath -
a faithless fable, a fence,
I am led to nothing
but 'nothing'.

What do I miss?
Where do I go?
I've always been the wire
they tow.

Barren, brown, the bounty of woe - 
I've always been the line
they tow.

A sea of stems that beckons 
neither life nor death -
my breath is short, I grow

a taller shadow.

A Night Without Stars

Bland recipe,
a night without stars -
my fate dangles in a gray cobweb;
the wind beyond the bars,
bloats its grayness,
emaciates it -
nothing twinkles,
nothing spars 
with what is sparse...
A night without stars,
a night without stars.

Toxic

An exotic toxic,
he slips like midnight blue
down the coarse throat
of a virgin night.

He taints her rawness
with a meaning he later disowns -
all she remembers are broken chords,
shocked strings of music
and his seething blues,
that are now hers.

She weaves then 
an unending garland -
the flowers fade into a morning.

The Dream Was About Us

The moon was a bomb that did not explode,
the night was a smoke cloud that I exhaled.
The dream was about us, and I was told
that we were still in a love that had failed.

You left some stars for the morning birds
to nibble at when the pink had paled.
And I drew a trail of pretty words,
for you to follow whenever you wailed.

I heard your thoughts trot towards the dark pit;
I smelt your deadness on a dress that sailed
a shroud on my soul, a flag that hit
the winds as they gasped and the love they failed.

The dream was about us, and I was told
that we were still in a love we couldn't hold.

You Are Seeing It

Darling, I bank on the gold in your heart
and I sail on the light that you reflect.
Baby, award me a meaning, I'd start
being it.

Meaning.

Darling, I sink in the absence of time 
and I roll on the sleeves of this breeze.
I feel so much in love I think that I'm
being it.

You're seeing it.

Darling, I slip into a hiccup that
drowns every echo of our past.
Baby, throw me a memory, I'd catch -
bring it!

Let's sing it.

There's the maple that has our names etched
on it,
and there's a footprint that says we'd
done it.

Darling, I bank on the momentary eternity -
I love you and you

are seeing it.

Are seeing it.

A Child I Could Abandon

I wanted a child I could abandon,
a flame I could freeze into a dried leaf...
light I could strip off my skin and run
like a stream of pain in a sea of grief?

I wanted to follow a star I could
forget when my eyes gave in to sleep -
I wanted to spill echoes in a wood,
then drown it into a silence deep.

I wished to write off the cancer of love
a beat at a time or a lazy slip
down the murky alley of thoughts, above
the hell of my purple, shivering lip.

The needle of existence was hollow -
it pursued a soul it could not swallow.

Hit and How

Listening to you from the sad vantage
of an age, of an age, of an age ...

How taken you had seemed one evening -
there wasn't any space for two to sit.
The bench was littered and the birds twittered;
a loose thread on my sleeve, I tried to fit
in the space, a universe, our shortest time -
and then you turned and said, said it:

that the light on my face and the fire
in your palm were the miracle,
and that we were to part until it hit 
me equally.

Sweetheart, I could overcome that turn -
you did not sit and I kept shrinking,
thinking in my heart that you were just
a candle I wouldn't choose.

Ever.

Paper Planes

These paper planes unfold
into letters that were never sent:
every morning my unruly eyes 
before your downcast ones -
"Good morning...", I whispered and you 
only nodded to the spill of pearls
around you, and as I turned
you looked at my shrinking form,
scribbling an unending word
on your pad.

What Does This Heart Orbit?

What does this heart orbit?
What does it want for it?

I never knew that Autumn
was a poem about sorrow -
it set my heart racing
and so I went for it.

A feather fell on a drum
and snowflakes filled my heart -
music had been listening,
that silence fell for it.

Many miles into the race,
my heartbeats slipped and
shed the time about them,
got caught in the orbit.