Plea

Although you are a blurry distant thought to me,
My heart is always tugging me to your horizon.
Where are you?
In my mind are trees and hills and cities of shadow,
Speckled with light where your eyes fall favorably.
All the ambiguous clots of "if" and "maybe" without punctuation,
Crystal balls and lines on a palm,
A dangling charm,
A deck of cards?
A line of words, perhaps, or two,
Warm and hopeful, an empty eggshell.
Who cares? I have nothing to touch.
I beg you
I beg you
Oh, wait for me.
Lie in the echoing plains of our future,
Let my words find you and bring you to God,
Let God find me and bring me to you.
My head fits perfectly under your chin,
And your smile fits perfectly into my gaze.
Not because I'm whole,
My hands, my heart are pulled to brokenness
Like extrasensory magnetism.
Will you be broken when I find you?
Breathe and
Sleep and
Know that I’m coming.
Already you are flowing in my veins,
Pulsing in my nerves,
Singing in my mind.
The need for your eyes
As sure as a vitamin deficiency.
I live,
Never thrive,
I lack you, and have no source but God.
I’m tired.
I pray that the rubble of my mistakes dissolve,
My one big mistake,
I was not fortified, a wilting flower
All too willing to be plucked by an admirer.
Still, when his arms were around me,
I was in yours.

Rhapsody in the Cosmic Pit Orchestra

In the rear of the room
sequestered in stained-glass starglow
a pink-clothed woman sways and swirls
Beat, fermata
Exhale, quiver
Champagne cello and dark-chocolate drum
A chortling guitar flicks the flames of
candles on the floor
Rivers of watercolor rapture
rush overhead
I reach up my fingertips to brush the
tail of a trail of stars
Heads left and right nod loosely in the
inscence-liquor languor
peace palpable
softly shocking
the scent of wind over water
Sandals tap to the thunder-velvet beat
of an oil-painting stallion
flowing fast behind
his home is wonderment
Color like VanGogh's tears surrounds me
texture of falling through storm clouds
taste of lavender spice and ice cream
Inhale, shudder
On the smooth wooden floor a child
lies sleeping
drifting and dancing in dusky-lit dreams
Despite all the demons which cling to my ankles
(it seems one is born every birthday)
I hold out my palm, into which
falls a feather-light blessing
In the pastel rivers above
the soul of a silent girl twirls and swirls
clothed in sunset with slippers of pearl
She flickers, waxing periwinkle and
tangerine
Leaping, melting, born each moment in her
wild-winged ballet
I meet her eyes gazing down, blazing down
My soul recognizes myself.

Passing

Show me realization, show me distant stars.
Give me inspiration, tell me who you are.
Mystery, creation, time on wings of glass;
Lives across a nation soon will come to pass.

Empty, hazy faces, strains of harmony,
Echoing through spaces held so dear to me.
Searching for the traces of silent, lifelong songs,
Heroes and disgraces, contained in right and wrong.

Loving glances, strange romances,
Fateful days and foreign ways.

One sunbeam in the ocean, one smile in this world
One blade of grass, the motion of a life, now full unfurled.
Shadows of devotion, immune to conservation.
Gathering a notion of true unity, elation.

Show me awkward smiles, tell me newborn tales,
Pure truth that swift beguiles, pure truth that never fails.
Tell me of the miles of Niles and of skies,
Stop and stay awhile, and please don't ask me why.

Free and living, soon forgiving,
Natural highs and gentle sighs.

Whisper abstract musings, sing to me your life.
The cold and warm abusings of real happiness and strife.
This broken rhyme I'm using is the rhythm of my mind,
I'm winning and I'm losing all the threads of humankind.

Cloaks and masks and shielding, refuge in the silence.
Frightened souls all wielding the beloved shield of violence.
Unsown gardens yielding shining fruits while death storms blow,
We'd be better, it'd be better, if we let each other know!

Pass me in the hallway, brush by me in the street.
I'm watching, waiting all day for two melodies to meet.
This message, can you hear it? These words are for the world.
I am the frightened spirit of every boy and girl.

Can't you see a clichéd plea
For love and peace and harmony?

Earth Night

I must be young, to find shades of green such as this.
Naiads and birch shadows, silken white, rushing in,
To laughingly bat at my aura.
My hearty companion and I, flowing,
Have suddenly cast off the shackles.

I've fallen into the breathing of the trees,
That gentle murmur rocking sideways all the clouds.
Dead wood offers no warmth, but that's okay,
It's all inside me, carried on spring inhalations,
Matching the pulse of the universe.

Two pairs of eyes with straw-golden threads,
You sense tonight we have touched our realities.
I'm not looking for perfection any longer.
A duchess and her jester, their court at my feet,
Silly little fur-phantoms, just out of reach.

I know now that alone is my choosing.
Icy air splashing past my eyes,
The indifference of life, unbound, still-grounded.
Nature has beckoned me back, lures me to sleep,
Tells tales of gray-blue skies brushed with silhouette.

A jester, still a gentleman,
My tiny escort out of this world.
Comical orange glider, my white rabbit, I suppose.
He sees me to the door,
To waiting light of a different breed.

Somehow I have found what I wanted.

Desert Litany of Gratitude

Thank you, Wyoming.
Thank you, cheddar-tone deserts studded with dusty-kiss sagebrush.
Thank you, mountain panorama like sleeping dragon silhouettes.
And thank you hearts of Riverton:

The leather-skinned, deep-river pioneer gentlemen toting cheerfully the weight of family's lives.
The velvet-voiced, apricot-and-oregano aura women rising and caring as mother mountain lioness.
The softly-shimmering with young-love-summer-star girls, treading on pixie heels and toes to leave bright Venus-dust in the eyes of those behind.
And, of course, the chocolate-soy-milk, lupine chorus, ruby-ocean-sunspot breathing hippie boys whose penetrating gazes brought to life the mustard seed between my eyes.

Thank you for August sunsets, all raspberry-mango sorbet drizzled with merlot and whipped-cream-sea skies.
Thank you for the welcome weight of love-stroked quilts with background sizzle of scrambled eggs and salsa-chicken breakfasts, the squabble of discontented geese at night.
Thank you for the regenerating soul-crush of a silent prayer, the death-surpassing Dorothy-in-the-core-of-her-tornado adrenaline whirl tempered by the bleeding-thumbs solidity of granite and the tentative symbiotic mastership of mountain North Faces.
Thank you for the anasthetically seductive curls of dusky-blue incense butterfly kissing my irises while beat poets trippingly float their words, belly laughs and bright eyes.
Thank you for the ballet-race of light on a river chortling with white-garnished waves, the cathartic ice-hug of the Big Kahuna and the crispy twang of endorphine-pheromone sushi.
Thank you for the harmonic caress from a stranger's guitar, the honey-cherry snare-gleam and the soaring of two heat-encircled sticks, a kangaroo boxer bounce and a bassline like a pulse of tangerine smoothie through the xylem-phloem veins of the earth.
Thank you for the beauty of life and vibration which realigned the rainbow bridges of my being, for the tinted-tenor tones that seemed to halo all around the edges of the spaces in cells.
Thank you simply for the reminder of fun,
for carpe diem,
for dhyana, canta, cho-ha,
And for God is love.
I will carry you like whispers in my pocket, every one, to lend that lighted river so vital to love and life.
You're in me, where I keep you.
Welcome to Minnesota.

Vision of an Atemporal Connection

It was just this morning,

This morning with it's apple-juice eye,

When I clung by my toenails to a cracked-stone wall,

Threw my arms out behind my hair,

medusa hair,

Smiled into the hurricane and

whispered

hawthorne whispered razorblade whispered

soothingly whispered

"Take me..."

Now it is twilight,

heavy-breath twilight,

And the silence has woken which has slept since the

second

God-kiss second

the universe was born.

The edges of leaves and the tips of the grass slip

in and out of definition,

The wind is the only real thing in this

moment,

sweet-delerium moment.

I am a girl in this

moment

who never was alive before and

never shall be again.

There's a boy back home,

A falcon-feather boy,

Whose ocean-bottom aura is streaked with

dragonfire.

I see his spirit dancing,

Phoenix-eyes laughing,

And down inside he's asleep in his passion.

He brushes dark waters with a

razorblade whisper,

"Take me..."

Lifts up his heart on his fingertips,

Thrusts it down into his phoenix-fire soul,

Turns,

Burns,

And smiles.

And within this secret-delirium moment,

His flaming-soul smile is whisked on the wind,

On the only real thing,

To set my spirit aflame.

The rest of humanity,

solid humanity,

logical humanity,

Falls comatose in consistancy,

While this poet-plague rushes, it flows to us all,

All the girls who never shall be again,

All the boys asleep in their passion,

Bohos, hippies, outcasts, freckling the world,

All we who dwell in this moment of not,

Dream-fed delirium,

Death-fed delirium,

Whispering into the crackling,

straining with everything,

bursting-with-emptiness souls,

"Take me..."

Then, as the universe crashes in over us,

Collapses in over us,

Silent-sweet apocalypse,

Nobody notices.

What It Means To You

Everything has meaning; all is what it means to you.
I don’t understand why nobody sees
The deeper shade of blue.
Nothing’s ever quite so simple.

Three seconds to a billion years, fate’s timer to go off.
I don’t understand where your soul has gone,
And holds your heart aloft.
Beauty knows no bounds.

Fallen angel, wings were torn away.
Now on the edge of last resorts, hear what I have to say.
Listen to that one small breath between the night and day.
When the purple sunset fades to dark, you ask which is more beautiful.

Even the laughter’s melancholy, for all the sides you see.
I don’t understand why you’ve given up
All the people you can be.
Reality to haze.

Ripped from one world to the next, all of it surreal.
I don’t understand where you belong,
Coats of thought blocks start to peel.
Swirling colors drain to void.

Fallen angel, wings were torn away.
Now in the gaze of nothingness, hear what I have to say.
Listen to that one small breath between the night and day.
As true poets weep and bleed their words, you ask which is more agony.

Some fire can burn the guilty mind, provoked out of it’s hiding.
I don’t understand the thoughtless stuff:
Just whose time are you biding?
The stars are trading places.

Sometimes teddy bears heal all wounds; sometimes it takes so much more.
I don’t understand just who you are,
All the times you loved but tore.
You never know for sure.

Fallen angel, wings were torn away.
Now drinking the flow of deep abyss, hear what I have to say.
Listen to that one small breath between the night and day.
As water courses and flame embraces, you ask which life is older.

Treacherous play lead to fading: a warrior on his own spear.
I don’t understand how you survive:
Without all the evenings of fear.
Mirrors are true tragedy.

Few eyes see through true falseness.
Thoughts will sometimes beat you senseless.
Innocence is fleeting; things can be complex or defenseless.
The fallen one can walk again, and you know more than I.

Fallen angel, wings were torn away. But anything can heal with faith.

Out of Tune

Half asleep, and far away.
Oh so deep, I long to stay.
This flow is where I once belonged,
Within the sweet accord of song.
In my dreams the music plays.

Once dancing to a silent beat,
I was renewed and full, complete.
Standing on the trech’rous edge,
I planted down my feet and pledged
Never to admit defeat.

Now where is that melody?
Growing dismal, I can’t see
Why my life is out of tune.
While around me notes are strewn,
I long to feel my harmony.

Now day breaks not quite so bright.
My frail wings take half-hearted flights.
A cloud lies heavy on my soul.
Where is the beat that made me whole?
I yearn to touch celestial light.

I cannot find my flawless chord
Within this mind that once adored
The rhythm and the rushing tones,
Life’s song immersing heart and bones.
Now I live perplexed and bored.

My Lord, please don’t abandon me.
A sword of truth my safeguard be.
Grant me shields of angel’s wings,
So that my heart can once more sing
Without the dark uncertainty.

Once Your love within me welled.
Above all others, You compelled
Me to Your purity and grace,
Once more please let me see Your face.
You are the music I once held.

I need You more than I can say,
Be freed within me, this I pray.
Consume all that I am, for then
I just might be complete again.
Life’s music lies within Your way.

Foreign Dreams

I traced my handprint on the ground,
Not sure exactly what I'd found.
And thund'ring stallions in the sky
Paid no heed as I passed by.

My heart is faint, my knees are weak,
I don't know what it is I seek.

The trees stretched out to slap my face,
Said I'd disgraced a sacred place.

Where I came from's growing dim,
I'm living only on a whim.

I strained to hear a single word,
Then pressed my ear to grass and heard
A million voices crying out
But I don't know what's it's about.

The river climbed up past the shore
To wash clean what was done before,
But night rushed in and beat it down,
The moon her heart, the stars her gown.

I met eyes with an ancient bear,
We both stood deathly still to stare.
Massive troubles all freeze silent,
I know one day they may turn violent.

Oh, beauty knows no bounds, and yet
It hasn't graced a soul I've met.

I'm going home, that's all I know,
Sure wish I knew the way to go.

But no matter where I flicker,
My love and courage grow still thicker,
And I will walk these foreign dreams
Until everything is what it seems.

Wolf Cry

Magnificent spirit,
My soul is ever weighted with you.
Brother, my brother, I grieve you as dying.

Come run the forests,
Come walk the plains,
Come ease my pain.

Let me finger your prints in the damp, cool mud.
Let me surpass my language,
Let yours come pouring from within me,
Let me throw back my head with an ancient cry.

I shall grieve you as your sister,
A lost one of the pack.
I return to you and pay respects,
You are wizened, tired, and grand.
I grieve the life I have lost with yours.

Bring me back to the circle,
Back to the gray skies and shallow dens.
I am home in a dome-shaped den,
Comforted and solid.

That my ears might draw back to honor you,
That a tail might flourish in greeting,
That your spirit might enter my heart and live therein,
And I, this little sister, sleep in peace again.

Soul-Storms

Beauty lies encrusted
In the eye of every storm,
Sequestered and entrusted
To each heart that watches o’er.

Storms rage captivated
In the soul of every being,
Unemancipated
Till our birth-wet wings might soar.

Summer storms are raging
In my soul this weighted night.
Through volumes here I’m paging
For the truth I thought I knew.

I’ll uproot the crystal beauty,
Unsung, yet all alight,
Alight with piercing mystery,
My soul-storms, silver blue.

Self-Window

I am Danielle.
Do you know me?

I am Danielle of two: two names, two directions, two harmonies,
In whose blood burns a coward and heroine, in whose eyes is a spark and a shadow.
My soul is the hue of frozen light; I am staring out windows, longing to see shapes in the heavy mist, be they dark or celestial, I only wish to see.
Can you see me?

I am Danielle, who is quick of mind and slow of wit,
I am admired, appreciated, analyzed: I am forgotten as eyes slide away.
I am Danielle, thirsting for originality, but I am Danielle, craving conformity,
Who fears conflict, trembling, lights ablaze, drinks it in, spews it out,
A fire-eater, drunk on that which is fatal.
Am I simple in your eyes?

I am Danielle, who longs to breathe beauty, and I will strain my eyes to blindness to find it, searching as brown plants search for sunlight.
I shall wither, or I shall blossom; either way, you have known me, and I am valued.
Awkward silence is mine, and dearly cherished stillness is mine.
I poke at distant souls,
And will flee from any half-formed beast,
But if you are a half-formed beast I will love you to fullness.
Have I loved you?

I am Danielle, who sings with her being, dances alone to the silence, turns to stone in the presence of faces, loving or cold.
I squeeze, pat, and bend words into the shape of my flickering thoughts.
You have seen them; they are not true.
I am a sculptor with hands too rough and heavy.
I am a half-hearted artist of dreams that will crush my regrets, those actions trickling out as sand between my fingers, grandeur carried halfway home.
I am Danielle, with voice too loud and words too soft.
Can you hear me?

I am Danielle, an eternal amateur.
Brimming with talent and possibility and “if,” of everything,
I shall be always good, I shall never be great, blessed and cursed so.
I have grown up too fast and left myself behind, and I am behind you with silent understanding even as you look up at me.
I have watched you, and seen you, and known you, and loved you, and envied you.
Would you believe me?
I am Danielle, flowing in this place, with every flame, drop, wisp, and grain.
I am aware of all that is in me, and therefore of all that is, and nothing that matters.

Will you remember me?

Dream-Born

Once upon a night we met,
My archangel, guiding star.
Dream-born, tenderly sunset,
Chaste whisper from afar.

(I held your soul in my hand; be aware! I am a question yet unanswered.)

Through the laden labyrinth,
Alone, exclude your voice.
Beating heart and passion-calm,
Strong and soft as song and psalm.

(I know you knew as I that nothing is liberating as a broken watch, or charming as a duck.)

You don’t think that I could drink
Of life as others do.
In strife, in wandering, just once
I found my footsteps true.

(My dimension was a tangle, children and charm, and you were all the greatness in me.)

Plastic walls in bated halls,
Wind and red and death.
Before I slashed my boundaries,
You cried out, froze my breath.

(I clasp young feral memories with me, swathed in threads of purple passion.)

I found you in the end of time,
And begged your arms to stay.
Suffused with love regretful then,
I vowed to go along my way.

(You must have been caged, or awoken I’d have never.)

Reality undid the dream,
Dusky, sorry sighs.
Realize I had to go,
Moon-fed spark, and now I know.

(You will save me again, and we will dare to believe in clichés. We are imminent and certain.)

Return to Calypso

Once upon a time
I spoke of the edge of the universe
With longing and
Infantile conviction.
Well now,
Now...

Feverish skies breathing emerald and tar
Watch over this broken dragon,
This crippled wildcat.

And certainly your arms wrap around me,
Dusky voice in a lemonade-magma whisper,
Sliding down the back of my neck.
Indeed ten fingers melt together,
An awkward fit, sore, but seamless,
Watching eternity crumble.

Yet now I understand;
This snug embrace is terror-born and
Locked like climber's knot,
Lying on cheap cotton sheets
In the bedroom of the girl I was,
Watching the alarm clock and
Desperately clinging,
Clutching to one another
While tremors convulse through
Our just-each-other world.

For two red-rimmed inner eyes
Foretell the future fall.
Now you taste the scorpion's burden,
This jagged-razor yoke
Bound and biting on my heart.
The first day you laughed with me
I shouldered it lovingly.
Finally it starts to drag me under,
After six-months tainted love songs.

I see despite my clouded eyes
You're stronger than I thought,
And I, I am scared and feeble.
In the end the inner eyes will
Watch me fall,
And on that day I'll die,
I promise.

I'll plunge, I'll plummet,
I'll pray.
For descending the calypso which
I siren-sang you to,
I'll know your heart's decaying
Because of me.

I shall wish you a
Life without lifeline,
And pray you a
Love without deadline.
I shall yearn and
Bleed internally,
And softly slip away.

If you would wrap your arms around me,
Tell me that you love me,
And never let me go,
I'd leave my mind and live in love forever.

Do you believe in fairy tales?
I don't.

Snicker-Snack

Long ago, I buried my sword.
Never gave you my word,
But turned a blind eye while
My carcass relinquished quietly my soul.

I let the light rust into a blackened crust,
Kissed my lust and thrust it deep,
This two-tongued servant,
Into the heart of her trusting King.

My mouth spewed out loyalties,
Concurrently hands felled my comrades,
Strangled with knotted rope of
False oaths and a shell of purity.

Its time, enough, this one is done.
I reclaim my armor and shun my path,
Id just begun to turn and run when
Ankle shackles chewed so deep.

Butchery of allies, didn't know,
Only sadness in their eyes, and sighs
Of failure all my own, theirs to bear,
Unfair, and sown as saplings in my fertile heart.

Enough. Enough. This time I'm gone.
Bare my teeth and fare thee well.
Grind my heel, you bind me not,
I find my mind and wield a fated blade.

Victory you think you've won?
Tickled pink to see me run,
Knowing Ill be back again?
Lack of will still obliges her to sin.

One by one till done I cut these threads,
Twisted into shackles, now in shreds.
Tackle and I block your talk and blows.
This time it goes. Enough of my betrayal.

My champion is here to set me free,
I see that I breathed dead complacency,
Fear and realization lacking, detached treachery,
Fatal combination, contented self-murder, over.

Hard enough to turn my wrath,
Double-cross again, this loss of path,
Shards of hollow promises lie tossed aside
And lost to lies my eyes shift to a gentle enemy.

Mourning Schizophrenia

Who are you, my pariah friend?
You've nudged me to this doubting end.
Is the tiny seed of who you are
Crumpled in this vortex star?

Do the specters come at night,
Sprinkling your eyes with frozen light?
Do the rain clouds do your bidding,
Embracing your mind, the blackness ridding?

Are you trapped in golden song,
Wherein lies no right or wrong?
Do you weep blood for all unreal,
No charity, or comfort feel?

Do the mirrors shriek your name,
Upon your face to place the blame?
Have I known you, have I seen
Enough of you, some hope to glean?

Do you breathe beauty, swirling white
Clouds upon your heart so bright?
Does the earth beneath you tremble,
Your weak grasp to disassemble?

Are the faces all a blur,
Shadows in the mist, to slur the
Images of solid mind,
Nevermore your steps to find?

I've never swam the winds you drink,
Can't comprehend the way you think.
For once a world is locked to me,
Unable now to set you free.

I miss you, though I never knew
The layer of your soul that's true.
I have been crushed, nothing to give,
Beneath the echo that you live.

So friend, if you decide to leave
Consumed in all that you conceive,
Forsaking all reality,
I ask you this: remember me.

Misguided Catharsis

Pretty sure it's time to sleep, but I never cared before.
I tripped and fell and missed your arms,
Landed myself SPLOOSH in a big ol' puddle of emo.
The other day I woke up next to you;
You know I wouldn't rather be anywhere in the world.
But somehow I couldn't come back from the parallel...
From the gray-sky desert, green lightning, black fog,
And even though my eyes were open,
Watching the dust bunnies blowing across the ceiling,
All I could see were the demons of a dozen pasts
Curled dormant just above my head,
And I couldn't escape the perpetual water,
Perpetual breeze, (I never understood how you could sleep
So cold, like a dew-dripping clearing on a crisp spring morning)
Perpetual heat coming off your back so unlike the sun.
I was never afriad to lose you, you know,
No matter the way I talk.
I'm only ever afraid that I'll lose myself,
That even though my whole world comes imploding in
To pack itself into a tiny ball in my heart (an imminent supernova)
Every time I've got your breath and heartbeat under my cheek,
The other side will always whisper, whisper,
Come back.
Practicality sounded so un-romantic, so clunky in my
Poet's ears,
That I don't understand how it managed to grasp onto me,
Because really, so often I worry I'm just an illusion
Who can't even grasp onto herself.
I guess I'm just free-writing now, but it's a thunderstorm catharsis.
Maybe if I let that other parallel, that other side, that other universe
Come pouring through my mind into this electronic abyss,
Now and then, a little more often,
I won't have to spend so much time with my foot
Halfway through the rip,
Called so strong to go crashing through, yet
I bet the place is named insanity.
Anyway, I think my point is,
My point is...
Well it's this:
I'm not practical.
I spend too much time in my own head.
And well...
I love you.
Tada...?

Personal Tyger

Tyger, Tyger, burning bright
In the forests of the night.
Take my hand, your eyes a-gleam.
This kitten isn't what she seems.

My head isn't anywhere that it should be,
Something, oh something's the matter with me!
Tired of duties and tired of care,
Mind wand'ring the labyrinth of tiger's dark lair.

It's time to escape now, to gnaw through the ties,
To grow in the shadows of tiger's bright eyes.
Too long I am harnessed, too long am I dumb,
For I've never been deaf or blind, never been numb!

Tyger, Tyger, all alone,
In the darkness you have grown.
Though tiger reigns, could it be true?
Perhaps he needs the kitten, too.

You found me, released me, and with gentle hand
On my heart a sweet pawprint you burned- your own brand.
I'm not who I was and I never shall be,
Oh so scared, so confused, but now finally free!

I can't see to forever or trust in my heart,
But I love you right now, and it's someplace to start.
So be patient, my tiger, someday or some night,
Tiger kitten becomes, and as one they burn bright.

Tyger, Tyger, I am yours.
I've never felt this way before.
The kitten tamed the wildcat...
He made her wild- imagine that.

I'll Be Gone

Powers and Seraphim, lend me your wings,
Wrap your breath round my anger and silently sing
To heal my wasting heart.
Uriel, Remiel, still your swift swords!
I belong to redemption, and Merciful Lord-
Yet justice claims its part.

I came home from yesterday only to find
That tomorrow's half-over in my fractured mind-
I never thought it strange.
The sparks in my life which have constantly lit
My thin path, just as fireflies, flicker and flit-
I am a child of change.

The bitterness in me is noxious as tar-
I tear and I claw and just end up with scars,
And still the hate clings on.
I never was meant to be drowning in sin,
Yet nobody knows, for it's all from within-
A gnawing Satan spawn.

I'm all inconsistency, shadow and mist,
When my sparks flicker on, my soul cannot resist
To follow in their wake.
If names still had power, each day mine would shift-
Born each day a new person, hope-bright and adrift
In time's unending lake.

I want to be solid, I'm born to be pure,
I've got to be strong and yet my only cure
Is my rebirth at dawn.
Tonight I'm regretful, tonight I'm ashamed,
Tonight Jesus, Help Me! is what I'd be named,
but
tomorrow
I'll
be
gone.

Apology By Osmosis

To me, one sour relationship grows
Tentacles,
And stingers,
And suckers,
And rancid little claws.
It reaches out like a homegrown leviathan
To suck, and scratch, and strangle the life
From more vivid, vital loves.
Ill will is a day's poison.
Misunderstandings are perpetual leeches,
Hundreds, putrefying somewhere behind my stomach,
And Im sick of full-grown language.
Let it go, let it be, let it lie, the songs all say,
And incense-high fake Buddhists tell you,
Center yourself.
Well, I have never lived in my center.
I have sleepwalked through a
Bugged existence,
Projecting my soul in drops and pieces
Into the dazzling life-force surrounding me,
Inhabiting every mystical body but my own.
I have never understood politics,
Or grudges,
Or apologies.
I am liquid, flowing mercury, crystal blood,
And what is poured into one corner of my life
Finds osmosis into the rest.
So I, Im sorry, I really am,
If sometimes my smile is tainted to you,
Sometimes my focus distant from your conversation,
Eyes awash in the cataract of daydream.
Im simply trying to find resolution
Somewhere
Sometime
Somebody else.

Fermented Fruit

There is no need for anything to end,
Although everything must die.
Suppose one day I lift my gaze,
All onyx and obsidian,
To find I cannot brush your cheeks
With stardust fire,
To find I cannot stop the world
Within those iced-mercury eyes,
To find I cannot, dare not say it,
Press my tongue into a cliche
And bring it back laden in
Fermented fruit?
You belong to my smiles and whispers,
I don't want to abuse you.
And if one day I lose those
Corridors and dragon dens
Between black-bleeding heartstrings,
Then let me, darling, let me
Fade away.

Calypso

I want to stand at the edge of the universe
the red-black calypso
waiting-always-waiting
where words can be so sharply tasted and
morphine tar is only
one
step
behind
I want to breathe, to scream, and drink as the world
falls apart apart apart
and know
your hands on my stomach
chin on my shoulder
ten fingers tightly twined
I am safe
I am bright and beloved
I am yours
as all other things crackle and
die

Beethoven Whispers

Smooth, smooth, a trickling descent,
A shine, a glance, a sigh.
Dipping each too-thick fingertip
Into pearl-scented longing,
Into dusty vanilla dreams.

Alive and asleep,
Cascade, slip, trip, fall.
Lifted and plummeted,
Snowfall and raven,
Crystalline discordance crackles.

Here I find love,
Coaxing oh-so-sweetly love from
Clumsy keys.
Debussy, Mozart, Clementi,
Oh, unravel me your secrets!

Piano flight, piano voice, Beethoven beauty.
Tonal whisper, with me forever.
Hush, child, hush.
You were always meant
Always meant
Always meant
To be
Alone.

Smell of tarnished paper,
A yellowed edge,
Long-forgotten staffs and stems.
My name, Yeong:
Eternity,
Alone within this.

I belong to blue-aurora water,
Swaying seaweed.
I belong to autumn phoenix fire,
Bright decay.
I belong to music, to music,
All the voices of the earth!

Let me be a part of love,
Of harmonic symphonic and
Atonal love, the
Sweet Discordance.

What cost, Ludwig, Johann, Maurice,
Forsaking mortal love for that
Eternal song?
Only your humanity, child.
Only your humanity.

Reclamation

I am no more than a poet,
An arcane apprentice to a wordsmith.
Full of formless ethnic allusion and alliteration.

There was a time when tedium gagged my muse,
Took her to that lake of black-green waves
Whose name is Trivial, Little Use.
And thereupon she languished, each lustrous word devoid,
Blind and hungering for beauty, well-destroyed.

Let us go, then,
To that corrosive crest which rests upon the swells,
Crumbling cliffs where languor dwells,
Let us truss the blank-faced captors in a white-gold thread of dream,
And cast them in the black-green waves which reek of soured cream.

My soul is weak and wavers at soulful tasks
In which you, Helios, reign undeniable.
I shall perch upon your chariot-seat and bask
Within the gently lapping sunbeams and the butter-yellow clouds,
Cast away the burlap shroud,
Send my spirit soaring on and singing all aloud.

I hope I am no damsel in distress,
No coquette in a silken cherry dress to you.
I pray my lame and birth-wet charm had not disarmed
Your faculties, for that was nothing but a crude excess.

You are the knight who climbed upon my bower,
Unchained latent power which devours all despair,
Let me set my circlet on my raven hair,
Declare once more a nation of my amateur creation.

I love thee in the setting free of words,
In lifelong celebration and in strife,
In revelation which awakes stiff life.

If Helios should pass above my kingdom only once,
Leaving lonely sun to rise apart,
One tiny flame remains sequestered and preserved
To light the jeweled candles in my heart.