I am touched
by a storm
the tongue of a
fire that burns
away sleep.
A tide crashing
into millions of
crystal droplets
becoming the sun.
My heart is ripe
like summer fruit
sweet juices flushing
tingling veins.
There is a storm circling
the pit of my stomach rising
to ache in my throat.
Steve Hanks art
I will always disappoint you
my verse is no where near roses
pigment stained and tear smudged
overflowing with sudden downpours
a spiraling monsoon that can
not be held back with the tenderest
of sighs.
I tell lies lovingly
each line a litany of devotion
or a buzzed serendipity.
I will fall in love with the sleeved
heart of every poet.
Save me from obscurity, give me a purpose
sugary rose petals or the embryo
of a pearl washed ashore.
Separated by borders and ideals
we seldom speak.
In another time I climbed
your airy mountains
melded with desert colors
crossed your mighty seas.
Tell me we are still friends
that our dreams can still come true.
Don’t turn away let me hold you
take this sorrow from you,
we’ve seen enough death.
We wanted so much to be strong
but we knew there would be tears.
astrophotolab.com
When I found you
I was not searching
beautiful and wild
our lids heavy with desire
we sipped Santiago raindrops
from our cupped tongues.
Tears of salt-rose fell from my eyes
at the hour of your departure and
my heart became a dying bird
it’s wings unfastened and open.
Night on the Island
by Pablo Neruda
I have slept with you
and on waking, your mouth,
come from your dream,
gave me the taste of earth,
of sea water, of seaweed,
of the depths of your life,
and I received your kiss
moistened by the dawn
as if it came to me
from the sea that surrounds us.
Night Music
By morning I have renamed us
when I speak a thousand thrumming
wings escape my throat
those crimson wounds you have
christened with your hands
a forgiveness I can believe in
I've etched your voice in memory
so not to forget the glossy sound
of humming wings when you speak
Your eyes orbit above me
brilliant satellites so that I
may dream free of shadows.
I've pared us down forgotten what I knew of love and when I try to speak a thousand wings catch at the cache of my throat.
Night Music
I step back from the light
into the dark
my wife rocks
herself to sleep
in my favorite chair.
On the beach
I want to fly but fall like
a silent prayer.
My limbs are an anchor
as I slip beneath the surface.
Once struggling palms lie flat
as gentle waves rock me.
Seaweed strands of hair mingle
with the sigh of my breath,
I grasp the hands of my
companions,
my only thing of value.
Everything beautiful is here,
all that was lost.
Birds chorus to the stones that
mark the resting place of a
thousand warriors in an
estuary of flowers.
art by Abel Tasman
Come the days when we
reach back into seas of
pinpoint diamonds where like
globes of fire we spun through
glimmering heavens yielding
only to the pull of hearts.
Now the dew falls from our eyes
Not from the sky, the tide pulls
outward and mountains lose
their foothold but a new sun
is rising and we are touched by
the tongue of deepening wisdom
and burning indignation.
There is a need for
lips pressed the press
of hands seeking.
Here in my
straight back chair
hold back the firestorm
with your elegant hands
and with your lips
claim the hollow
at my throat.
Scatter silk like
autumn leaves.
Allow me to fall
like the ripe flesh
of sweet fruit.
artist: Lu Jianjun
Near daybreak eyes begin to close.
My mind steps down into our most
beloved poem
*In a dark time the eye begins to see,
I meet my shadow in the deepening shade …
Below in spectral gardens
A raven sits motionless on the branch
of a skeletal tree greedily eyeing a
tiny lark all feathers and bone.
In the state between sleep and wake
I traverse birth and mortality,
a faint hint of earthy candles sweeps
the orb of my celestial dreaming.
Sensations of pearls like tiny moons
fall from my open palm into infinity.
And you, whose sigh is a strophe
of sonnets, waits far at the boundary,
not spirit or rose tinged snow
but flesh and bone and sinew.
Now I am sleeping less,
roused by the wing beats of Boreal Owls
circling ancient Cypress trees,
their screech a fist with knife edge
talons erupt through feathery curtains,
breaching my seclusion.
Dark traces vibrate my hemispheres as
lofty breezes lift me a spectral mist vanishing
over the valley to a moonlit hillside of sweet lea.
An ivory wolf lies beside me.
He is the scent of ripe wheat fields and
his eyes are the color of the eastern sky.
*In A Dark Time by Roethke (Stanza 1)
In a dark time, the eye begins to see,
I meet my shadow in the deepening shade;
I hear my echo in the echoing wood–
A lord of nature weeping to a tree,
I live between the heron and the wren,
Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den.
There are times when I can see myself through
your eyes. My pale face so in love,
aching for the caress of a flaxen
haired boy racing through rolling fields.
Suddenly serious your adventurous eyes
sent yearning shivers through me.
I longed for your touch anytime and
kissed you opened mouth without
permission.
I adored your mock anger when you
chased after me and the awkward way
you looked down at your hands.
Soon Autumn threw its shadow on
sprouting wheat, smooth and wet.
Now, I listen to the soft whisper
of his breathing through a half
closed door and know there are
different kinds of love,
wild, ruthless, and unafraid.
art by Rob Hefferan
