The sun has lost its domain
snow birds shroud the light
A handful of starlings quiver on
bare branches so fragile in fixed feathers
they could fit in the palm of a hand.
Suspended in frozen breath they sing
for the reach of an outstretched hand
clinging to a red-tailed kite floating
above snowy fields of wildflowers in full bloom.
I am a lone bird wheeling jagged edges
of ancient cliffs above the shallows
of a rough Dover sea.
My feathers gleam in the beam of
the lighthouse where gentle swells
pulse against rocky shores
where in dreams you held me tenderly like
treasured pearls.
I have abandoned the lighthouse
that seems to lean closer to the sea
waiting in vain at the tide swept shore.
The beam has ceased its search
still each time I pass I tip my wing.
You have left your
finger prints on my soul
for you I would journey
to that place that haunts me
between midnight and dawn
where we are imperfect
in those unseen dreams
where the only sound is the
unfolding of Origami swans
a disassembling of tenderness
where I capture what
I cannot keep
I am a constellation
pasted to a smear of deep sky or
some god spun leaf drifting
a wintry blue pond or a
flame living in fire.
My tongue turns silvery around
my words, do not take them
for sorrow I have named them
peace.
Do not forget me.
I still need you to carry me
over the pierce of thorns for
My hands are good for nothing
but a plea do not forget me
I am still here my hair a tangle
of stars.
Dip your fingers in oceans of light
tiny moons in outstretched hands
a remembrance of our open palms
sifting through transparent time
powerless to reverse the hours
Neruda’s “Ode To Time” (excerpt)
My eyes have burned out in your beauty
but you are my eyes.
I perhaps exhausted your breasts
beneath my kisses but the world knows
your secret splendor is my happiness.
Love, what does it matter that time,
the very time that raised two flames,
two waving heads of wheat,
my body and your gentleness,
tomorrow will hold them safe
I can scarcely bear the
splendor of the world,
its wonder humbles
the wisp that is me.
Minutiae of eyes and ears
and speechless tongue,
stunned by the promise
of a red dawn.
Elegant trees lift
their mighty arms,
grand gods host creatures
large and small.
Their noble crowns filled
with a cornucopia of life.
art by Amy Judd (represented by Hicks Gallery)
Your lips against my skin
make my bones smolder.
You are subtle like the imprints
of fingertips pressed along
my thighs, dissolving into
one another.
Can you read my life with
my heart beat in your palm
with Scorpio eyes recycled
like the mist of morning rain.
we are sun and moon falling
can love survive us?
When all that I want is so far away
and all that is left is solitude,
I chant your name through warm
currents of breath or sharp ice
shadows of entities.
I’ve etched my likeness into the stars
a dreamer in fields of flowers
a bouquet of affection fragile jonquils
pressed against a heart.
Tethered to cloud banks of silvery sleep
we meet in fantasies and the
sweetness of a lover’s suffering.
the dark sky of uncertainty.
Art from Getty
