for fifty days i fasted,

knowing no-thing,

save the retching of my own flesh,

save the pit of my own stomach.

*

for your arrival safely we sold

our cattle, fashioned a festival

our first kiss –a first sip of wine

on the day break of Pentecost,

at last my fast was over.

*

we fashioned circles of precious metals

and strung them around each other’s

vena amori, declared forever in a vacuum

proclaimed endurance upon the coming

event horizon of time itself.

*

space swells with the ancient ruins

of men and women who shed tears

tracing the constellation trails

from one end of an ocean to another

filling the void of voiceless oceans

with metaphoric rapture and appetite

for adventure.

*

*darling, the smell of desert sand swims

firmly between your pores,

your body warm as the land

cut like mountains

between your biceps

where my head lays

basking in the moments

you are here. 

*

how i adore you so.

*

proclaim eternity

enter matrimony – eyes wide open

place his heart upon a pedestal

let no slanderous word nor malicious canticle

seduce his woefully mortal heart.

*

roots and petals of calendula

poultice to quell the spasms

you take me in my blood 

and i take you in my arms 

when the nightmares hurt 

worse than the back pain.

*

you remind me that even in the winter

the carmine-colored cardinal coos

and whistles, awakens the trees and fills

the cold world with sweet song.

*

i’m unraveled in your high collar,

blue and burned in a freak fire,

raptured by the desert

nothing is forever, we know,

yet everything is possible.

*

there is no going back.

*

on this river of time

except maybe we’ll escape 

the event horizon burn 

as radiation about 

the black hole’s radio halo.

*

dying light is a subjective notion

when you limit every poetic persuasion

to the limits of the human eye.

*

we weave honey, orange citrus, & marmalade

into spacetime tapestry,

 devote each second

as the present is our own reward

the art of being in love,

the pleasure of being alive.

*

the future is a metaphor –

as in calling the ocean endless

naming riptides undertow

we: new and other molecules

blur into water, two bodies

one brackish soul.

*

-six pm | *after easter

Aladdin 1992


i.

I think that I knew it

the moment we kissed

I’d made a terrible mistake

Time yawned for my heart

(she stretched, pulled her own fabric)

nearly ripped herself apart

(her pity was an act of mercy)

Those few moments extended revealed

(time is a rubber band)

the whirring patterns of faery light

(gravity is a mould)

spidered, webbed, holding reality together

(These are my favorite days)

when I lay back to

let earth swallow me in her sand

(these memories will be my solace)

everyone moves on

we (I) must, anyway

our song; v. a prayer

(that you will make it home alive)

our verse; v. voodoo binding you to I

(so that you will still love me after)

ii.

Repeat.

(Repeat)

Reincarnation.

A reoccurring dream

My worst nightmare

(you – me)

I hear the skies in Iraq are a breathtaking sight

(northern hemisphere)

did you count every star?

(the fortune teller told me)

the creator mapped each constellation

(from me to you)

iii.

Welcome home brave soul

defender of the desert

keeper of her secrets

I’ll hold a ticker tape parade in your honor

10 carnations

(red + white)

wrapped in ribbons

(navy blue)

my gifts to you

I’ll provide the paper; a billion poems

that I ripped apart

trying to describe your perfect teeth

I saw your smile in the waxing gibbous

every month on quiet evenings

One year ago; it still aches

like a new wound (∞)

our relation; my yearning passion

(my poetry; n. dying art)

six pm | *ad nauseum