An Eastertide sight—
indoor upsetting—
unthreading by a broken loom,
with the porch lights on,
dried mouths spilling out,
& moths flying outside towards
this southside saloon.
The haze of an orange moon,
stirring in the ripples
of an umbrella spoon-
where I dip into the yellow,
with enlightened
rays of a juiced bloom–
Liquified my organs
with a dissipated gloom.
I see
golden strained
saints,
choked by the
bar chain
I self soothe—
strolling where the
soul revealing
with gin and holy gain-
Outside,
wind weaving
twine like two twin twigs
of an assisting cane—
I walk cautiously, hurried,
sucking mellowing mangoes—
feeling its sweetness wane,
with sugared veins,
extracting self-love spawned
from my grove,
while I crave the grains.
After ‘Radio Ga Ga” by Queen
Saint Valentine, what’s new?
Madam Velvet’s blue-
-among the magenta soulful few-
Abusers: users with demented social cues,
muscle spasms flexing heart fluttering residue-
an astronomical lover
with their fixation on the solo moon,
leaving you with craters
and a love that is underpaid and overdue.
But I say Saint Valentine,
distilling raw honey
from the mournful dew,
someone still loves you.
Sun baked by the window pane,
the blinds ungoverned
by a regulated shame.
Done in the blanket dark
under white satin ballrooms
of feather dancers,
marked by the telling etches
on our necks.
Biting lawful pecks,
of two consensual free birds,
with those wings of
safe and savory touches
of which are that good type
of hurt.
Sworn in a flash trial
courtship—
beautiful bruises of
a bitten bleeding—
with satisfied lips
quiet in its quakes
in the after waves
of our mutual meeting.
Torn thorns of an observable rose-
there are, by way of finger-tip pricks,
old bloody prose in parchment scrolls
that tell us the same matters,
enrichments, and throes
of zealous lovers,
newly grown in wedding
vows and vases,
that fed into deep twilight
and only after learned
that their love is ultimately finite.
Sex on fire burns
sensory to embers
and leaves us
digging through ashes to
remember.
I brought into
high -frequency
static shows;
fireworks in the sacral chakra,
that linger on forever
if you don’t periodically
catch a hold of the moth
chasing after a firefly
and see that you are both.
Anyway,
I sweep back into existence
and notice that my closet needs new clothes.
Emperor of the situational lows;
gladiator of the southern sectors
and to pollinate,
I need to taste the nectar.
We settle down in her futon
with ease.
Contorted and deathly free,
we are liberated and diseased.
Wonders
in life,
deferred.
Feelings linger
over withheld emotions,
reserved.
Sow.
Supplant that ill love leased.
Garnish roses on wreaths.
(Wildflowers Still Grow)
Valentina's Spirit Cuts
Valentina’s spirit cuts—
like sabers of tower twine.
She sketched a barbed-wire line,
sharp with the razor head,
basking in the weeping weaves.
Swiping like a comet dew
over misty space,
she traverses the rural byways
of where a doe bled,
fractured after being displaced.
Her traffic across her sky—
with low beam
cirrastraius clouds—
distracting
from the sundown pupils
setting on her face.
—
Yet,
she knows
that pine trees
are evergreen—
and requests
that
they
plant one squarely in between
the split headstone
of her final
resting
place.
Phantom Vine
Mother,
I know,
The shoveled souls lost
Are like pruned plants,
Severed
but probing
the phantom possibilities
like a throbbing pain-
-And you, mother
Are synched and labored
with the lost vine where
My spectre brother blooms.
I often think of him too.
Like a wind passing,
Sensing the chime
in the sonic chill.
A brotherly bond felt in bones
And we play catch with the
Quaking discs of my spine,
With my frame
at a chronic still,
And my age a time keeping
loan..
And when I should align,
With the ivory scarred and
Sweeping sky,
May my body root upward fruit to the vine,
And may he find
Tempted life
with what once
Was mine.
Mock Doctoring
I don't know if I qualify,
with a doctoral sense of the word,
nor if I could be conventionally prescribed
to nurture this art, faintly chirping maturely.
I study to pretend pigeon, chicken—(Dove, Swan)—
oo, bawk, (coo, oo);
Wax Poetica—like earned credit, clearing the house
at dayward night—
(that’s my way of saying twilight, when I’m
at the end of rope, wrangling dawn,
tethered loosely, judged wholly).
Editing: cleaning;
drinking Red Bull bulk like a nurse,
toiling at the floors.
Sweeping, weeping—
with the occasion deepening.
I’m between the title edges, patient.
But chaotic.
I chipped the tile,
squared outside the lines—
but I like it.
Classic show ’n tell.
Workshop polish,
smooth edges on smoky quartz—
show don’t tell.
Fine art statuette,
mastered in stillness.
And brown trauma—
soft-pressed grit for
warm steamed whole milk.
Well, Que Sera, Sera—
let it be rejected,
but it cannot be denied.
I cannot dance a pretend thesis,
nor mimic conspicuous birds
and drink their notes.
Whatever it may be,
my style of practice
unceasingly inquires,
¿Quién sabe?
Well, the nurses tend to know
the diagnosis before the doctors do.
Lunar New Year Longing
The carnival of a dying sun;
The carousel revolves
around a flaunting jewel,
echoing lost moons
of chambered attractions &
the pure pearls
of a wintered June.
I am one of a band of widowers—
barned roosters with a lunar lullaby,
tuning memories with a cradled croon,
lifting quicksand from crater dunes,
collecting fossil dragons amidst the runes.
I still miss you,
as the rotation completes,
and I daunt on my dreideling thoughts—
etching dates on altar tables,
wedding paper tigers
in burning stables.