Grand Opening

Weathered wrinkles of light,
dusky violet,
that dawn’s first visit
to your ivory skin.
Your breath on my neck,
deep, dreamless,
husky with passion’s peace.
I would trade a thousand days
for those thousands of seconds,
for holding you again
as first light spilled over the sill,
when as I kissed your forehead.
as you opened the love in your eyes.

Symbiosis

We deal in pettifogs
from layers of every official,
our mates,
our bosses,
our pets as they play us for treats,
double checking their pee-mail,
sad empty lifts of a leg,
feeble sniffs for who’s in heat
on the slightest casual breeze.

We live in plays for attention,
all of us baiting some hook
to discover adoption,
some shared complicity,
acceptance within our tribe.

And that’s okay isn’t it?
We are…
tribal,
joiners,
symbionts bonding
through these infinite pixels,
these like/love/angry embraces,
fleshless global minions
fucking ones and zeros
on a digital bed of metaphor.

 

Dreams as they Open in our Eyes

The first touch is the deepest
when I look back to see.
It carries the innocence
empty luggage
still dreaming of what might fill it...
to brimming,
to breaking,
…to empty again…

It is a glance,
a phrase,
a giggle, a husky laugh.
It is an iris to an iris,
each fragrance placed in imaginative shadows,
the electric of freckles
eclectic to the tip of their tongue.

It is the first time they laugh,
the new pitch of their gait.
it carries the fortune,
and the wisdom of their cells.

It is that chance that we meet,
to the deafening silence of seeds,
those odds that we see,
the dreams as they open in our eyes.

 

Full Blue Grimace

Time wouldn’t wait for you
when you needed to lose your religion,
to see the glamours put over you,
tuck your blouse into your dignity,
grow an honest pair.

Days forever come at you
the heart of each
in ruins of squandered fears.
It lay in the bins
under guilty lids,
lies lay in crumpled afternoons,
barrels of wasted hours
left to rot
in the silent pall of shadow,
full blue grimace
not the vivid red pulse
not the living zest of our truth.

Time won’t wait for apathy,
not the pretty lies, nor chronic delay.
It won’t wait until some god says
they bless you.
It won’t wait ’til some child says:
I permit you.
It won’t wait until some mate says:
I forgive you
for loving yourself enough to thrive.

Time wouldn’t wait for me
to see through our tears,
realize the fission in our hearts.
I was full blue grimace,
not the vivid red pulse,
that would take the last train out.

 

 

Sally Anne

I met Sally Anne at the art store,
trifling in the lace
along the scraps- the rough edges.

Sally Anne looked baffled,
a little stunned - wild eyed,
like a scrap-booker caught - out of memories.

Four gals were there.
I thought great, odds are one might know.
“‘cuse me? Anyone know where’s the Blah blah blah?”
One shrunk low, the other two scattered,
Sally Anne just stared with her soft doe eyes.

Sally Anne’s a keeper,
a smile without tomorrow bogging her down,
a smile filled with her Lord,
only one broken dream on her red tattered sleeve.

 

 

Always Sweeter

Love is always sweeter when it’s lost,
some remnant cast upon trenchant shoals,
some light of thrust
struggling
to breath life beneath the waves.

We cling to the bittersweet,
the tart scents of decay,
longing for our Avalon,
the effervescent future
some full ripe bloom of halcyon days.

We hold cold lanterns,
embers secretly,
carefully preserved,
dusted of any debris,
teased to survival,
fanned to brief passion
with the pale blue breaths of dream.

Love is always sweeter in demise,
the warrior failing,
the unrequited quest,
some little engine,
just knowing,
thinking,
insisting it could crest the final hill.

We hold our truths to be evident.
Always sweeter!
Always brightest when our eyesight fails.
     “The winter is forbidden till December
     And exits March the second on the dot.
     By order, summer lingers through September
     In Camelot.”

Shiela

Sheila had mud honey hair
and animal prints.
Leopards prowled her closet,
her panty drawer,
a pony vest,
deep in her vault of no-shame.

Curlers lay in the sink
dead caterpillars unable to moth,
gel and sprays on the mirrors,
toothpaste remains
like discarded cum.

Sheila’d say, “I lost my tits as 24,
they just said fuck-it,
we’re out-a-here.”

Sheila lost her waist to a Pizza,
Bill’s death-skull bong,
two bags of family size Fritos,
a half gallon of Bluebell’s - Dark Chocolate Demise.
Binge - Rinse - Repeat.

She had the tummy tuck, the lipo,
the nipple lifts,
all that spandexed
“Make mine Xtra cheese”, sucked out.

Sheila found Typhoid Larry at The Dollar Tree,
sniffing plastic containers on Aisle 5.
She whispered: “Praise to garlic,
and raise thanks to mighty Jesus.
Say amen chile!” - just like daddy said.

Larry loved her in his way,
but he loved the rainbows in bruises,
the way bones sound when they break.
his sister’s bones, wishbones and collar bones.
He owned every movie with Steven Seagal.

Sheila never learned
to ‘love the smell of napalm in the morning’.
she loved rainbows once,
she loved animals once,
and mud honey hair.

A Couple Days

Each year - a couple days,
maybe three
they run your bones like fallen angels,
or a fury of bourbon in the veins of a Blue Law town,
black Sundays where their soul’s bright blood flowed.

Each year - a couple days,
maybe three
they race through the high brow trees,
winds of mania, a verdant madness,
even as newly green fists
rage their adolescence, punching at the sky.

Each year - a couple days,
maybe three
you run so hot in my veins,
our Celtic loop of madness,
one beginning, no end.

Then again in August as the Dog star howls,
and the sun falls bloody
a yoke too dark for the breath of romance.

Each year - a couple days,
maybe three
I die inside - a little bit more.

I toss a bourbon back,
then a another, one more.
No Karaoke here in a Blue Law town,
no Summertime
no living that easy in my heart.
Each year - a couple days.

 

The Bliz

Perry was sylvan
rustic stripes lay on things,
dark browns, soft grays, and lush greens,
corrosion where most metal was found.
Often abandoned in place,
too expensive to remove.
Shells of Whirlpool, Norge,
Pontiac and Ford
in neglected over-grown yard.

“Look at all the Dead Car-cass,
so witty daughter #3 coined it,
Trip to the final pasture.”

Perry was snow,
great lake-effect attacks.
The Bliz… Kyra called it.
“Bliz is on Dad,
let’s go get plowed?”
At 14 that was funny.

Perry was gone a few years later,
lost in The Bliz.
The drifts became an avalanche,
floods of Oxy and meth made it kneel,
the smack took it down.

Kyra left with it.
22 on those Ides of March.
Overdosed body,
vacant, leaning to a rusted John Deere,
it’s Trump/Pence sticker
faded and time-cracked away.