so mainly, I work alone. while the street's asleep. I like the night. the bright quiet. the moon's a gentler light than the sun and the shadows come in little shards and listen to my prayers and fears. no tears. not until the dreams are cleared from the muddy bottom.

be my beltane boy

go from the fire
to the place I desire
when I look in your eyes.
take my hand
and lead me down
I know there's ground
where we both stand
and tip to toe
we both can show
we see the same
in symbols old
and turning in
and all the sidewalk carpet time
you've spent in learning what you've always known to be
and all the smoke and stacks and hearts that pound
in dusty velvet boxes seldom opened gone
and here we stand in endless light
nothing in sight but fire and lost illusion.

cleanse the doors that block us out
and dance on through to take it out
and hold it tight until your hand
will cramp with strain
and lose this now
to be regained.
life's a bird
and broken thing
unless released
to take to wing
to soar above
the smoky dawn
and speak the song
of kindling
to fire the soul to shine
and though you're mine
as much as this
we cannot try
to harbour it
in boxes, bowls
and books for just
a look from time to time
and time again.

there is a certain pleasure then
in knowing now and not the when
to say the words that show you know
that chains are useless, jail's a crime
and love's the space between the lines
of bars that cage us in.

Seducing the Conqueror

Am I bound by these chains
or do I cling to them as
I span the abyss?

For myself, I cry:

I would rather release my hold,
perchance to fly,
than grasp fear by the hand as an ally
against the fall.

fabric

I have a secret voice inside
it speaks of self indulgence
when calvin is hard upon my heels
but i don't mind.
I'm not the worrying kind, anymore.

I have a silent whisper
more a scream
that strips me with a supersonic sigh
like silkworms singing through their grief.

I know this fabric.

Travelling Light

I have embroidered tapestries of tales
hung in museums of memory
this dark creation of unbounded myth
glorifying what was meant to be myself.

This is the least of it
this small attempt at god
and I might have made it fly
if not for saving feathers for a lark.

Rushing when I might have stopped
pausing to delay a season
childish, I was nowhere taught
to eat the flame and love in spite of reason.

(still)

I look within.
I see this shining thing.
I kiss this fear that has this face
in the glass of the mirror
in the last place on earth.

mica is the part of the earth that sparkles

What is held here in my hand
forged in uncommon shape
in the crucible of time and tuned
by the leveling tool of silence
may chart your way alone and simply is.

For this is my astrolabe
and though it cannot put the stars in my grasp
it serves to describe their distance.

I wish I could take your slender hands
and place this brightness there just to see:

That a thing never is, in and of itself,
it is only what it is perceived to be.

bozos on this bus

We danced as one in like embrace
yet toiled as two under some cross purpose.
See how it walks beside you now
shrouded in present whispers and vagrant scent?

The long completion, sought too late
was in good time though hard and lacking grace.
Of all we grew in that simplistic place
these three remain:

Your antique words.
Your plastic soul.
The impious stars.

no blame.

The Unforgivable Image

I ponder the paths and various courses
which, in my life, I have chosen to tread
or race in time to that peculiar rhythm
which lives in my breast and mind
and find, to my everlasting wonderment,
the unforgivable image.
(I need your lips on mine, I want to taste your thoughts.)

And now as I stand in that bright white
unimagined by me in my younger bed
I paint you with my tongue in shades more suitable to my dream.
(Thou art my centripedus, the coda to my fugue.)

I press my heart into the living rock
and leave behind the imprint of your name, to my shame.
(The Unforgivable Image.)

True North

where we love we always live
where we live we always are
though we seem to travel
compass-less,
we are the map of the heart.

lucky on the last flight to dallas

Descending, wrapped in clouds,
Like nothing more
than a large aluminium angel.

A prophet never had a better entrance
let alone a nice pasta salad to go with it.