Missing

eyes crazed with dreaming
far lights on the river water

found emptiness below bridges
and weeds growing to be bare

arms embracing bodily cold
digging into their shoulders

pens scratching till empty
paper crumpled into monuments

smoke and dim pool hall lights
lonely in sound of a break

carven stone archways gape wide
echoing a pair of boots

breathing slowed to dreaming
the long stem rose at your door

- 1996

Despair

Hide.

Afflicted spine to curdled toes,
  every strand of flesh
  each twig of bone
sought the pity, of burial.

His eyes pricked, broken yolks
  in apoplectic hollows.
His epileptic slaps, pitiably
  ripping unseen leeches from his arms.

His hands, lacerated maps
  of labor, shame and delusion,
  scrambled from his pockets.

Elbows locked to his body's sides
  a hungry seagull's wings,
  diving into the shallows of my ocean.


- written so long ago, I only know it was the previous century (sounds waaay cooler when put that way).

Dreaming Days

Skinny little girl
Sittin' on her daddy's car
Dreamin' of the days
As they go drivin' far

Hey little lady
Chose her daddy's road
Cruisin' through the haze
what the future sold

Forget those summers
Lost in your photo book
Live down your life
outside the storybook

Dreamin' of the days
Dreams lived in her heart
As they go driving,
drivin' far

Skinny little girl
Sat on a dusty old car
Laughing to the wind
As they go drivin' far . . .

- 1993

This was written after seeing an old yellowed photo of a girl and her uncle. Also, I might've been listening to John Mellencamp. My mistaking the photo for her late father, caused this poem to be received in angry tears. Mea culpa; Such is life.

Wish

I feel as the ocean trapped in glass,
Watching you walk past, before me.
I crash with vain fury against smooth wall.
I attempt to seep through the barless cage.
Only to become tired, and tread on,
Hollow, and lifeless. Drowning. . .
In my own suffocating tides.

I seem to be a trespasser,
Beckoning to something within you.
Something that seeks my unheard call.
A drowning ocean trapped in a glass.

I seek to awaken a slumbering form.
The quiet woman who is asleep inside,
Down in the depths of your heart.

I only wish to make her stir,
To draw her out past ivory columns,
While holding soft, her manacled©arms.

I would melt through these chains.
With my fires, eternal and pure,
And then just hold her to me.
Letting her sleep within my heart.


- 1995!

Date corrected. I should explain that most things labelled 1996 are actually because that's the last good round of backups I got, after a rather unfortunate fire. There is certainly older stuff, but many lack dates, or have the generic 1996 date applied as they were retrieved from an online backup. =\

Quark

Bottom no more tears from you dear charm.
Sweet night's strange vespers steal
her lips as silken feathers spin

Sweet charm, let me kiss you a gentle one
too soft the flutter of a butterfly

Evensong, rising top-down on a plume of
mornings turned silverleaf air.

Sing charm, let once more a song
of kisses brush up your sleeping eyes

Wan compline finds evening's sand
beneath the eyes of even Angeles.

Strange charm to Angels i attribute you
candles and sandlewood matins betide
a wash of kisses over yours and charm.

- 1997

Dearest

i call you this, for no other so fits the word,
and because no word suits you so, my other.

i am glad to have found you
words are easy by you, and for you.

we'll pass a streetlamp twilight
true in the brace of each others whispers

let us trade like dusty camel riders
waiting out speckled blurs of storm

i offer you the crux of my arm,
the murmur of my good company and will

and of you? what would i have from you?
only a corner of your heart to warm

i am glad to be beside you, for then,
my heart is right, and will right you.

and what other word suits you so?
because as no other, i call you this,

dearest

- 1999

Day's Ellipis

Petite white parasols stroll on the night,
What elegant patterns they weave.
Like a chatter on the breeze,
Sensing, a spider's leg in the air,

Always blown past your fingers.
Taunting faeries unveil the night,
Dancing out the warm summer.

When dandelions bloom from new seeds,
Katydids cease their nightly serenades,
And my fireflies expire in a jar.


- 1998

Did a few tweaks. Take that, past-self!