Love Is the Risk

Love, the dutiful wheels

of time, the mother’s

milk, the arthritic

fingers rinsing your dish, the words

you can’t remember (to the music

you can never forget). Love is not the rose

but the soil kissing its feet and water

feeding its verdant bones and sun care-

ssing its palms lifted in prayer.

Love is the risk

the sky took, be-

coming, sacrificing,

letting the stars each take

a share of its heart to shimmer

with the generosity of a being

who has known how it feels to be

loved.

Senseless Dream

One night I slip and fall inside a dream:

Here people sigh, they groan, they shake the trees,

but branches never swing and nothing falls.

Until at last I hear a throbbing scream,

then stars begin to drop like fruits. The breeze 

dissolves, the blood congeals, and roar the squalls.

And then I notice how the senseless lights

are rolling into seas, with grace and ease,

but stay afloat, illuming sleeping dolls

that dream this dream their lonely endless nights—

morn' calls!

The dead. But grieve they not.

The dead. But grieve they not.
And tears would drown their rot.
But us that breathe must grieve.
And us that grieve should breathe.
Inside I’m dead, shall never weep.
And fearing dreams I never sleep.
In fluid pain, I'm not afloat.
The desert in me needs no boat.
Alone and stiff, my island dry.
My stars appear blurry and bright.
Tonight the stars I hear them cry.
I dipped my toes in tears from skies
that poured like rain in my own eyes,
into my soul so close to rot,
my body its burial plot.

Bought the Moon

could not afford the stars   so bought the moon
keep it concealed   fearing burglary
moonlight means not a thing
to me
          having lost
                            my eyes
                                                                            way back              
to        b     r     i     l     l     i     a     n     t              
                            dreams

Tock-Tock

Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock….
Old Adams and Eves on the ageless rock
awash in oceans that spit shells and muck.
The shrinking Earth can never run nor walk
as wilful living do around the clock,

so it must spin and spin as timeless talk.

***

It’s late at night, I’m counting sheep, a knock,
it's wind? I thought of Keats’s sweet hemlock.
And sleep has fled.  A tick…though not a tock.
My kitten's, on the windowsill yawning
enframed by stars where no human race is,

no Eliot's cat, one who could disconnect
nothing from nothing. Sleepy…nothing...tock.

Moon-Sun

Every nychthemeron the sun
Ascends a set of fluffy steps
With the same grace and dignity,
Gives another soliloquy—
Golden words of luminous warmth—
To all blooms and beggars alike.
But what begins must end and so
The sun descends behind the rocks,
Changes into snug pajamas
(of vivacious phosphorus white)
And so it begins the night shift
Do not judge! It got stars to feed!

Darkness

This evening the dark undressed
I saw the darkness drunk
sprawling upon the lonely streets
and lined with bones that never sleep
I heard an infant gasp and scream
By windows saw the darkness crawl
knocking against the stars that groaned
I saw some falling and some broke
But then I heard the darkness retch
I heard it pray night long for death

Shore at Night

I saw with my own eyes
the moon
decapitated

The head floating on waves
so black I thought I'd seen
the world in mourning

I too saw luminous eyes
cloaked in ripples of dark
out of respect for the dead

Moments

Moments are butterflies.
They die, kept in a jar. 

Moments are kunik* kisses from the stars. 
They're breezes, cooled by moon and warmed by sun. 

Moments are wombs.  So too a lifeboat fleet,   
with all the boats deflating, one by one. 

Moments are lonely flower buds. 
Caress them each and watch them bloom. 

Moments are sweet receding rooms, 
with crooning walls and scented floors. 

Moments: this verse, this word.
See it, feel it...it’s gone.


*Kunik: a way of kissing or showing affection, associated with an Inuit practice of breathing in the skin of cheek or forehead.