they carry His book

the wanderers have descended on the city
nickel-eyed with knobbly hands extended
to touch the wet stone and black iron
that winds along the streets
with faces concave, they preach
they hover, laden with a delusional certainty
that makes my bones cold
the wanderers become still
fanned out, beyond the yellow line
who are you to say, oh devious shepherd of the blind?
for to me, the greatest evil minds are tame
beside your incestuous and unwavering claim of wisdom

not asleep

i got out of bed to write down a thought
but in those moments it faded
too quickly to call back.
it had all settled so perfectly in the dark
words pressed tightly against one another
me, saying, yes that's it exactly.
but now all i can recall
is reaching high on the tips of my toes
to fill in a piece of an enormously grand mural
curving overhead like a massive sky
and making a sparkling promise
to pull the paint from the ceiling in fistfuls
and throw the bits of plaster overhead like confetti

its my beloved, my precious paramour
when the wind blows so riotously
as to force a gasp
and rain dampens down
every one of my embellishments
when slick strands of hair
stick to my skin like capricious ink
and my most fervent wish
is to abandon sight and forfeit thought
and to feast on the most uncluttered joy
of a dismantling torrent of rain
and a breathtaking eruption of wind

ladenlush

heartbeat blurring to a hot hum
buzzing between ribs
my palm hears all of the crackling of your heart
the sweetest beauty of the day
is curled up beside my eardrums
and exhales, filling me to my fingertips
inflating every bit of my lungs
until even the pores of my bones are full
and saturated with your love
and i feel ladenlush and lazy with the weight of it.

preservation and promises

I think promises to one's self shouldn't be reserved for the new year. Every day is an opportunity to start again, to resolve to change, or bolster behavior that we already strive for. So as I approach a time in my life that promises to be taxing and challenging and threatening to all the things I'm trying to save in myself but thrillingly exciting all at once - I'm making some promises to myself.

To start each day fresh
with a clear and focused gaze
with determination, diligence, and an open mind
To hold humility and compassion above all else
and to pursue a sense of self, broader purpose, and excellence.

To strive to prove the hopeless wrong - to stay buoyant, peaceful, and happy.

To take time each day to nurture self
To reflect a strong mind in a strong body
To love completely: be open to receiving joy, generous in adoration, and nurturing to the hope that two imperfect people can help each other grow and see the world in a more beautiful way because they stand beside each other.

heaps

i was pressing along with my eyes on my toes
and i missed the great shudder that shook down below
i steadied and readied and kept down low
and you trembled and tumbled and overflowed

now i've waited and wept with my ear to the earth
while you pondered and probed and summed up my worth
i'll bind up my hope in great bursting sacks
and add it to heaps we all heave on our backs

taste so bitter

to know that there is a taste so bitter
that I cannot steal it off your lips
is to feel the most binding kind of incapacity

to know there is a time at night
when no touch can move you from torment
is to feel the dullest sort of inertia

to see that there is no volume of want
that can be bartered for your happiness
is to know the most complete way of poverty

with razorrunning precision
I navigate a precipice peering
at the fall on either side
slowly calculating the likelihood
that the fruity flesh in the arches of my feet
will deliver me towards an expedient decision
like long division on my fingers
my insides feel as though a sudden conference had been called
and it has been decided that any excess be efficiently swept away
to make room in case emotional acrobatics become necessary
like a deer, I have almost convinced myself that if I stand still enough
breath the shallowest whisperbreaths
cease the flutter of eyelashes, flyaways, and anticipation
that everything might go unnoticed
and yet it seems like the aching antithesis of what I am
to let motion and thought fade from my skin like snow in sun

remembering Florence

I thought of Florence yesterday, listening to a song I must have listened to a hundred times while I was there, walking in the February street before they flooded with eager springtime audiences. Walking by the lumbering silence of the duomo, I remember every shop that filled the arches of Michelangelo's workshops. I remember every turn of the walk, the placement of every curb, step, gypsy, and haphazardly placed masterpiece. I remembered how alive it all made me feel, how wonderfully alone. How each footstep felt as though I was sinking deeper into the cobblestones, how each footstep seemed to irreversibly change some part of me. I remembered the way the cold white marble felt in my hands, the weight of its fragile opportunity. I remember how aware I was of the river no matter where I was, and how easily a bridge over its waters went unnoticed as an ordinary street. I remembered feeling lucky every single day and thinking endlessly about how I could feel that way everyday from then on. Yesterday for a moment I wished I had written every second down. But I remember every heartbeat, every brushstroke, every turn of the wheel, every chip of marble that hit the soil.

street walkers

in the shadow of the sun
I walk into the city's symphonies
a purple coat a broken window
a sky lost on too many busy people
a girl walks, without looking
mind blank of a destination
void of purpose or parameters
in her eyes there exist no curbs, nor walks
nor streets, nor racing cars
only forward motion
noise is endless, watchfulness leaks into every corner
tainting nay pocket of silence that boils up
out of unbearable frustration
the winter noon sun sits distractedly on the shoulder blades of the buildings
nudging the chimneys in boredom
the sky is the color of dirty ice
its spittle settles in every crevice
a man with no name pulls his collar over his jaw
and he cries for the cold
in the long game of dress up, this woman runs in every race
and her cashmere tissues float to the ground behind her
in chronic dramatic finales
the stories are endless and they float around each person
possessing the qualities of smoke, wind, tentacles, and cacophony
the stories breed disillusion, chivalry, intimacy, luxury, and isolation

fairytales

How is it that the many men and women penned the many tall tales and sweet stories to be read by ours with the tiniest hands and the largest eyes with out any of the heavy remnants of guilt? How did they allow their words to arrange themselves falsely upon the pages? Lies from beyond once upon a time and grave misrepresentations that resonate long after happily ever after. How do we let our children rest in ignorance of the fragmentation to come, and the destruction that has been? Is it because we envy their innocence? Is it that what we long for most is to have no knowledge of the massive atrocities of man, the faults in our friends, the disappointments we discover in our parents, our abandonment by our Gods? But to this ignorance of evil, clings an inability to bear the weight of the great joys of life. What it feels like to be loved implicitly by another human being, or perhaps, only the luxary of believing this is possible. What it feels like when physical calescence between lovers suddenly becomes visible in the night. What it is to stand alone. What it is to stand with someone. What it is to know that your physical being can create life, and in that act, redeem the reflection God had hoped to see of Himself in man. What it is to surrender. What it is to struggle ceaselessly. What it is to have the choice. What it is to sleep in the arms of your lover, and have your hand meet warms flesh when it reaches out, imploring the night. What it is to be able to map another’s bare skin. What it is to know that the love of God is conditional, and to choose whether or not to live by those conditions. What it is to have all the words you need to say what you want. What it is to know that you’ll never have all the words to say what you need.

erin

i believe there is a great expanse between our external selves and our deepest constitutions. our constitutions can be enriched or depleted, but remain mostly solid and permanent. here-in lies the difference between friendships and loves that burn and fade and those that simmer infinitely. rarely can one be sure of a person's constitution, or even sure of their own, but when the exteriors shift or disperse, and a person's constitution is realized, it shakes one's soul to find that a connection exists at that most fundamental level.

the first love poem

paramount
poised on my horizon
imminent, evident in your effects.
ever-present in your portioned ire
preponderant
on my collarbones
along my earlobes
beneath my chin
smiling from the creases by my eyes
sinking between my lashes and my lips
laden with wonderment
wandering
with determination
laughing at my loitering with lunacy

warm and fade

i'm neither numb nor knowing. i have no words appropriate, no sentences that seem to reflect my insides. i have little elbow room, and the ceiling is upon me, but my expectations are endless. i can only write circles around the things that have corners, and i can only palpate that which has no substance. i'm neither floating nor grounded, but i'm where i should be. i can't exactly find your face in my charcoal, but its painfully clear in my head. i've written all of my questions down, but i want none of them answered.

i just roll them around in my palm, until they warm and fade, and return at a later time.

february

rising unimpassioned from the snow
the unclothed trees tremble in the chill

each arm bearing the weight
of a winter copious and cumbersome

a vibrant hush floods
the breadth between branches

only interrupted by the impertinent sound
of footsteps in the snow

the stillness envelopes all motion
encapsulates all time. seconds slow.

exhalation pauses, stumbling on the lull
and then erupts in a puff of frosty steam

up into the caliginous sky
glass-like in it's spherical expanse

the conscience clears, open as the night
lit by icy points of unhindered perception

the mind yawns open
made navigable to all the honesty of the evening

revelations skid across the psyche
and truths emerge from the wind-tossed snow.

teresa

in an ecstasy that has escaped all delirium and ignorance
her brazen cries are unadulterated
and they fall between the bronze folds of her gown
stretched taut over a body seized by divine passion
modesty blurred by masterful fingertips
the metallic flesh oscillates with vibrancy
and the overwhelming perfection of her condition
lends conviction to her myth

unrefined expression

my articulation has faltered.

my tears rush from my eyes in a surge that flows without anger or sadness
only an unrefined expression that brings an acceptance unchaperoned by explanation.

something unimaginable must have seized my soul
to have it twist and turn with such a nameless sensation that refuses enunciation.

left unfinished, deficient in definition
amorphous in substance or consequence
but magnanimous in tangibility.

fluid nights

someone presses
against the calescent place where my shoulder blades meet
and the quick rush of blood to skin makes
my thoughts transparent, tipping over my collarbones
and all my ambiguities tumble out onto the pavement
like an overturned handbag.

someone apprehends
my mouth and my explanations are swallowed up
and the quick tightening of my chest
suspends an inhale, no words
could phrase this with the eloquence
scripted by languid limbs and fluid nights.

citrus flush

limelorn for
gettfulness amasses
pregnant waywardwisdom
owl-eyedeager
skin percussion
our rinds
coiling in zest
garbled gratification
echoes cool effervescence
up against our feveredfaces

aurora

ribs extending
staircase spindles
curving
with all the kinetically awakening ease of dawn
a shift in creature
an evolution in substance
an explosion of absolute appeasement
against the sweetest rebellion
the aching sun
rolls in laborious determination
over an unforgiving vista
of breast and aurora.