Poetri

Just a smear of finger paint
As I long for my muse
Who’s borrowed my yellows
And left me her blues

And a dry tired eye
And a patience resigned
To a stillness of laughter
And a late lullabye

But a cup of my heart
Is still wet with the taste
Of the bitter root left me
To want – just in case

I will find you again
In between every breath
With a smile quite peculiar
And a word in my mouth

Like the scent from a garden
On a tide of warm air
I will love you in moments
While I play in your hair

God be with me and link us
Like a truth we both share
Of a day and a night we live in
Each somewhere

I will rest in the memory
That at times blossoms hope
And love you on a cold day
The way I love a warm coat

With the authority of knowing by rote they read
Blind crows with a taste for their own feathered deeds
Their own fathers, emperors of delusion and greed
Borne by weakness, they are their own seed

Their podium the throne and pulpit of god
The man in the mirror, whose eyes gray and wilde
Lose focus on purpose in favor of shade
And smile at the creature willfulness made

A vanity of pathological denial
Hellbent to control the world if not themselves
A Medusean redemption purchased with fools gold
A bold lie fashioned from Hollywood

Silken words woven into satin so sheer
Their luster and flattery catch every ear
And belief is a truth that is never as clear
As when men rob the grave so that they can stay here

They read and are read from the book of the dead
Each letter of each page inked in their own hand
Unseen by ears of fear and inferiority
And so elected from the damned they decree

“In my own image…!”

And every amen, though deafening, knows
That there is no heaven where men are alone

Burning holes into oblivion
I watched her sit down and refuse to look at me
Even with my heart smeared carefully on the chalkboard
She couldn’t do the math

So I climbed out from behind my eyelids
Shook off my tear soaked socks
Dried my feet in her yawns
While looking past her for the first time

The pimples on my back would never sprout wings
But I jumped anyway
Off her nose
Nearly breaking my back on her lower lip

When I peeled my face off the ground
Felt the clear liquid leaking from my popped sores
I stood wrapped in the sun
Having finally let her go

Dark and frightening
black
Afraid and angry
black
Screaming from the jungle they were trapped in
black
Lived in
black
Loved and hated
black
Hunted from
black

: those poachers and encroachers who practiced the white lie of zoology upon them
Took skins for trophies
Made necklaces of their teeth
Stuffed them for display
And put them on the endangered species list
black

Da plane
Da plane boss, again!
The pain
The pain boss, insane!
A game
A game boss, the shame!

I look in the mirror
and do not see all of me
in my eyes, though
a hint

my wants painted by memory
I trace over you
skipping lines sometimes
having color left over

in each sigh
I know nothing about you
just your form
and the numbers you offer

but there’s a dark spot in your head
a nut with a seamless shell
hard as a rock
your thoughts still protected

for your light I have loved you
but in your busyness I have lost interest
like a bird flown away
you have left me

time reminds me
nothing is for me
simply shared
and fleeting

Desert wind, a blue feather, and a faraway cloud
The hot sun, glaring off a piece of polished brass
And an angelic dance that can only be dreamed

How else could I touch you but with my imagination
A wish gentle enough to be a whisper
But not quite a prayer

It was my seeing you
That filled something within me with wonder
It is always this way

When night came I searched the sheets blindly
Wanting to accidentally find your fingers locked with mine
Suddenly encounter your curvaceous warmth
And feel you breathing with me

Pulling your hair to bring your face to mine
Smearing my lips against yours trying to catch my breath
Studying this brand new you that would be gone in the morning
With the sunrise

So I buried myself in the cool sand of my desire
Like a desert snake disappearing before daybreak
And coiled around the pool of beauty I saw in you

My own drink of water
Poured off your breasts, overflowing your belly button
Falling between your thighs

As instruments of affection
Bodies need no words
I could all but taste the fruit of your garden
And laughed, bathing in the thought of your freedom with me

Atop a blue dune I caught a splinter of sunrise in my morning eyes
And felt you sleeping in the shadow of a dove’s song
My heart lying naked beside you
My soul a berry staining your lips

Contentment whistled a soft melody the wind took for a kite
And sent skyward in search of the last visible star
But evening had retired
Taking with it the delightful sparkle of midnight magic

Saddened and a bit afraid, I turned to you
Already fading into daylight
Already smelling like me
Already a yawn