If souls were god's torches

A prayer is just a cry of becoming human
A cry is just a scream
Of a frightening belief.
And how do we remember how to speak in tongues,
And to flow through moving tunnels
While molding the body to fit something else-
A pattern not yet seen?

Being silent doesn't stop
Others from knowing your unquiet thoughts;
We are more alike
Than we will ever be different.
Just save the last breath for god,
Who pardons all your conscious confusion.

That last, most brilliant light you'll never see
Is only a brain being consumed
By the entrophy of existence.

The stars are well-lit cemeteries
Of illumined souls, that went forgotten once
In the unevenness between the boundaries
Of time, space and heaven.

In a Dream

In a dream I shall feel

The wings of the world unfolding, and
Worlds spinning on the axis of mad journeys;
And the seas breaking turquoise, upon their rippled surfaces.

In the heart of the ears
I shall hear the shivering willows, dreaming their
Wood-smoke dreams, full of sap and funneled sunlight;
Pierced by light for a thousand years

And the flowers sleeping nestled in stars;
Gathered in the deep, among the wood-thrushes,
In coagulated violet forests, all shadowed and dark:
And a whispered peace barely rustles this world.

Grafitti Your Soul

The world would graffiti your soul if it could;

Paint social mores, inside of your arms,
Sourcecode numbers, hidden deep in your being:
Country of origin, tattooed on the forehead,
Percentage of fat, blood type, racial slurs..

The world machine is a label-maker
Of epic size, and tireless duration;
From little yellow stars and red dots twixt the eyes,
To veils, and full seminal infiltration-
You must know that somewhere, there's a bulging file

With names of old girlfriends,
Forgotten sex acts, all time-and-date stamped,
Your prints in the font;
The resultant offsprings, and seedy abortions:
For every eye-blink costs the breeders more time.

They'd like for your pay, to reflect ocean life
Affected by too-long cellular calls;
And those Styrofoam cups, once dropped in the desert
Forty years back, which will surely outlive you;
By a million years- no, they haven't forgotten.

Why Won't the Dead Sleep?

I sleep in sadness;

Or else sadness weeps

Weary and diffident,

Around the world, entangled

In morose grey deeps.

Sad in your gladness,

That I can't participate;

In torpors I circumnavigate

The whirling ocean, gravitate-

Would wish that I could burn.

Wish, to feel anything at all:

That love had me in thrall,

Or hatred made a mess 

Of my well ordered senses;

Life: this just is.

Bite me or kiss me,

Wake me up; enlist me,

My dreams grown fainter than a wisp

Nearly drowned in status quo,

When all I wanted, to flame or glow.

There's no time

As life grows taller 

Than a winter shadow,

And strangles your words:

Where did glad go?

I chase myself around a corner,

Find no one's waiting there,

For no one to grasp hold;

There's a vacancy inside me

It's colder than cold.

Hell's a moderate place, at best

Everyone's happy and soooo well-fed;

Watching endless hours, of a tv show:

Please set me on fire-

Don't kill me slow.

Without Proximity

Humans think the whole earth                                              
Should subjugate itself beneath their feet;
Even their religions cry out
That they are meant to dominate this world;
Animal life hides at their approach;
Even their smell is unusual,
Camouflaged by many substances
That they put upon the body;
Godlike, they annoint themselves
With the essence of flowers,
And animal secretions  which waft into the air
From their body's censors-
And what other animal can kill or maim,
Without proximity?

Sleep Soundly Curse

There are thoughts I'd not allow to think, of you;

Though they carry you off in your sleep some night;

These words I shall not write down of you:

Asleep in my past, where you have no right.

They'll carry you off in your sleep, some night;

Beware, beware, for the time is late,

Sound asleep in the past, where you've no right,

An interloper seals his certain fate.

Beware, beware, for the time is late,

And you will die, inside those walls,

An interloper seals his certain fate;

Sleep soundly: till the anvil falls.

And you will die, inside those walls;

The ghosts of my loved ones number your breaths,

So sleep soundly, till that anvil falls;

For every nightmare's a new little death.

The ghosts of my loved ones number your breaths;

Though there are thoughts I'd not think of you,

And every nightmare's a new little death-

Though I'll write nothing down, of you.

Death is a Dark Tune

Death is a dark tune
That arrives on a dark day
When nothing is going your way
And the storms break through
Your perfectly arranged world
Rattle your windows,
And chill you to the bone.

If you should come suddenly
There won't be hot tea brewing
Or clean towels laid out just for you
I might be in the middle
Of a lengthly novel
Forgive me if I'm brusque then
I hate interruptions.

It's nothing personal
Just give me some time
To compose myself,
Look around once more:
It may seem humble to you
But remember nobody
Has made any assurances
About what's coming next
I want to remember
How this feels.

It may be that
I could find my way
Around your dark paths
Maybe stumble a little;
But pick up again,
Go on having my predictable
Thoughts, make myself
Another cozy place, settle down
We're all just searching
For a little peace anyway,
Aren't we?
You really should
Get with me on this.

Witness

 Everything in this peculiar world                                            

Has a tendency to become 

More and more humanlike. 

Soon store dummies will be 

Needing yearly check-ups, 

And wig head stands 

Will be requiring chiropractic. 

I always had a deep distrust 

Of things that looked human, 

And pretended to be inanimate anyway. 

Why did they have to look so alive, 

If they had no warm flesh or coursing blood- 

Living beings have blood that sings 

To other living beings and it remembers 

The consciousness it nourishes. 

The flowing blood is a fingerprint; 

A time stamp of being 

That permits no perjury.

Because You Were Beautiful

Because you were beautiful

The frost formed fingerprints, on window glass

As if to touch your shoulder, when you pass;

Or write in code, your name upon the leaves

So that it shows, whenever something breathes,

Because you were beautiful

Because you were beautiful

The storm left grayish teardrops on the sill,

A keepsake of the stillness it must feel

After angry clouds have left the sky,

And the birds and wildlife breathe a sigh:

Because you were beautiful

Because you were beautiful

This heart has felt the shadow of your grace,

Wherever loveliness has left its trace;

And songs I heard beside you, on the earth

Became the stars above us, giving birth-

Because you were beautiful

Blame Me This Time

This time, to save time                                                
I'm just going to fall in love
With myself: discrete lunches
Alone at the table, with an engrossing book
Candlelight dinners and vintage wine,
Looking up at the stars,
Trying to name all the constellations-
Just me and only me;
Slow dancing in the garden
To a symphony of cicadas
Heart-shaped chocolate boxes,
With a romantic poem tucked under the ribbon
Surprising myself with flowers
And fresh-squeezed orange juice
After an all nighter
Of watching movies by myself
Secret notes slipped into my bag
To meet myself at an undisclosed place
For a romantic interlude:
I can see it's going to get complicated
But at least, I'll have only myself to blame
If things go wrong.

He stole his eyes from a milk-glass moon

He stole his eyes from a milk-glass moon,

From drops of peridot scattered at sea,

Hidden beneath a moon-shadowed ruin.

His father not caring where or with whom,

Or from what rare ocean his being might be-

He stole his eyes from a milk-glass moon.

He learnt his letters from a dark winged loon

Who flew where the mountains caress the trees,

Hidden beneath a moon-shadowed ruin.                                                

His speech was a garble of false and truth,

Whistling like a hollow piped reed,

He stole his eyes from a milk-glass moon.

His eyes a contagion of waters blue

And brackish trunks of underwater trees

Hidden beneath a moon-shadowed ruin.

His normal voice wove a threadless tune,

Brought close the mermaids, hungry to feed;

He stole his eyes from a milk-glass moon,

Hidden beneath a moon-shadowed ruin.

(my first Villanelle- yaaay! lol)

I had two rats to fill my days

I had two rats, to fill my days                                                        

Through spines of books and bed clothes

They chewed their lazy way

And when they saw you, froze

Through spines of books and bed clothes

Released out of their cage

And when they saw you, froze

For chewing was their rage

Released out of their cage

And when they saw you, froze

For chewing was their rage

Their pile of booty grows

And when they saw you, froze

They lurked behind the dresser

Their pile of booty grows

The cage mess is the lesser

They lurked behind the dresser

They chewed their lazy way

The cage mess is the lesser

I had two rats, to fill my days


(a Pantoum poem)

And the Letter Came

And the letter came:
And you thumbed, humbled, over it and over
An hundred times a week, you took it out
Pouring each word over again
As for the first time, it still was
And blotchy it was from tears
And tips, nervous fingers which pulled little rips
Into the off-white paper, where much strong handling bore
Each time's grief bearing need: you read it, nothing more
Seen differently; surely always the same, yet nuances
Came despite instinctual knowledge of before;
Did this sentence- this wording style preferred it
That he might mean only just that- or was it
Imagination's sullied creation? did those words
Sound tired; and if very thought of you
Became fatigue, was it the plague of his precious pen, or brain
Or just the worry of his own entrenchment there?
Even so; sometimes you read familiar words
That joy shouted from, certain as could be.
Times when you felt uneasy, queasy at one word
Or phrase, as if a ringing death-knell must have
Rang: to spell out the end of time's bitter being-
Crossed yourself, three times; and said a beaded prayer.
The letter came to be important to you that this
Could cause everything to cease; a hunt driven
Feverish, once it went missing where from out it's pocket-house
(deeply as when you bent under the trees..
to pick up crying children in their frail need) it leaped.
And when one day unfolding, the letter dropped into your lap
Pieces neat piled into sections; folds perforated through
Because so nearly worn out; stained, thin-souled as grief itself
Heart treasure map woven in lover's lace; bequeathed
And then realized: there no other letter ever was or be;
If never sent, gone missing; you'd pinned all quickened heart beats
Stayed hope's courage upon a single letter's fate, and it
Carried through the fears, saw above the swarming years
Sleepless nights when, no tears left, it swam: you gathered up the limp
Damp, feathered pieces and stowed them safe for keeping
Knowing some day again, when things were not the same
And finding them you would remember, this single letter
By which all hope then was given, your hope that came
As a single letter; came due south, straight down from heaven..

Miscalculation

I envy the cool darkness, now we're apart
And the warmth which wrapped your body:
Cocooned by your breathing,
The secret shadows and angles
Which gradually changed every hour
Like a dark sundial recording
All your limbs tiniest convolutions.

I know there was a sort of                                                            
Kabalistic synchronicity
Some algebraic function
And if only I'd studied more;
If only I'd applied myself better
I wouldn't have gotten all the equations wrong
Lost the notes, failed the exam.

I remember those once acute angles
How they fit so perfectly my body's contours
Our seams vanished together, smooth soldered
In the same molten dream; mouth to mouth
Torso upon torso, moving wave unfurled
Water of twin oceans, mingled-
Now it's only the moonlight that burns.

Be Careful

Be careful of close auditoriums

And thick stanchioned stadiums

Watch out for iron gussetted doorframes

And bar covered windows

For your loneliness will trap you there

Backed up against the steel barriers

And probe your trembling thoughts 

With it's dark truncheon.

Stay away from mirrors

Which can reveal your state of solitude

Automobiles which will show your inertia

Rollercoasters which can skitter you into the past

Without so much as a roll-bar

And arms, perhaps most dangerous of all-

Just before nightfall.

And If Your Sun Should Nightly Shine

And if your sun should nightly shine
To kiss my most fervent need
And if fevered hands should suddenly seek
Upon mine; inviolate, to feed

If, hand to hand, we fuel that hidden mouth
Which, cavernous, can never sleep
Who can say what the ending will be
Of things giving birth from the deep

Once-bound of heaven; loosed upon earth
To the uppermost firmaments, it must always escape
The clouds ferry sandpipers day-swift journeys,
While on beaches beneath, the dead birds gape.

Lover of My Soul

You've given me everything
I could have wanted; and also that which
I wouldn't have dreamed I could ever desire so much
You've answered me in your own way-
Everything I've asked of you and more
I never could have imagined how wonderful
You would be, even in your darkest moments
I've enjoyed with you things most people
Only fantasize about, and things nobody could imagine
I've had a special relationship with you
From the first moment, so forgive me
If, at the end of us,
I ask for more time with you-
And I know everyone does that;
It's not that I'm greedy, it's just that
The alternative to you is nothing I can imagine,
Nothing compared to your beauty right now,
O my world- everyone always wants more of you
Even though you're the soul of everything.

Nights Are Too Long

All nights are too long

When your lover's far away-

I chase the trains all night

The ones my thoughts are riding;

Hobos bound for anywhere but home.

Trains full of candle smoke

And down from comforters,

Trains mixing together a combustible dream

In their blurry eyed compartments.

My memory is westbound

My history behind me somewhere;

If I stay behind, I'm nowhere,

If I don't jump soon enough, I'm lost

I can't remember getting on at any station,

I never had a ticket stub

Nobody here seems to knows me-

Why have I always been afraid?

I'm the tear in a nun's eye
I'm the broken note in a crow's cry

The standing fall down on trains,

The sitting see everything swiftly pass them by

Before they can ring the bell-

I can see your eyes, out of a hundred windows

In every window, door and steeple

The faster, the farther I go, the more you keep up with me;

Haunting, like a vision

Soundless, like a dancing flame.

I sleep and wake fitfully,

Feeling the cabin vibrate-

Are the eyes inside or out now?

We can play like ghosts at midnight,

With the past and future;

We can pass through walls

As invisible as wind:

I'm the tear in a nun's eye
I'm the broken note in a crow's cry

Death teases us with the nearness of it's breath
Like when you look into a crowd
And happen to lock eyes with the one staring straight at you-
Even though you never saw them before,
And didn't know they'd be looking your way.

I wander past your outstretched arms
Looking for the other you,
The one outside my head
Who fills out all my waking dreams

When everyone's gone
Who will see the stars falling,
And who can give me absolution?

For I'm the tear in a nun's eye
I'm the broken note in a crow's cry-

Nights are too long
When your lover's far away.

written to Morning Song/Zero 7

A Woman's Just a Padded Cell

A woman's just a padded cell, in situ:

With mirrored tile reflections, of former occupants

Reveals their once desires, like long past feast

That's been viewed only partially, through a narrow hall,

And though her cushions can't stop your fall

They soak up life's effluvium; for she's an island

In the lull; most co-morbidly, antediluvian:

And as it cradles the body's living estate,

Her rocking-horse frame can't navigate

The ground swell of presumptive grace.

Let's pretend, that the dizzy motion ride

Has provided real progress forward, in spite

Of strong waves, that coupled oceans bring;

Jump saddle, on her coiled and double-jointed springs.

Bright enameled eyes might rein you inside

For your brief spate, of the near total ingress: 

Waving haloed hips of plastic'd flesh; her glide

Could stay stationary, until you confess.

Only she knows well, the secret of assuring you

You'll not drown, of her swirling vicissitudes;

And if once you abhorred your childhood name;

Now can use same call sign, for your idling engines 

Of a certain procreatively inspired invasion

As she whispers it; says it loud, clenching need

Of the second's singlemost long duration.

When she finally unlocks your prow from docks

Post haste, of body's self-deceptive clocks

Inside her temples, rising incense of sweat

Mingled with undertows, of past vibrations; and her smell

Itself: a briny distillate, of a pheromone tonic; forensic clue

Of a decidedly amber hue; the body's cyclonic age of man

Keeps travelling it's way, down her plundered mnemonic.

You can feel the straight jacket's razored sleeves,

Beginning to loose your constricted lungs;

And your loins overflowing; becoming a sieve:

If you could keep on riding, you'd be quite sure

That eventually, just a small band-aid could cure

The slight, though badly malformed scar;

From the still flowing toxins; to soon immure-

Hard to believe, how far gone you were.

Forget old self; a newfound confidence;

Makes you forestall the inevitable trip

Down to the corner, second-hand store,

As now is revealed, that her paint's become chipped;

And the horse's eyes are now rolling inward,

As if looking there, for some positive proof,

From the prying, irreverent eyes of the world-

But you know it too well: she's just a padded cell.

Modern Warfare

My tongue's a saber
Inside a false stiletto heel
My hair has barbs, piranha fangs concealed within each strand
It slices your skin if you go along it in the wrong direction
A blowgun sits just inside my throat
With pouches of toxin close by
My eyes are radar slits
With slowly revolving fields
A mollusk shell shields my emotions
A chain mail plexus lies camouflaged along my body
It's impossible being me
And trying to not wound you-
I sometimes lie to myself, and I tell myself
That I do not care that you are wounded,
That you should have known
That any dealings with me would result
In you're being hurt; you should have expected it
On the worst days, I gash you joyously
To hear you howl and
To see the blood run in rivulets.
But I always cry in the dark
When nobody can see it
And wish that I were more normal;
Surrounded on all sides as I am
By the walking wounded.

Fictional Prose : Declaration of Dependence : Deep Underground Poetry Community

Fictional Prose : Declaration of Dependence : Deep Underground Poetry Community

To a Rune Stave I Lent My Hot Blood

To a Rune stave I lent my hot blood
To tally up the sum of the hearts affections
The scrawled, agile figures bent to their sultry task

My old blood has been there talking to them
Before, and past lovers linger on in traces,
Once flowing rills, where their shadows stayed behind me

Words that echo in the canyon hollows, above the plains
Where ever I might go, those ones go with me
They are like the dead, never buried once with respect

Watching through haunted eyes, like the wind
That might never move a leaf; still
You can sense it's held breath, hanging there above you.

The Day of Your Death

The day of your death

You stuck your head into an oven,

After first closing all the doors, windows;

Sealing yourself off, to the cries of your children,

Shutting out the processes of the entire world;

The good wishes of priests;

The long enduring of wedding presents;

The unexpected bonus of an unknown day.

When the horizon began to shrink away from you,

You did not flinch.

When dark clouds crowded the field of your vision.

You did not falter.

When the brain itself began to unplug from the body,

You did not question if god had forsaken you;

You already knew god was dispassionate

Toward the tribulations or joys of his creatures.

Perhaps you saw yourself as only a crack,

In the mildewed fabric of society;

For they are still looking for cracks today

In all the words you left behind you.

Fictional Prose : Melanie : Deep Underground Poetry Community

Fictional Prose : Melanie : Deep Underground Poetry Community

Nothing Here

There's nothing here,

So I can't be freed;

Nothing in the heart and soul of me.

Nothing's thinking,

And nothing breathes;

Nothing's blowing

The rustling leaves.

Nothing all morning

Nothing all night;

Naught between the darkness and the light.

Nothing is flagrant,

In the foaming air;

And when I go away

Nothing's still there.

Just Let the Darkness Come

Just let the darkness come,

If it can't be helped; let it come soon:

Let it remove your too familiar touch

From the rippling canvas of my heart's hesitations.

Erase too, all the moments that were stolen,

Borrowed from the quotas of the innocent-

Remove the malfeasance of pleasure, that was given in error.

Replace with a blank face, the soul's colorless artifact, 

Of what was once you-

And then we must forget the words; already fading now,

And if even the memory can no longer bear itself,

Let it fade, like that instrument

That by accident, or on purpose

Is the last voice heard, at the concert's end; the one

That reminds the audience, as they rise to leave

That however much you try to control

The music and power of humanity's emotions,

It can always break free again, 

Even though no one ever expects it.

And though it's not supposed to be heard then,

After the show is done; the musicians busy packing up their black bags,

It sends it's echo, far into the empty aisles, it's voice bouncing

From surface to surface, in the lofty building's sky

As if it longed to keep singing it's own voice forever, 

In a kind of animated, directionless passion, maybe to continue

Until even the theater succumbed, and itself fell down broken,

To collapse the stage; to crush whatever was left of the velvet seats.

But if there's nobody left to notice it,

We can always pretend the lonely cry never came;

That there never was a sound, at the evening's conclusion,

And no attention will be focused, and no pity stirred up

For the careless musician, and his oddly moaning string.

Universe for sale

Universe for sale; hardly used.                                                              
Well recycled, with resultant complexity of life forms-
Call SETI with best offer.
Terms: nothing down, everything comes with it;
Complete universal kit for life included, free of charge;
Mix-ready amino acids and lightning generators widely available.
No refund, no return.
Use at own risk.
Find the advertisement in any book of poetry,
Home Office Earth, Milky Way Galaxy,
The Local Group, Virgo Supercluster, Inc.
Inquire there about possible future merger with the Andromeda Galaxy

God Hides in the Smallest Places

God hides in the smallest places:

the carelessly upturned cuff of a sleeve,

the highlight in a lover's eye,

tucked inside the spine of some book, 

like a ribbon of place-marker

the pistil of a flower,

the smoke plume from a pipe,

swirled air through a Monarch's wing,

half filled cup, sitting in the sink,

dried tears on a handkerchief,

the pause, in a sob of anguish,

half burnt letter on the fire.

when your hand finally attempts to close on god,

you will find instead lint, dust, spores;

even though we are the predatory species,

the original hunters.

we are hunting that

which has turned itself inside out

and wrung us out, like ants fall

from a rotting log.

our busyness only takes us farther away,

farther from the beginning;

we must make ourselves smaller

on the inside,

than the smallest creature;

an ovum of closed intellectuality,

for we are the keyhole,

the minutiae, of god's existence

in the chess game

of the solitary mind,

we are the pawns:

god hides in the smallest places;

for he is also the master hunter.

Your Eyes Are Two Lean Wolves

Your eyes are two lean wolves                              
Who want to slowly tear me apart, limb by limb
Your eyes are the voice of the lost infant
Crying for a savior in the wilderness
Your eyes are the sky in eclipse
Begging for the moon to move aside
Your eyes are brilliant floodlights
Illuminating me from the inside out
Your eyes are twin suns in a remote universe
Removing the shadows from every place of refuge
Your eyes are the trap door I climb in through
Your eyes are the last thing I see.

Circuit Interrupted

You say, we need to think of some things

That went forgotten, during our days together.

You say, we need to pay more attention

To the greater world, ignored for so long.

You say, it might be better

Not to have this exclusive relationship

Here between us, since it blinds us

To the importance of everything else going on.

My brain hears all your words

And is busy placing them in compartments;

But my body hears only with it's heart-

And now these hands are shaking.

In another galaxy far away..

In another galaxy far away,                                                                

We humans are the orderly mannequins of society;

Standing in store front windows of every city,

Holding perfectly still, for endless hours 

Of standing upright, straight and unwavering, 

Through the hours of both darkness and light,

Since the malls there never close down.

We are the exotic, ideal look, as far as the aliens are concerned;

Whether large or small; that whole predatory/prey aura thing

That we carry about us, with our front-facing eyes,

Our canine incisors, claws and strong hind-leg muscles;

Our ability to move fast, or over long distances.

We even have rudimentary grasping fingers on our feet, of all things.

Our heads of lustrous hair are the envy of all aliens.

Our penchant for rare meat, and intoxicating fermented beverages-

It all screams out 'danger' to the aliens, who seem excited 

By the novelty of it; of finding themselves in such close proximity 

To beings who have not left behind their rustic manner of life,

While the aliens had evolved to a peaceful co-existence,

Practicing moderation in all things, of course;

And multiple levels above us, in understanding and intellect.

But they seemed to feel they had lost their connections, 

To the roots, of all animal life, they too were descended from,

While humans still bear signs of our unbroken close relationship, 

With earlier, primitive forms of man, and so are regarded 

With wonder, by all aliens. 

But just wait, till they see our procreative action.