Just starting my "ese". It's Friday night & I can't find a new law and order, or even a new csi, so I'll find myself.

the day waited
I anticipated
begonias burst into flame
scarlet clay
in marquis-shapes
this poem is deadly
quickly, dissipate
it will kill all the others

live intrigue
coral reef
left behind
tracking leaves
innocence
light-years
humility

secluded
fatigued
dusty night
wake up
you, you unknown
dry crispy leaf
not sinister
refuses to leave

lonesome activity
soft hands
whisper covers
faded metal stains
ice glistens

hollow diamonds
hollow hexagons
pointed shapes
oval to vees
half what ice should be
sprinkly stars eventually

draped property
rows and rows
chain-link fence,
years pass
I spent all my shivers
on removing articles
spell check
preview
post

I suppose I should give credit
where credit is due.
I should show him
the utmost justice.
he truly is charming,
as he says.
a little solemn too,
but oh,
the things he plans to do.

in the evenings,
he pulls words
from his pocket and
revives my drooping spirit.
daily, he uses powers
of persuasion and philosophy,
overwhelming me
with lofty thoughts
and comforting phrases
provocative, soothing.

soon,
he will silence discussion
with a kiss that falls
a blow to the heart; 
like a criminal confesses a crime;
like demon possession

whether innocent or guilty,
I'll do what he suggests.

life holds a brilliant sky
stars are there
you can see them
but you can't count them
they twinkle fire
first there is a bridge
you cross
a ladder you find
and climb
mountain you scale
tunnel you travel,
valley you divide
its name
shadows
death.

Hands feel,
as if touching again,
what lips and skin remember.
Smooth desire runs again,
through honey-ed blood,
as her body awakens
to the taste of him--
his savour known and
remembered

I was wholly unprepared
for his enormity
My thoughts
were much too small,
never big enough
to encompass his truth.
 
I searched
for a bridge to cross--
the one of separation
But no one
could take me
near the edge,
where only there,
could I die,
present in the moment.
 
Death, like rain
fell gently back
into an immense ocean,
where brave ones dive deeply
through narrow uncoverings
of what is always there;
where separation is an illusion;
and isolation is only fear.
 
The sea was kind
and without urgency,
no pressing in the moment,
or into worlds of awareness,
where I had work to do,
hidden things to uncover--
 
moments to remember
without going mad
searching for a center,
or an empty space,
flowing and unfolding
ryhymes and reasons
on which to hang my grief--
 
I never knew
and didn't care
about their provision,
or experiencing false
sensations of
effortless activity--
or whatever this
and whatever that,
or whatever happened next,
 
a mere investigation--
the one on the edge
across the bridge,
where he waited in comfort
without falsehood:
I was clarity
and he was balance
as we presented
ourselves simply--
a focus for the sea.

I can see the Sun from here--
clearly my key to light
as I look over my shoulder,
watching dappled shadows
bounce from white-light
to black-light, from
daylight to night time,
in glowing colour casts--
at points easy to forget,
waiting for my eyes to adapt.
 
These lenses invite
a lovely rapport with life,
although at times,
the lense is much too long,
and not always convenient.
 
If it were not for the
soot and whitewash,
bright dappled sunlight
would fill my journals
and record everything--
even all the glory.

He inspires me to write poetry,
rigidly poised,
listening for different sounds,
testing the chords,
plucking at strings-- 
the brass joins in,
the cymbals and drums,
and always the applause is silent.

I'll talk.
You'll listen.
No, wait.
I'll talk.
You'll squirm.
Isn't that what you like?
That excited, squirmy feeling?
Pushing, pressing
so close to the edge
but never falling over?
You love that jolt of power
when you've finally broken
the last frazzled nerve,
the nerve that held on,
tried to stay strong
until you snapped it--
busted it wide open
like a broken fire hydrant
gushing profanities
while you smile.

I've changed my mind.
No squrim for you.
No pleasure.


I'll talk.
You'll listen.
Or maybe
we won't talk at all.

She and I are one--
poured out,
plundered for you
by the law of recipriocity--

She, at her finest, her highest,
meeting her most ultimate goal,
a gleam in the eye of vulnerability--
an ache drawn from the deep
of passion's bounty;
an avalanche of need, at last
consuming humanity's greed.

And giving herself over
to a fantastic scheme,
she succumbs to the fancy
of reality only in dreams,
and so, I will accompany her
in the lost joining of one.

Niagara in the Fall


Under
the waterfall
twenty miles
and a day

still
we are
far from shore

our bodies
never drying
under the sun

never insignificant
like yesterday's
neglected news,
rolled-up and silent

Hey
I bet you could
if you would
if not for mere entertainment
whiled all joined the arraignment
of rhythm without time
and poems minus the rhyme--
only to discover
one cannot be
without the other

but, on the other hand
one would surmise
her own summations;
the other could laugh
without hesitation--
only to discover
one would be fine
without the other

because, although
would and could
are very close
humans always have faces,
even in far away places
and are not that way,
of course.


Cheryl

strong thighs,
curvy hips,
a dark past,
laces tight round legs
and feet and the gritty pen
of a poet-slave,
staying soft when her words
would not take the chance
to let her dance
when she was ugly,
when she was pretty,
when she was nothing
or even everything,
tight black leather
and the knots of circumstance
loosened round her lover
and she danced.

Out the front window
pumpkins, whole thick crops
clearly blown away, nothing left.
Strange smoky faces appear
from smouldering rock.
Golden teeth gleam in wide-open
mouths, gaping like carved pumpkins
from fields once-green.
 
Singed hair dangles from temples
crossing hollow cheeks,
resting on lips meant for kissing.
Lids pull up and back--
curtains exposing round balls
once slick, now afloat in black holes.
 
Lenses look miliseconds
into atom's brilliant flash--
     Hiroshima
     ... and the eyes of a woman.

First Edition


A sad King once ruled my life.
He pressed me into His satire,
where once I was His chronicle.
My lips he never read.
And though I screamed my throat red
with the blood of disgust,
He dismissed me saying,
"It is not you I value. It is not you I trust."

I was His priceless First Edition, bound
in leather and fine leaf, that He battered
and abused. I told of history and decades
of decadence, but He tore out my pages,
destroyed my gilded edges, and robbed me
of integrity. He became the exception to every rule;
an absolute Monarch, and I his fool.

He called me Tragedy claiming me to be His prose
and in the darkness of His Poetry
stripped me of my vanity.
Run wild, you Beast, you Child!
Your "poetry" echos in my face:
   You are but mirror. You have no place.