Empty Houses

I am trying
to clear this little space

for you

in this empty house
my heart

empty in my reasons

a passing
a particular line of your shoulders

the borderlands of my love
a listlessness of my own wronging
longing to be right

little crooked house
my heart

please let us stand
and move in this one swift motion

please take me home

Hyacinth

you once told me
that you pictured me
in some tropical place
walking a road to a beach
with a hyacinth in my hair


you were probably too drunk
to remember that moment clearly


busy marveling at my willingness
to walk barefoot
on city streets

you may have never known
that single clear memory
etched itself on to my heart
and i feared that it would never happen

you may have never known
how i spent the next year
desperately searching for the words
to tell you
just how much i loved you

i still think of that moment
and mouth those words
through bitter hyacinth tears
to the empty space
where you should be

Armor

on nights
such as these
i only wish
to hold you tight

lest you evaporate
from my arms
as i have
so very often feared

for in my experience
evaporation is unquestionable

here
i would be vacant
little left
but a hollow smile
twisted upright
slashed across my face

your sleeping form
is the only thing
that holds me to this world
on treacherous nights
such as these

i am lying by your side
praying
for the dawn to never come

Sudden Understanding

you were not the only man i stood naked for in that doorway

your guilt is your own problem
and i am indifferent
now caught on to a new game

red tides on cold mornings
listening to bird songs
and i am still naked

am still a shimmering doorway

----

o' little bird
the cat would snap your neck
if she only had a chance

Heartland

from the coast that bore me
in the womb of green needles
and the dark brown scent of ashen bark
where cedar trees sing
of the wet winds on cold nights
and the lights across the water
call to me from the shore

to the homelands that cradled me
with the warmth of ancient fir trees
praying to clear skies with soft clouds
near the circle of stones
where lichens creep with the slowness of ages
and the echoes of water over rock
sound of far off voices

if I should ever leave this place
I fear that I shall never know peace
that I shall birth no other land
and my hands will never rest
may my soul linger here
forever in the twilights of the West
with these sentinel forests ever living within my dreams

This Dirty City

my horizon
affected by your memories
standing here

this dirty city
stretching before me
feeling your breath in my ear

i am trying hard
very hard

closing my eyes
touching the cold glass
trying to reconcile
your past with my present

i am here
i swear i am here

if i were you
i would hold on to me tighter

Saint

as I explored between the legs of dawn
(face up to the burning reflection of sky)
I caught sight of the luscious fold of her lips

delicate in their poison curve
pulled back to offer
the barest slip of tongue between teeth
exposing a terrain left unexplored by hasty lovers

(with rough hands and hoarse voices)

so sweet the bend
that lilted her words
towards my own admiration

and I dared to dream
that through the divinity of her tooth and tongue and lip
that I (the lover) could pay for my sins
with the naked hardness of her body

green eyes

my kitten cleans
his paws
and tucks his nose
into his tail

i suspect
that the truth
of worlds
lurk behind those sparkling green eyes

bus sex

i am finding myself
with a desperate urge
to run my fingers
up the back of your legs
to just under the edge
of your o' so short skirt

a reaction generally frowned upon
on public transit

funny how these inappropriate little ideas
find their way into my smile

i wrote this song and gave it to god...

Swing Axe

i have bent to one knee
to see her god in the trees
pale as moonlight
wicked as stars
and twice as sharp of tongue

she says
'you are aging as you stand
in the face of my glory
with eyes of this blazing sun
eyes of blazing sun'

i have bent at the middle
to see her god in the river
her feet bare
as she walks over my grave
with delicate footsteps

she says
'you are wilting as you stand
in the face of my glory
with eyes of this burning sun
eyes of burning sun'

i have bent down
and come up again
with my swing axe
set to chopping down her trees
and stopping up her river
while cursing all her ways

she says
'you are damned as you stand
in the face of my glory
and your eyes have set the sun
eyes of setting sun