Beauty (My Father's Hands)

you say
'i am too bruised for you
i can't survive myself
look at these angry scratches
this swelling place
where would you see beauty
in these fists?'

you know
my father came home every day
with darkly stained hands
from chain oil
and axle grease
smudges on his face
dirt in his eyelashes

he was a mountain of man
to me
his hands never clean
shaggy beard
wild hair
booming laugh
as he roared into the yard
in his one tonne chariot
with two flat tires

everyday he came home
with sawdust in his hair
and huge hands
lugging a chainsaw
at his side
tossing his dirty bucking pants
over the living room chair
much to my mother's displeasure

everyday
he came home
covered in the filth of working men
rode the big machines
once came home with a branch
from a surprised falling tree
embedded in his leg
bleeding all over the seat vinyl
as my mother sped
the hour to the nearest hospital

every day there was sawdust
and blackened hands that never came clean
and splinters
and little scrapes where the sparks jumped back
and burnt his skin
and bruises from flying sticks
when great trees met the ground
at his shivering command

and everyday my father was beautiful to me

if you can not see the beauty of yourself
reflected in mine eyes
then you don't know who I am
and will never see where I came from

I Hate the Word

Is love not a vile and formless thing?
Is it not all tripped forward in flesh
hastened to punished hearts
and be quickly thrown up
like two fingers down the throat?

I vomit these words up
like Clean Christians
applying hot pokers
to naked pagans

I twist 'i love you'
around snarled lips
with a tongue so bruised
in deep purples
that only spit and bile
come to the surface
and gurgle out around
my crooked teeth

all like a buzzing
of collected bees
under my wane and pale skin
and in silk covers
all wrapped in finery
face applied
and held still like granite
I find no comfort
and spew blood upon white gowns
and smiling sycophants

I spit up love
oh wretched thing that you are
I spit it up
onto the lapsing scenery
the collapsing dreamlessness of morrow's day
where garish sun sinks to Death's kingdom
and lovers become anchors
to my blackened vomitous soul
in the dark depths
of frozen oceans on the point of the known world

tread not where monsters touch
the faces of fair maidens
and in my fury
I am blind
o'er I catch your love all up
in all but these crooked sharpened teeth
and tear it to little bloody rags
on the edge of your fraying mercy

I cough up 'i love you'
in great black chunks
and gouge my green eyes out
for this is a vile and formless thing
this horrible love
that has found its way
to the bottom of my bottomless heart

Golgotha

I thought
'this must be
what fucking Jesus Christ
is like'

your hips slamming into the thickness
of my thighs
gasps unwillingly escaping
my lips
like little breathless prayers
to dieing saints

my fingers nestled in that crown
of flesh
teeth in my shoulder
I'm searching for
just the right feeling

just the right spot
for a holy vision
and black lights
sparkling before my face

your cheek pressed against mine
leaden breath
ragged in my ear
your fingertips dug
into the meat of my ass
I saw God
in your heavy eyes

your hardened flesh
the spear
little deaths all inside me
little resurrections with each
shuddering thrust

I can almost see your halo
a shining aura of golden light
your lips at my breast
trying to find how deep I go
this holy well
this fount of wicked blood

my tongue so nimble
it utters your secret name
as it wraps around you
snake that I am
with great curled horns
burden of knowledge

I can make you come
for eternity
and feel just how awful
goodness always is

Lucifer In My Kitchen

dear Lucifer
tell them I love them
and when I close my eyes
I see them
and I smile a little
and I cry a little
and I dream up
a big black sky
telling my self
great big black lies
and little red truths

Lucifer, o' dear Lucifer
tell them I think of them
I took them home with me
I spoke them
to secret places
and I loved them
darkly and perfectly
for just a little while

Lucifer, my sweet Lucifer
save my kisses for them
tell them where
I am hidden
tell them to come
and find me
before I set this place
on fire
and fall asleep in the flames

Lucifer, my black king,
tell them
I was looking for them
and I will wait
until miracles light the skies
all red
and I finally
find my way home
to that dark kingdom
in the wilds

When You Come Around

love can be molded with nips of teeth
against gentle pink skin
in secreted smile
and long distance phone calls

you can be a bird
and wish for cannon balls

or you can be stuck where you are
standing in the shower
with your hands below your waist

you can laugh until you fall off the couch
heavy lidded
inhaling sticky sweet drugs down into your lungs

or you can be a bug
under the floorboards
scurrying from fat cat paws

love can be a warm bed
a warmer body
and clean sheets crisp against the night air

you can whirl around the dance floor
pushing the grabbing hands away
and billowing up to the sparkling lights

faces can be video lines
lips parted to a glowing 'o'
we can be naked
to the gentle blue flickering
of another day in TV static

o' hands of mine
be swift in time
and I shall lay my head
at your feet

with heavy breasts
and your name tattooed on my hips
I will be waiting
for the day when you come around

I Knew Right Then That You Would Break My Dirty Heart

And you might wake up tomorrow
with the strange taste of blood
in your throat

and you might wonder where the summer went.

You might wonder about the cold place next to you
and the strange perfume upon your pillows.

You might bury your head in your arms
and remember unusually cool skin on a sweltering night
curled against you
whispering something
that sounded like a dirty confession of love.

You might think you remember me
but I am just a dusty ghost
on your tongue
that you collected one warm night
from the trash cans in the alley
and I have gone home
with my dirty pitch black heart
to the clean white snows of Winter's hands
and the gentle caresses of Fall's windy tongue
to calm myself of your summery lies,
your heated hands
and your golden shining skin.

When Summer and Winter Were Lovers

With downcast eyes you whisper,
'This is too much;'
but I know the most intimate act,
between a man and a woman,
is to have him take your hand,
and lead you through a crowded room.

You trace your fingers down my wrist,
as you draw me around the twisted throngs,
of careful on-lookers,
locked into their own tragic romances,
slipping shiny little glances at other parts of the room.
This heated night touches our skin,
and we pine for Summer's last days.

Glitter falls from the ceiling and lights upon my skin,
as you wrap yourself around my form,
in rhythm with this tribal beat;
a thousand feet pound the floor,
shaking the false columns of a lost Babylon.
I rewrite this Odyssey sinking into the ocean of your arms,
with my eyes half closed and your lips upon my neck.

This room is full of nymphs turning their bright eyes to us;
in a winking moment of tantalizing breath,
a two-sexed goddess controls the air around the stage,
and all eyes cast upon her;
but your lips remain upon my neck,
and your hands stray down my hips,
playing out the beat of your lust.

When we flee this room,
full of the beating hearts of breathless dancers,
and slip into the darkness of the city,
stealing down the back streets of dimly lit houses,
you stop me and kiss me under a tree,
dripping in the last vestiges of Summer.
You run your hands under my dress,
caressing your way to your own desires.
I feel Fall creeping cold hands into my hair,
and the wind begins to blow from the North.

This big bed is where I am undone,
and slip into a troubled sleep.
You stand in the corner and whisper,
'This is too much;'
I can feel the Fall turning my skin damp,
dieing leaves caught up in my hair,
all passion leaking from me as the Summer vibrates on and on.
I can feel the new Winter now not far,
crying to the dawn in a hushed voice.

They were once lovers as we are,
the Summer, ever bright and the Winter, darkening,
Summer kissing the glistening snows of Winter's soft hands,
Winter's frozen breath grazing Summer's warmed cheek.
But they never touched,
never found paths beyond emptiness,
and broke themselves,
as I have broken myself on the glass in your heart.
I watch your sad eyes as I turn on,
into this blinding dawn of dieing Summer's last wish,
for the Winter neither of us can have,
and the Fall that always keeps us apart.

Lady Resurrection

I have you to thank for this,
for this empty room
where I have come and made my home

I remember thinking it looked comfortable
with these walls painted in blood and chocolate and late summer fruits
but I can't remember if I thought I wanted to spend my life here

Justice is useless, unneeded and impotent
but I have it nonetheless
retribution was in my teeth when I kissed you

You with an acidic mouth
a twisting disposition sure to twist away from me
totality swaying your head for me

Swaying, snake-like rhythm
our home in words
your page is mine and you know how to hurt me

The sound is closer now
the droning is filling up my head
I am kissing with all my teeth
and screaming with all my resurrection intact

I am the red queen
naked in your bed
a kingdom of crumpled sheets
at your feet
and my hair taking over the pillows

You stood in the corner
gently mouthing
'I made a mistake'

The mistake was made before you and I came here
and I have guarded it with all my armies
all my damned men still mine in God's eyes

I am a resurrection just for you
You called me Lady Returner
couldn't burn me out of the room
even when you turned your back
and hated me with all your heart

I can not see you
I never could
and the anger in me flew out
with great black wings
and shouted at the men below
until they clutched their heads
and crumpled to the ground

And what am I now but the vessel
the holy order of emptiness
marching into an angry dawn
with your name upon my lips
my feet pointed to oblivion
and my mind bent beyond the ever-loving tongue of God

A Textual Romance and a Passive Suicide

He plied me with words,
each more sweet than the last.
Every syllable tasted of pomegranate juice,
slipping down my chin and sticking to my lips.
My fingers were coated in the slickness of it;
I licked each digit,
savoring,
velvet tongue to softest skin.
Words like hands sliding over me,
into me,
through me.

He wrote me pages and pages of text;
miles of cursive verse,
extolling every little crevice of our twisting relationship.
The pages wrapped around me;
curling me in a blanket of intellectual dalliances.
His words slipped down my throat scratching all the way;
filling up my belly with swimming letters of jumbled importance.
I put my fingers down my throat and tossed them back up.

I stood in my kitchen with bottles of little words,
taking over the shelves like an invading army.
They spilled down the counters and puddled on the floor,
piling up in the corners, filling up the sink.
I searched through the clutter for milky jars of potent pills instead;
something to quiet the chittering,
and chattering,
of his textual romance,
in my swimming head.
I downed
onetwothreefourfive
and
onetwothreefourfive more;
Yes just like that.
Slid to the ground,
and cradled sentences of longing and love to my chest.
When those words turned bitter and the pomegranate turned to rot;
I poisoned myself in little ways with the love of a troubled man.

When I lie down,
close my eyes,
and commit my little passive suicide,
I sigh terribly;
because this never meant anything,
and words will never explain it.

Out Here She's Already Gone

my words
dipped in heat
and hesitation
come out
and spill down your neck
fevered
sticky
like my breath
all undone
and weak

but you have come here
for only one reason
need in your searching fingers
and open mouth
want shimmering down your limbs
slipping in and out of your mind
my face lost in the focus
of the moment
the skin
the sliding

sheets become landscapes
and words become useless
only breath and clutching
take up the air in here
i close my eyes
as you slip your hands into my hair
to hold me still
i seem to be vibrating in and out
of here
out of your urging
panting

'please stay here with me'

i am already gone
already fading
sighing down the wall
and onto the floor
my shadow finding the door
pulling me to the street below
in between the trees
and blackened out stars
like missing teeth
running jaggedly
outside among the towers
forever

you will feel better when I am gone
you just don't know it yet

The Word

I wrote a single word upon his lips;
One Word--
--Vengeance.

And I kissed that Word,
worked it upon my tongue,
forcing it past his objections--
wetting the interior of his mouth,
and shoving it down his throat.

In my eyes he saw Hell;
In my face he saw will;
and in my hands he felt the force,
of what I had become.
Held the name of it with his fingertips,
and whispered it out loud--
--Evil.

"Are those snakes upon you?"
Serpents, my love;
Serpents with knowledge of your ills,
and your preference for pretty young things--
Firm tits under your hands,
round asses between your knees;
Wet mouths dripping with hunger,
and overt drug-induced pleas to fuck on the kitchen counter.

"And what are you, so darkened on this diatribe?"
Me? I am disillusionment with heavy breasts.
I am the weapon in sexuality.
I am the fear of intellectual aggressiveness.
I am the undelicate, the weighted, the unrest,
the opened-eyed antithesis to morality and concept.
I am the voodoo poet, the neurotic sex symbol,
the reverence for the systemic failure
of your little self-important world.
I am the Devil come to sit with you for lunch,
and talk about your house plants.

I am the one with the Word.
I am the one who has stored up that Word,
and given birth to the Idea of the Word--
I have taken the Word,
and molded it,
and fired it,
and breath'd life into it.
I have become the Word--
The Idea;
The moment when the Idea becomes the Word,
and forces itself upon your ears and lips and eyes.

And I am forcing it past his lips,
ending conversations and confessions--
Pleas and rebukes-- ending with the Word.
His eyes are rolling back in his head;
he is twirling his neck from side to side,
wide-eyed, mouth working, tongue flapping;
But I am now consumed in the Word,
coming out all sweet and dripping--
and with sticky fingers,
trailing along his shirt collar,
I leave him with the loss of the Word,
bleeding out onto the table.

And I am Vengeance,
with the Word firmly written upon her lips,
and a kiss too unspeakable to ever want.

Lament of Gold

strange now
that I should be bore here
upon the backs of my countrymen
through golden fields
upon shoulders uplifted
that I once liberated

strange now
that I should be bore here
upon your soft hands
and silken breasts
carried on the scent
of your golden hair

strange because I had
wandered far from you;
far from this dawning land;
this holiest of holy homelands

I, who had seen the Pharaoh's
kneeling at Ra's pyramidic feet
I, who had watched
Druidean priests scurry up
giant mistletoe trees
I, who had accompanied
mad Arabs to the holy land
beyond Saladin's great city walls
I, who knew the sword of foreign nobility
and drove armies to the edges of the earth

strange because I had
fled from your hair and breathe
into the arms of Athenian whore mystics
seeking visions in the form of knowledge
and the taste of forbidden pomegranates
on my tingling tongue

I was unpracticed in you soft ways
I listened to the waves of foreign shores
for the voices of mimic gods drawing me forward
and outward
and I stayed my heart at your voice
your hands could not sooth my fettered mind;
my rattling soul jittering for great sails in blustering wind
and pounding horse hooves down dirt roads

your languid eyes could not hold me here
in the times of my youthful heart
and it is strange now that on the years of my death
I should find myself in your arms once more
those pools of eyes staring softly at me
as great and free men carry me over endless oceans
and rocky gates
to the glittering fields of my childhood
strange that your arms wrap as tightly around me now
as they did then
strange that your face has not changed in the intervening years
and I realize in these last dim moments
that I have heard your soft voice singing to me
all this time
across all these lands

you, who have drawn me back here
cradled me to your breast
and sang the hymns of a homeland
I had almost forgot
that my eyes should once more see
vast fields of gold on gold
and my body should flow onto this sandy shore
where children race down the beach
throwing their voices to the wind
and I could look upon your eyes
one last time
and see the mother of all this land
in your fading smile

Milk and Honey

I have fed on milk and honey
sweetness sticking to my lips
gently dripping down my chin
rivulets flowing along my neck
collecting in the curve of my bosom

I have tasted you and known sugar
our lips meeting like the petals of a closing flower
your mouth dipping to my breast
your hands sliding down my hips
we have lapped at each other in a moment of quivering weakness

we have shared that weakness like a drug
breathing heavily in a near breathless moment
skin taking on a glowing sheen in the dancing candle light
silken hair draped over the exotic satins of the bed
your fingertips enchanted with music

it is here that I was transported to another place
another time where my heart was light and my soul unfettered
when my Eros stood unchallenged by rough voices
and I could see clearly through that sheer top you wore
to your soft breasts beneath

I could see your heart beating through your chest
your pulse racing up your throat
we stood in that throbbing mass
twisting to the beat of a demigod in plastic
sliding bodies moving without measure or restriction
and loved each other as only disasters could

now as you lay panting in my arms
I drift between coffee-coloured worlds of movement and stillness
our limbs tangled like ripe vines
our breathe sweet with honey
I capture this moment in the slow sap of my mind
and never let you go

insects on a windshield

i see no city

nothing stretches before me
only the reflections of yellow highway lines
in headlights
rushing past my image in the dull glass

and the dimness of dashboard lights
cast upon the eeriness of your face
(like a green halo)
reminds me of

the shimmering distance
that connects between our silences
and the pulsing glow on the horizon
cannot shorten the breath
in between these spaces

and even if i could still love you
the destination would never equal
the sum of where we came from

the lie in blue eyes

i remember your cruelty
washed in ignorance
i remember being neither dead
nor dieing
but folding under the weight
of your blue eyes

your sweet blue eyed treachery

here i made my home

and returned to it again and again
only to find the doors locked
and the windows dark
smudged deep with your fingerprints

if i can remember your cruelty
if i can remember your ignorance

o' god why am i here again?

Gone

i knew
my childhood
had ended

when i
no longer
believed
that anyone
would die
for my love

a little female Rage

i am a Woman

my body is a black (w)hole
drawing everything near me
to the inside of me

and tearing it to pieces

a gravitational love
a thousand directions at once

appearing here
and exploding outwards
on the other side of the galaxy

in a deep black universe
one luminous pin-point
in so many stars

a burning heart for a burning sky
back on earth

girl

i saw her standing there
nervously rubbing her palms
over her thighs
biting her lip
looking side to side
her dress clinging at her knees
mud splashed up her legs

i wanted to
i wanted to touch her
i wanted to hold her

but i knew that
would make everything
so much worse

bed sheet goddess

you explored the hollows of
her stomach
and wished for a roundness
to swell there
for her breasts to
grow tender

you lay your head just below her ribs
willing another heartbeat

with your knees on the white sheets
hands on either side of her hips
you mouthed against her belly

a name
a single name

again and again

her fingers may have been in your hair
her eyes fading in the soft light

but you knew

(o' sweet mother of my children)
you will never see Louisiana

Inspired

her Legs

i wanted to thank
all of the time
but i lacked will
and He had told me
i had Beauty
but no grace
so i lacked confidence as well

but her Legs

each purple vein on white velvet skin
was a path demanding exploration
each gentle curve
requiring navigation
a soft pace
her skirt brushing her knees
a meandering land where i wanted to find home
and lay my head in easy comfort