Our Lady of Perpetual Motion

I bow to you. How your hands take mine and pull me under your heavy embrace. How watery your bosom against my breast, your fingertips against my chest, your smile pressed into the gaze of my distracted eyes.

I bow to you.

For your blood is a bubbling brook of fresh water, your breath like a sea breeze that carries the brine, your heartbeat now the undertow that lulls me to sleep and tears me from bed, scrambling as though I’m drowning, drowning as you take me in and feed me.

I bow to you.

With your body entangled in mine, you are a whirlpool, and I am your spin. You are the current, and I am the sailor stranded in your open waters. You are the waves, and I am the thunder you bring to the shore. I am helpless, I am hopeless, I am hindered, and you carry me in your moist arms, your damp palms against my sagging spine.

From Now Till Morning

Faceless angels hovered on the glass
before the sunlight broke the frost
and bulbous pixies dangled on the grass
before the morning dew was lost

Here, at daybreak, the clock begins
before the dawning of a new age
and here, with nightfall, I pretend
that timelessness is only a cage

.

Patience

Patience is such a peculiar thing
it wraps around our fingers
like bundles of strings
and sits on our shoulders
lips pursed, whisperings
that taunt us and haunt us
until every second stings.

Patience gets us nowhere fast
but each slow step
leaves one to the past
and as we scuttle along
alone and outcast
we’ll stumble upon
the present at last.

There’s Something Inside That’s Stirring

There’s something inside that’s stirring
Gears grinding and whirring
Into this depth of passion I feel
This inversion of everything real
Inside an abyss as deep as dark
Sullen and silent and stark
Past memories and fantasies
Toward a destiny that frees
All this ambition and energy
Pent up somewhere inside me
An echo that crosses fast
Tying together future and past
In a moment of time
Wherein was the crime
That came to fruition
In an imaginary nation
That planted this seed
And coaxed forth this greed
To summon this stirring
Of ancient gears whirring
That keeps me moving here
But leaves my visage unclear
A mirror who’s facing me
Whose reflection I cannot see

Originally posted in There’s Something Inside That’s Stirring

Waiting for Exposition

It’s like watching fireworks being
launched into the sky
on the Fourth of July.
I know well enough to expect
explosions
and thunder
but I still tremble and shudder
when light fills the air.
I like watching these lightshows
especially in stormy summers
when lightning illuminates the smoke
like the shadows in the back of my mind
the ones I like to avoid.
Sitting here
I know I’m no firework
no explosive
no lightshow
yet still I feel the fuse
burning down my crown like kundalini
I can feel the altitudes fall around me
as I soar higher from this drug that
sane people call oxygen and
psychiatrists call life.

Excerpted from To the World I’ll Be