cheer up, you

Darling,
do you remember that time in Toulouse,
the au lait, pigeons with stump legs and murals arching over our heads?

proper black european jackets then; and you were beautiful and laughing at everything.

or ireland; I remember looking over at you on the train ride to Galway, and I've never seen you so sad / so wanting not to be sad

but i took care of you, and we drank that night and ate spaghetti bolognese, and you fell asleep so peaceful.

do you remember getting off the train in Spain; irritable that you couldn't follow the conversation, despite the cost of your degree? you drank coke and ate a churro, and i know you longed for bed and were impatient with the world.

or: running on that track in the thunderstorm; the rain soaked you through and I peered at the sky, anxious about Zeus and his thunderbolts - you impervious and doubled over with glee

or: today, my breath stopped as you walked so blase into traffic; your big black glasses and seething attitude. you've never looked so sexy.

or: last night, crying because you heard your sick father say "i love you," and he never does, and I know that.

Let me relish the pleasure of holding you tight,
of witnessing your darks, your scintillations, your delightful crinkled eye.
you of good heart, and good womb; a good woman beloved

song lyrics (from, like, 2008)

in october black
the nights fall fast;
never minded it till now

but lately someone's on to you
and she wants to be your home

baby i need
on nights like these a steady hand to hold
not piles of sand and tsunami winds
rattling through my soul

but even stones grow smooth with time
and every fire slows
i guess that even your nights with her
will eventually turn cold

hope Someone Else is ready
to clean up your broken home
that she'll have all those answer
that you wanted me to know

chilly now
but winter frost
may freeze out all the aches
the whitest stars
are staring back
they whisper of my strength

ritual

i've thrice gone mad, mad, mad
(though once was just for show).

secretly, it's darling.
i take pictures, even.

i don't believe in quiet lips, polite outsides
i scream and the universe shifts to hold me close

occassion #3:
i transcend in my own puddle of red, of
wine-soaked vomit, tears, nose snot running -
clots on my face, cursing god

my eyes bulge and the red is like blood around me;
i know i have his attention,
like isaac on the mountain
soaked in my humanity - my gore,
a thread i grasp.

we rest together in its paltry consolation.
i get no apologies, but i get it now.
i get the joke.

bathtub baptism tout de suite
wash it away, away, away
time to transcend
again, again, again.

we need you to endure.
we need your eyes and throat
and washed belly.

we need you.

the next day, save the ringing head
and dim memory of muck, trapped in hair,
eyes too fat to open,
i am aware.

all the sense of this world falls together,
a simple thing,
so simple and sad.

i reclaim my mortal coil.
i look at the pictures and shudder

vision

swollen eyes again.
to see, to see, to see

they are relentless to me.
i saw, and he saw, and she blissfully unaware did not

i a cassandra
a rooted prophet
jaw agape, prescient,
the brain blood laced with god words.

oh but how i had hoped for better.

their eyes stop up; remain without,
magpies and wheel ruts
the familiar, the familiar, the familiar

they do not look behind to see ahead

oh god i hoped so hard for better

i a cassandra
a rooted prophet
jaw agape, prescient
unheeded.

away goes beloved, beyond return

disappointment

child takes the stranger's hand
and i presume her
lap full of candy

a blown about; fickle,
giving 'aw shucks' eyes,
defiance and curiosity too;
child owes nothing
when the world is his honey box

brave little man with the puffed up chest

a matter of time
before mother's manners
ill imparted
repeat themselves:

candy smashed flat
by little king fists

friends are awesome.

bodies housed in spirits
collected here, lit up inside,
twin fireflies.

my heart, held in secure hands
and fed words that serve:

pointing words,
signpost words,
nourished, watered, whetted, resting

they dazzle me completely

un-title

heart of honey
quietly scribes
to the night -
rest

rest head upon
pillow and breast

from the skin of his temple
warm honey exudes

rest and breathe

oh as far as the stars

oh as far as the stars!
as far as the stars I will stretch my neck
to the uppermost colds of space.