where i was born the breakers strike
and seaward winds disguise
the rising up of clay red dikes
against the southern skies

where i come from the water groans
and sings along the streets
"why hold me back when your soul moans
to dip your hands, your feet?"

where i grew up the streets are dark
and dry for lack of rain
and trees lift up their dusty bark
towards water they can't obtain

when i was old a storm came through
and left the city drenched
then dike walls broke and rivers grew
till streets and trees were quenched

you manage to predate me in my own home,
my dread overriding any sense
of sensibility, swamping
my ability to think, act, normally.
all the voices in my head,
they get louder
he'll never understand you, don't you know?
he never has.
and yet just the thought of your body
within miles, inches, feet of my body
sets me reeling,
scares me senseless to slink to the bedroom
and under the covers,
like a child waiting for the monster.
don't come in, don't come in, don't come in.

the night is young, the stars are soft,
and you are stiff in bed;
so come with me, come soft and young,
and play and sing instead.

the fields lie damp, covered in dew
and call for your bare feet;
so come with me, come lithe and bare,
and in the fields we'll meet.

on summer nights the moon shines here,
on copse and grove and stand;
so come with me, come swift and bright,
and let's explore the land.

the birds in nests, the rabbits holed,
won't wonder at our noise;
so come with me, come hushed and sweet,
to seek the secret joys.

the night is deep but won't betray
our feet along the way;
so come with me, come sound and whole,
to leave the hurts of day.

no changing, she said.
she sighed and said, no changing what you are.
what you do, oh sure, there's always
another choice to make, some other flood
to let loose. but no changing.

this is after i have found her
on some park bench,
almost shivering for having forgot a coat,
shying away from streetlights
and lurking along the paths like a fugitive.

no changing, i repeat.

the past is so irrevocable, she says,
some choices are so irretrievable.
she is silent then, and i notice the tears
filing into position along her lashes.
i let the moment lie, counting
the number of pulled threads in her sweater
then open my mouth and inhale,

no changing! she repeats,
glaring at me to defy her.
even if i had it to do over, it's a path
and it's mine and i walked down it,
and what is there to change about that?
insistent she continues, when i am reborn
(and at least there is some possibility of that)
i will make this choice again.
no changing.

and that moment, that moment stands still
and stares hard at both of us.
she can't make eye contact, i am silent
and trying not to be judgmental.
the moment joins us on the bench, curls up
next to her and tucks its feet under.
the red red tongue appears, and laps its own wounds
and hers. the moon glows.

if it's security you can't live without
then be secure in this:
youth is a gift you can't get back,
and passion a lifelong emotion.
you caught me glowing, exuberant, exulting,
and remained joyless.
so stay home at night and don't search,
don't look for stars in the sky.
time will tell who learns more, loves more,
lives more.

skeletal:
i am what i am.
dried down to marrow,
with nothing left
but dreams
and fear and anger.
all that i want
gets wrapped around circumstance,
like dust, like water, like wine.
this time is sacred,
these words are borrowed.
in blood we are all the same,
crawling through
the veins of the world,
our whitened knuckles and
broken joints clanking
against concrete,
stretching for the sky.
but i,
i am what i am,
skeletal:
i dodge your bullets,
escape your flesh wounds
and sound the retreat
to jesus and mary,
communed or not,
my soul will seek there
(not there)
far longer than my body.

and in a world that has no name
how am i to face my shame
close it, let it hide my grace
and place my hate in the face
in the love that i know best
accuse, and put the blame at rest
refuse to cry these tears for you
be tested, and be tried and true
to live my life like all the rest
and start to wane under your crest
that will not let my shoulders fall
nor let me drop to knees and crawl
yet you were always there for me
to pick me up, to set me free,
till pleasure let you strike me down
and now i sink beneath the ground
once looped, i sweet around you curled
now overused, your hand will hurl
my trust away from blessed lands
and i am left with only stance
to save me from old dreams again
my doubts, no doubt, will rise in sin
unloved, unwed, and shedding skin
tired beyond life, i tire of this
and flee to memories of the kiss.

i would list your attributes
but my words are tainted, stained by rhythm
from someone else's pockets.
the promises you make to me come false--
the brave new web of lies you spin.
prettily you invite them in,
while i admire your penmanship, your decor
and your tall-spun sugar, as you desire.
or if it merits, you allow
the gracious hand to rule, the rice
sprinkled tomorrow by the gardener, birds descending.
the world is just your wedding
all blinded and frothy in white and
ready to be destroyed by words.
you dye your skin, i pierce your soul
and together we'll prune the awkwardness
out of telling this story
to someone else's children, nephews, grandsons,
assembled at your knee and ready to cry.
wide-eyed i hunt you out
(your invisibility in a crowd is hard to mistake)
and claim the static, harsh and clinging, as an answer.
a half-flag dawn invites the truth
and you open your mouth to sing, and swallow.

because all i want to do
is sleep with the scent of you on my skin,
to feel you ache inside me
to hush in the heat of the moment
and tell you i love you

but who's gonna learn to see me in the way
i want to be seen
who's gonna save me from the way you light me up
and throw me down

these paths are long and unlit and most days
i am afraid they will wind too close together
and i will backtrack

because all i want to do
is sleep with the scent of you on my skin,
to feel you breathe beside me
to scream in the heat of the moment
and tell you i love you

the way your lifeline disappears into shadow
and how your eyes never dim, though your smile may fall-
to watch you in your moment of insistence, pushing
even when you don't know i need you...
and everything you ever gave to me gradually disappears
but i will never feel alone again, not after
the triumphant climax of too many hours spent
plotting to gain placement in your mind and in your life.
you are a closing act, a one-man scene,
the curtain falls and i am alone, but not lonely.

how do you draw what music feels?
how do you write what your heart dictates?
do you let it leave you breathless and
leave the elation to be expressed through
less sure pens and tongues? let it
thrive solely in shuddering minds and
shaky intellectuality? such ideas which deserve
so much more and receive so much less,
they remind me of you, and your hands
reaching through miles and years
and my own, searching for that which is
good, strong, and true! shall we really
come out stronger in the end, or will
we allow life to leave us empty, wordless?
i never wanted to abandon you there,
in midnight fields to be hopelessly lost-
but rather, i wanted to curl up
inside of you and touch you in ways
you'd never felt and i'd never dared.
i loved the way you let me in and closed me up
each and every time it rained.

november

music will harbor your breathless fear and leave you parallel lines on the staff, with nothing to support your eyes but my hands.
time will tear your hope from your chest and burn it, mash it into the harsh rhythm of heartbeats and the clock in the hallway, give you everything but the all-important chance to return.
love will snatch the tears from your eyes and replace them with fury, to force the passion of your love from its early grave.
all of this i see in the look in your eyes, every time you pull away from a kiss.
and all i have to do is read you, like the open book you are,
to understand that you have never needed me and will never love me.

you
analyze everything
make up names for things that aren't there,
challenge the stars
to a nightly waltz
under the skeptical eye of the moon.
you
smiling gently
in your dreaming trance,
seeing a world in which sunset follows sunrise
or the tides come in on schedule
or any other logic subsists.
you
offering substance to an
insubstantial motive,
gracefully lacking
as it saps your bones with greed.
you
are a lover's poem,
to be sure.

the loss, what does it mean?
these things require analyzation, consideration,
chewing over what it has meant to your heart,
to your past and your psyche
or at least to the development of your future.
the loss, it spills over at the fringe,
pulses hot and bloody
and demanding, seeking attention,
tapping at the periphery and crying for focus.
the image of the body
so malformed, so malfunctioning,
you can hardly breathe for the picture of it.
the loss, it yanks the faculties into
emotional response, sensibility in suspense.
the image of the spinal cord
or the synapses firing all at once
and the limbs jerking in response, the joints
snapping from here to there like a marionette.
and the voice, the voice that reaches
deep from within the lungs
and the stomach to say,
oh help.
the loss, what does it mean?
a startling sense of being earthbound, bodybound,
fleshly and weak, cringing and foolish--
and while the response is grace,
the loss means everything.

the tires on the road
hum busy, noiseless and moaning,
waiting for respite.
what can be found there,
they argue,
that could not be found here
where you already are?
and then there could be rest, maybe,
or a nice long nap.
in the sunshine.
the wheels revolve, the road
stretches in front
a big black snake that defines the future.
no turning back now, i try to explain;
we've crossed the highest peak,
no turning back now.

there is a garden,
and in the garden a pool,
where you used to go and dip your long limbs
in slowly, one inch at a time.
and i would go and watch you there,
the bronze skin and the blue water,
and think of your name.
the lapping of the water at your thighs,
and the dripping of the droplets down your arms
and i would think of your name,
your name which kept promises
and stayed faith.
your body was a promise, then,
dipped in sunshine as you were on those afternoons:
a promise of womanhood and creation
and sexuality and uncontained enjoyment.
and your name was a promise
that crept into my heart, with the vision of your hands
and your lowered eyelids, the way you scooped
the tiny tides across your skin.
there was a garden,
and in the garden there was a pool,
and all the acts of man are excused
because of the promise of a woman.

if i can't be a sunrise,
then i'd rather not be at all--
if i can't be a story or a song or a truth.
the music doesn't lie, it climbs
right up into my heart and sets the motions moving:
you are history,
i am trying to progress.
and each step that i take is a promise
to myself and to the path
that i'll continue, that i'll make this
someplace worth going, something worth seeing.
if i can't be a sunrise,
then there is nothing to be at all
and the path was not worth taking
and the strides were not worth making.