Saturday, February 27, 2010

I Consider Songs

I consider songs to envision
The imperceptible.
To rework and render
Skin and clay susceptible
To delight, darkness and delicacy
Like trembling, painted fingers
Trailing along a frozen frame
Of glowing glass.

I consider songs the rich
Omnibus of man
And the portrait of his passions
Is a lusty garden of words.
All songs ripen the vine
And spill blue rivers of thunder
Through history.
I can touch the age of the moon
And this living acquiescence to joy
Is the quicksilver hand of God
Moving upon the deep.

Forgiveness

If my forgiveness were sapphires,
I would crown you with a crest of color
That I cannot command.

If my forgiveness were a feast,
I would serve you luminous fruits
Of sweet persimmon.

The riches would run deeper than the stars
And dispel the fevered stupor
Of my rage

Because they are not of me.
They are paltry tokens,
They are the glittering frost of regret.

I cannot yet forgive you.
I harbor hidden songs that scatter
The fading body of my pardon.

Friday, February 26, 2010

The Girls

I sing to the girls from fading windows,
Girls like the early leaves of autumn,
Buckled by blustery, windswept affairs.
Girls swathed with smoky electricity,
Like red bolts of budding energy,
Stitching the fabric of my voyage.
They come to my window and find
That they may sit at my side
But they reach out for me and see
That I am too far away.

I have seen them at every window,
Flush and loitering
Waiting for my voice to have
The same eloquence as my words.
These girls in their ginger dresses
With eyes like gray partitions of cloud
Arrayed to bulwark the sun
Will blast open the mouth of heaven
And fill my window with their light.

However, there are fewer girls now
And no window is the same.
The swollen perspective of loneliness
Lingers over the world
And splashes of light leave leaden marks
On what should otherwise be celebration.
I am not the same man
And the girls have changed as well.
We cling to diminished colors
And the icy, glassy taste of beauty
Slices our mouth with its shattered allure.

I Knew A Woman

I once knew a woman who wanted to die;
That’s all she said again and again.
I wanted her without knowing why
And sought to savor her skin.

Our swim through ethanol pools
Found me passed over the rest
Who worked her over with tools
Her errant mouth blessed.

I once knew a woman who wanted to die
Adrift in a vessel of glass.
Her baby boy would cry and cry
While the men crept past.