028: The flower thief

With trembling hands on the viscid scape,

to never spoil a precious petal,

pickpocketing sights in subway cars to relive,

to recreate card chapels of sincere prayer,

of unbecoming words trepid of loss.

Modulate memories in gold and black like she was,

thoughts to fornicate in sagging anthills,

escalade in grasshops a private mountain

straying the escarpment of a lost Naraka

whence cells crystallize in human tidbits to be

a feeble abode of instinct and love

and culled fear, skulking in cherry groves.

Here, a collection of coincidences

ascribed to paths of stars and cold bodies,

in a neonate game, older than my forefathers;

here, a bardo trap, a keep of comforts

of empty presents from a wishlist in tar

that spells like a last will protruding

through cracks in my undying joy.

Within gardens of evil and hope,

roots of rage reel to acquire frail flowers,

pollen of pictures in blood ringing

on the limbs of butterflies washed in sunfire.

Test the finites of absolution, alpha and omega

in one single consummate image, nerve induced

through the pupil of the third eye.

027: Amber

I subtract another brick

from the dank foundations

of your mansion cenotaph

to coalesce spazzed tension.

It collapsed in seaward breeze

as a waiting game missed,

reveal your features binary,

your tempest embrace dissed.

Distraught your elysian effigy,

rooted guilt in seams;

now and in aeon moonskin denied

the solace of the mean.

Inner workings of a manic queen

spearhead in vision songs,

occult forgiveness the earth knows,

lead us where we belong.

026: Empyrean damp

The tape is torn today.

Attire your life, still fits like a glove

encapsulated in blood tartan bearing threads,

autumn leaves shelling finite encompassing.

Knuckles redden in the mud of jest songs,

commuted ends of microscopic worlds

and wishful violence - butterfly wings.

According to nails, a vertical borehole

from the stem that aborts sandstorms,

you dig and dig, towards the black bone,

to find a scoreboard answer dry.

Tag. You're it.

Full speed ahead and the captain shouts

restraining orders, passengers selectively deaf,

blue murder sprinkled on cone cells.

Re-emerge from the drill shaft to find a dimness stained,

displacing stars, an iridescent graffito spells fracture.

Shoot you down with my silver bullet file,

inside your protection reach, a trail of cruelty,

shovel shallow graven, in a shallow riverbed

of trickling salt, raise you a new home

in an arctic stalactite confessional.

Tag. You're out.

Wear liquid red

against the grey

and drain the storm

caught in the fray,

alleviate

our words' decay.

The tap is closed today.

025: Numb and numbered

Toddling tide already worn,

swim in faces, reading episodes

of ache flicks and ether exits,

in a precise drift silence signals

a sniper reloading datum trace.

Her length and width to southern winds,

we count in seconds that won't sit still,

hypertension housed in heavy husks,

landlocked within shelves of stardust,

intimate whispers mantling cathedral walls

upheld by matchstick counterforts.

Glints in grinning eyes shed light

on catapults of word and bone

with torment tongue armed, milk white,

chalk black cadaver silhouette,

but candor ships sway tenderly,

just beyond the morning rim.

Play chords in red, cast self in sleep,

the music of mountains built on clouds,

hear and see with concrete sense

a ravaged circuitry bouquet,

killing fields of fear and desert dissent

playing for keeps, praying for rain.

Paste on the pavement a human smudge,

a fragile grace steals my breath away;

never account for a ruminant string,

we'll ride to the sun on wings of night.

024: One noise

Acid whimper

corrodes concrete

and angels speak

in sprawling tongues.

Refine vision

in saltwater lens,

before the gates,

request astray.

Salient roots

through barren soil;

crumpled Atlas

to the weight of all.

Array the nails

to shape a crown,

with absent mounts,

a cavalry charge.

Temple shores

reached in time due,

to drink the sea,

absorb the clouds.

Blossom of blood

springs from my bones

to color these walls

in violent dawn.

023: Amphibians

In good hiding, sullen damp dwell,

in black paint behind glass, behind eyeballs,

in tender flesh, coiled 'round rugged bone,

'round spines of strangers I know well;

think you can tell the scalpel swirl

from a puncture wound in the sun's skin,

raped in stoke, reaped in smoke,

this man-made geology carousel

spins us all out of control, autonomy spilled on walls

cold, concrete fall like machine music.

Locked cobweb can-can in crumbling opium dens,

our obtuse, trussed livid bodies,

obscene eye peering through the lens of a noose,

as I know your name, you know mine,

yet we're caecilians to the play above,

beyond the reach of the Methuselah moth,

cellular lives in bardo, years in the clock's tick tock,

tongues will be mute before the echo,

the poison will dry before the ocean.