woodandhoney

I once knew a man who was young and strong

And the arrogance on his face was painted by the confidence he would never forsake

And the innocence on my face was painted by the uncertainty I could never shake

And he taught me everything

And he gave me everything

I learned all the things he wanted to teach

I learned how to love a man out of reach

Five years melt like fresh fallen snow

Five years pass like fruit ripens old

He grew his anger fat feeding it truths

He grew it like a rat gorging in secret seclude

The wheel was turning; he couldn’t stop changing into more of the same

The wheel was turning; I couldn’t stop growing into what I became

And he couldn’t seem to hold up when he saw my new skin

And he couldn’t seem to hold on when he thought of that win

I met a man faltering and lost

I met a man weeping and tossed

He raved and he ranted

He shook and he shouted

He wanted everything

He needed everything

I whispered what of the children, what of your wife?

I asked what of this life?

I’ve earned this, he claimed

I’ve earned you, he exclaimed

So with a scalpel in hand, I cried

Please, you know I would give liver or bone

So with a scalpel in hand, I said low,

this heart’s turning to stone

It’s not enough! he accused

It’s not nearly enough,

but it’ll have to do!

So he feasted and chewed

on the marrow and bones,

So he gnawed and broke through

the pillars of what I once knew

I warned him my blood had turned cold

I warned him my blood had stayed blue

But he insisted he chew

Till he choked and he spit

Till his teeth turned to splints on a heart hardened quick

Like a snake shedding fast

I laid alone in the grass and

I asked the night crow for a verdict that’s true

I asked, am I guilty of killing a man,

the murder of someone strong I once knew?  Or was it only the death of an image untrue?

Sweet as Cream

Ink makes Tangled Words

with fingers that form a

p

a

t

h

                        to Lips as Soft as – (sigh)

and full as Oranges

t r A v E l I n G

to Smooth Shoulders

curved like Oil paint

My tongue searched for all your vowels

but they were elusive

not hiding in your mouth

or on your neck

not in your hands filled of me

but I kept searching

until I heard them come

from where you had hidden them

deep in me

It’s pride that courts loneliness

And more than anything I want to be light

More than anything I want to learn how to love this world

I suppose that’s why I fall too quickly and hold back so forcefully

To not fall into the chasm-

And he told me once, you should never worry about caring too much

I hear those words bloom like a rose in my head-

This story can’t be new

And who could possible care when the ocean is covered in spilled oil?

But still, there’s this heartbreak

There’s this secret I want to tell

There’s the fire I don’t want to burn out

Lately I pretend we each live in light houses by the sea

We can only talk with cans attached by our worn string of affection

This must be why so many of our words get lost on the way from my lungs to your heart,

from your lips to my ribs

But think,

-when a little and gentle message makes it across,

think of how brave our small mouse of a message must be to travel such a journey,

The weather it bore, the storms it endured on a tight rope over waves

-But don’t feel too sad! Don’t forget how happily it skipped on the rope,

surely and deftly dancing on the days with sun above and the cool salty breeze on its fur

Think of it, when you finally have this warm and tired message in your hands, when you feel its small but strong rapid heart beat

Such a long journey to whisper my soft question to you

Tonight I don’t want to write

Tonight I don’t want songs

Not even Rummi or Cummings can save me from tonight

I want to lie perfectly still

(like a moth, like a comma, be only the soft craving of a body)

and wait for you to arrive and tend to this mess

I know I told you to keep your songs, your melodies, your arrangements of words that feel like oil paint on my fingertips

But we both know I was wrong

Perhaps I deserve this fever,

this rapid tumble nausea and cold burn across my shoulders

But how can you punish me for being scared of that feeling?

that feeling, that warm, candle light-moonlight-fire place-Christmas light-glowing feeling

that rushes into me when I hear you sing, when your arms hold safe across my ribcage,

when my body is underneath your body in the space of closeness, in that moment of lights

that feeling that fills everything

that feeling that says in the surest of whispers that this, is truth

My house has flooded

the carpet is soaked and the wood boards are rotting

each step leaves footprints in the silence inhabiting the floors

each step squeezes out this dirty water emotion- look how quickly it seeps back into place

I could replace it all, but the pipes would still leak

Maybe once the resulting draft makes its way through my bones,

into my marrow, I won’t even notice the cold

or how the floor is contaminating the walls and breeding a swamp

No one sees it of course, but we all know it’s there

I can see the confusion briefly flash across the faces of my visitors

they leave anxiously

perhaps not wanting to leave me alone

or perhaps eager to make their exit

I loved you like I love words

So quickly, so irrational, so convoluted

I need them and words are a selfish lover

Sometimes I feel so full of words they cause a shaky fever until

I let them spill out of my hands

Sometimes words leave me and I am left barren,

mouthing my favorite words to remember the feel of them

My fingers flutter involuntarily, eager for their return

I believe they sit idly by and watch during these times,

They like to see me restless for them,

they like to see the need.

But how I need this burn and how I hated loving you

I have a secret to tell you-

The days have begun melting into each other.

Don’t laugh, it’s true!

So effortless too, like the rhythm of the waves, like the moon pulling the tides

and the things that I have lost,

that year when I was eleven and brave, that burning desire to leap, that certainty of life in the pulses of love from the grass beneath my feet, a tiny opal earring and my favorite pen

well, I swear I can see them float on by now.

They ride the cold on the winter days

and simmer in heat waves in the summer