Sunday, January 23, 2011

Eclipse

Eclipse

I’ll be the world and you the moon

for you are pale and bear her name.

I’m no earth but it’s the same.

You change my tides, make me swoon.

If gravity might draw you near,

all your craters dark I’d mine

and curve cold rivers down your spine.

Wax and wane right here, right here.

Could I be wrong to speak like this?

It’s I who write your poetry

so do you really orbit me?

Our weight is equal when we kiss.

So you’re the moon and I am, too.

Much like the pair that orbit Mars

we’ll chase each other ‘round the stars.

The planets won’t know what to do –

those nosy neighbors disapprove

of two moons that at last collide

for they would travel side by side,

an emblem of forbidden love.

We cannot crash and make rock spark.

At very least we can eclipse.

In blackness we can touch our lips

and leave cruel planets in the dark.

Who cares if this they’ll e’er forgive?

We’ll find in space a space to live.

Saturday, January 15, 2011

The Arsonist


The Arsonist
She burns, not
on accident.
Eyes
so green have
yellowed in the middles,
a ringed dartboard
but she’s the one
throwing.
She is
everything and takes
everyone
like Whitman except
she can’t stand poetry.
She’s lost
her virginity more times
than she can count but first
to a woman in a bar at sixteen.
Call her slut to see
her smile. She’s
flexible. She’s
the muse’s
naughty
older sister, muscles tense
with wait.
She poured the
gasoline,
struck
a match.
Potential becomes kinetic.
She dances, up
in flames.

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Lens

Lens

You, caught in the act

Of changing.

Layer by layer,

disappear your

hips,

leave your torso clad in

nothing.

You, weary

eyes, accosting

the observer.

Wrinkling beneath

your young girl’s

makeup,

you ask why

me? A poet’s

lens can blur

the creases,

a camera tells

no lies.

Trust me.

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Swallow

Swallow


You take the pen between your lips
into your familiar mouth
before I reach the paper
you bite down on the plastic
and tease the point with an ink-stained
tongue. For months
my poems are written nowhere
but your soft palate
the linings of your cheeks
your red mouth dripping with black.