Red Camillia

Away...Beyond the Flowers

gratified
and perplexed
in partial doses
that are over doses
essential oils
potent
and long lasting

there is no room
for these shapes
without building new
rooms
or renovating those
become empty
ghosted
and vacuous
antiques
with dust
and sheets

such ferocity of late
cannibals and shape shifters
threats from the shadows
the primordial places
the liminal spaces
the space
betwixt and between

you're beyond the flowers now
beyond the artifice
essence fishing
but liberated?
imprisoned?
both
and neither

you are seeing with butterfly eyes
pathways and targets and signs
nectar here
pollen there
beyond our human frequency

the infatuation of the mist grows
while its nature
drives it upward
outward
away

I look away
I stay away
you're feeling this same warm breeze
if westerly
only moments before me.
Zephyr, and you are first
as it always will
be.

Forbidden

The shadows of our own desires stand between us and our better angels, and thus their brightness is eclipsed.
- Charles Dickens

The passions and desires, like the two twists of a rope, mutually mix one with the other, and twin inextricably round the heart; producing good if moderately indulged; but certain destruction if suffered to become inordinate.
- Robert Burton

Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained.
- William Blake

Stieglitz and O’Keefe

it seems our forms will mingle
like Stieglitz and O’ Keefe
never the two to separate
and never the twain shall meet* **

* To avoid accusations of plagiarism, the first use of the phrase "never the twain shall meet," to my knowledge, is Rudyard Kipling's... The Ballad of East and West.

** Then again, as Bono so aptly reminds, "every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief." ("The Fly" on Achtung Baby)

Fractus

I see only
fractals of you
tempted
temptation
tempting
three sides of a triangle
the geometry of settling
into the shapes
that just
won’t
fit
but could
with a new
rule.

Unbalanced
equation
and stranded vowels
variables
in the alphabet soup
that is cipher
that is radius
that is the distance
to the heart
of a half life
Mobius
loop.

The shortest distance
between two hearts
is a straight shot
if you can shoot
or are loaded
or are lucky-
relative velocity
not withstanding-
the vicissitudes
the venal
the vacillation
between Eros
and erstwhile entropy.

Waiting to be...

Passive
borrowed
Mayan
bought
blue
plum
asked
reflexive
asked
ground
right
straight
open
aggressive.

Betwixt and Between- Fleurdeliser

On these wet and heaving streets
still slick with the film of receding tides
still covered with the air of decayed history
and composted potential
of a foundered fleur-de-lis...

Here in the smoky strains
of a Blue Monk meeting
the Public Enemy number one;
in the clash of comedy and tragedy
in the collision of safety with free-falling
hangs Spanish moss
from the ancient arm
of an Oak
caught betwixt and between
languishing in the liminal
among both earth
and sky.

Here, in the humid strains
of a street clothes nun
fighting for the Holy Angels
is a delta blues moan
for one more kiss
of Amazing Grace.

Here where love
is an act of defiance
where life is against the odds
where passion is in opposition
to the gilded monarch
of mastery...

Between my shoulders I am marked
my path long lost, no longer my own
on the Rue Désirée
in rites of passage
among forests of Lilies
and love
and Live Oaks.

Sober Vows

Remorse-
so much simpler
than regret.

The question is about sobriety
he shrieks
“Can we not be sober?”

But drunkenness
is love
unrequited
unfulfilled
or taken
consumed
shot
after shot
after shot
until the spinning
is prelude
to nothingness.

She will. I will.
Colliding crystal
vows.

Pylon

another spasm
Christmas cards unaddressed
late winter guilt

aromatic earth
fence posts rising like lilies
spring pastures

Screen Lace

through a looking glass
shatter cracked histories
seem familiar

Quiver- A Valentine

Like a pack of wolves
a pack of lies
swarms a gut pile
bile and flies
blankets the entrails
canine lust
candid carnage
lupus trust
and Cupid’s lost
an arrow.

She’ll howl
she’ll howl
like Pollack’s beast
simmering growls
relentless feasts
with a carnal drive
her desires must thrive
in deserts of
decorum
and decency.

But the arrow’s dulled
The shaft is bent
True no more
than true intent
to maim and plunder
from shadow lands...
and howl
and howl
for Cupid’s damned.

Diamond Sighs

Found it.
Your path of silence.
Again. Always.
Salient.

You sprinkled it thoughtfully
crumbs for the lost
diamonds, glittering
and audible.

They sigh...diamond sighs.
High pitched and thrilling
Sweet and sharp and brilliant.
Ancient, forever lasting
crystallized moments
of the purest angel time.

There was such a diamond.
A dawning realization,
not of compressed carbon
but of confessed innocence
and its lassitude
and its larceny
and its loss.

That diamond sighs for you.
I felt its razor sharp edge
for these many years...
in the background,
in the rain,
or in my dreams as now.
A haunting diamond sigh.

But it is not tragic,
in the way a diamond is not tragic.
It is a diamond.
It is
and ever will be.
And it sighs
sighs
sighs
for you.

Tree Trimming

A venerable vignette
a virtual return
to new endings
old beginnings
and the
phosphorescent
pulse
of a glow worm.

An incandescent retreat
a coup against the cheat
the neon
the LED
and the
trite.

In the innocence of hushed
tones
of lush creeks
and blushed
poems
and cheeks of a
child
thrice blessed

is a Christmas for me
is a light out to sea
blinking red
and green
for the distressed.

And the prow maiden
will dip
through the fray and the foam
and the seeker
will sow
in the clay and the loam
but the potter
will turn
not for me.
Not for me.

Two Towers metaphor

Hudson river abandoned pier.

Dreamed of You Vaguely

I dreamed of you vaguely last night.
There was no beginning
middle or end of a story
or argument
or line.
Just your arrival
or mine
and a simple feeling
of serenity
and the distant
distant
distant
dread of waking
without the satisfaction
of the answer to
questions
like how are you?

Liberty

Veteran's Day

My clay mug is warm
hand-fired artisan
artifact
announcing the contented
contents
pretense
of a middle class
daze.

Mocha colored
sugared
and milked
of all that bravado
and hard bitten life.
Sweetened
not cold
not black.

Guilt is sparse
parsed like powders
of saccharin
of simulacrum
substitutes
for mourning the minefield
of patriotism
paternalism
of patsies and privates
and platoon after platoon
of pretenders
in a drama
not
their own.

Dust on my bars
a tan on my scars
and a tentative air
of having been there
is all bullshit
when the news
turns from veterans
to empty shoes
and all I have
is training
and a photograph
of a leg*.

* A "Leg" is a slang term for a non-airborne qualified soldier.