You stripped me bare,
Because I was foolish enough to wear
Vestal robes in barbed-wire’s stead
Because I trusted what you said,

Because I cared to try,
And the kindness you denied
A reminder of my first propulsion,
The origins of my sharp compulsions

A million fresh starts.
You broke my heart
But I remembered your face,
And this time, it was to your disgrace

And I took no photographs
I carried no images of the path
That led past your busy deeds
Furiously planting weeds

In your weed garden.
When did you first harden?
When did your eyes glaze,
And fade, and succumb to the haze?

How could you not see
We blazed brilliantly
With love you need never earn.
How could you not see us burn?

I remembered how to lace my shoes,
To nod, and bow, and pay my dues
To slip silently through the open door
Before you ask for more.

I carry fragments, moments shared
Between the caught kindred there,
Who loved in warmth, in deed, in laughter,
Whose memory are fires still burning after

Yours flickered away.

In your arms, I cried.
I shed aged, stale tears
That waited years
For a chance to dry.

Caught by the sea inside,
Tossed by the days of loss,
Longevity implied
There is always cost.

I wanted to always move,
Or else I chose to impress-
The motion to prove
I wasn’t helpless

Or selfless, to flee
Before I overstayed;
Love staring coldly
At the welcome’s fade.

Halfway round
A spinning world
Stranger, I found
My depths unfurled.

And you held my tears,
A friend with shielding arms,
Who caught glimpses of years
And all their harm

And loved on.

Billows of glory
You punctuate my story
With beauty acute.
I tremble mute
Before Your holy fire
Purifying my desires
With a love fierce as violence.
I scream blind whence
You work the burn and balm
Opening my soul to psalm
So infinitely beyond me.
You intercede incessantly,
Taking my part with Yours:

Oh my God, oh my Love, Oh my Lord
You are mine;
Make me Yours.

Eager petals gushing forth
In tender blush of youth
Stemming firm in the sway
Sneaking open to seize the day

Till we take a sharp blade to their throat
And lay them on the grave.

The last great unicorn has died
In shudder and revolt
Buried underneath a sea of salt.

A breath ago, it lived
And in those twilight hours
Beauty devoured the earth

How mercenary, we
The humble, righteous clod
Ate the very beast of God:

His gifted remembrance and reconciliation.

Free verse,
For what it’s worth,
Or what it’s worth to me.

And all these words,
These nuggets panned,
All wash back out to sea.

Sinking, ever sinking
Under foam and fusty wave,
Their value and their legacy
All lost inside the grave.

Brilliant stories, luminous beacons
Flashing into depthless space
Dividing the dark matter
With an ever constant pace

Calling and commanding
Until all who hear draw nigh
Close enough to see, perceive
The brilliant star has died.

Asleep again, and fever dipped
So gripped by dream
I can’t awake
Or shake free a morning beam
To stir the day, or to redeem.

And all we gathered on our way
Stays within our view.
We navigate our space
Facing all we cannot do,
Or be, or claim as true.

But the truth leaves my lips,
A sip of all things
That happen beside time
Mine and your paintings,
In flesh and fainting.

But I was deceived
You achieved all you desired
In my absence
My passions left unfired;
My allegiance uninspired.

In that moment she came
Your same, your one, that’s when
I saw in my blindness
Your kindness was compassion
Not love, but a pitiful reaction.

They mocked my flaws,
According to the laws of woman’s choosing
And you frowned silent
Compliant, but disapproving
Of the superfluous bruising.

I’ve wandered long
One song in my chest,
But no one in need of the tune.
How soon I’ll return to broken rest,
And it is always you inside my breast

Sunk like an arrow.