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.

From along your bonny shores,
All your words slipped out to sea
Under tides of salted foam, their form
Retained their mystery
Until they found my port
Until they came to live with me.
And through the tempest, and the storm,
We became each other’s lee.

Now we have grown, intertwined,
Like two branches in the wind
Holding hands in like kind
Until our hands can mend.
I sheltered, you refined:
We became identical, adoptive twins.
And all the words I can find
Came first from you, my friend.

Very soon, I’ll fly to you,
To the place where you were born.
I’ll see your heather, and your blue
Your grey and misty morns.
I’ll walk your cobbled dew
Along the path already worn
By those whose hearts were true,
By those whose oaths were sworn,

To face what cannot be subdued
To write what can’t be mourned

I have sinned against You alone,
And by Your blood,
You have atoned.

You didn’t waste one-
These tears that fell
Like exploding light bulbs:
Diminished glory, broken shells.

Shouldn’t I have known?
How could I forget-
You do not take these lightly:
My sin, my sorrow, my regret,

My design?
You arrange my ways-
The Impeccable Composer,
The Ancient of Days.

And You are no stranger to pain,
Pouring out Your blood
In rivers of burning,
Cleansing, saving love.

I have sinned against You alone,
But by this blood,
You alone atone.

How many years, how many faces,
Weeping for graces,
Hiding amongst the dead,
And stealing bread
To fill their empty souls.

The weight of their broken bits
Always weighing, weighing, weighing
And I fall remiss.

I weep for the little ones,
The wandering bones
Who have ached long
For a home, for a song,
To fill their empty souls.

The weight of their broken bits
Always weighing, weighing, weighing
And I fall remiss.

And if I weep
Surely You, who knows no sleep,
Must keep vigil, must keep track
Of all the little hearts
who can’t fight back,

The weight of their broken bits
Always waiting, waiting, waiting
For someone to assist,

And You exist,
And therefore mend.

Perhaps
I was made to move
Pulsing through the corners
Of His body: His structured
Fluid foreigner
And family.

Perhaps
I have called homeless
What is merely lent:
A massive network of home
Housing everywhere I’m sent
By every new pulse.

Perhaps
I cause injury
When I stake my homestead claim
On some sluggish slope,
Some quiet piece of vein,
And pleasant place to clot.

Perhaps
I am meant to move,
Feeding, and being fed
Neither pooling, nor congealing,
But always being led
Through each static system-

Through the hands,
The feet,
The Head.

Maybe some nights
Breathing sterile, filtered air,
I crave the bugs a’biting,
A screen door scrapping somewhere
Crisp harmonica cutting through the dark
Like a mouth-foamed, four-legged stray
Who bites tame, but you should hear the bark
Warding off the turn of day
So we can sit together, one by one by one
Burning whatever’s left of our regrets
On a smoky fire of bon
Or at the end of cigarettes
Dancing wild around the open flame,
To feel the heat of air and blood-
To call it out, to use its name
This craving of grass, and heat, and mud.