A Nightly Tide of Words

So still I lay- my breath
of tossed cotton falls
flat off my cheeks,
my eyes yield choked light yet
to suspended skeletons of voice.

Your words stay. I let them down
cold lifetimes away,
yet my sore heart recalls,
lets their echoes light up through
tunneling mazes, grown in glass
hollow with the din of wait.

They'll turn through me, soon
in touches loud with laughter,
soft in the rustle of song-
we'll fly through the bars
of the shuttered city night.

 But, dear muse, I'll sleep now-
not another tangled ode,
turning over a reasoned fire,
not another blind wanderer
setting out with bones of mist!

Roses of Summer

My shade sits quiet here,
its heartbeat a branch drawing
in the sand around embers,
faint in my unwrapped eyes,
too low for the lights to brush.

I wonder if I am ill with you,
if this rushing wind I send
across my harp-strung sky
should stray in rest and clasp
your warm hands,
and trickle to you.

But while I am here, dear
if I may find you I fear
I know not your hand-
the last bloom of this vine
indeed
closes fast without it.

Muse (III)

At last, her spirit leaves me,

The humming, whirring copper cogs,

That life of mine- cast

where it lights that world beyond,

where her eyes are finer

than any pearl in measured light

my single heart could give.

She leaves me my magic,

A stern delusion, keeping me,

To see just beyond

where the pale water, branching,

can still carry us both.

Muse (II)

There she lies, unconcerned,

More lofty than the moon

for all she can never see-

in the deep depths of stars,

in this singular mask of night.

So far away, there

My sanctuary here,

The face that paints

the crystalline bite, the wind

in every word I write!

Still, faster the wings fly,

Faster the steadfast soul

of a time long misplaced-

Cooler blows the cloak,

So heavy around my heart

where sculptures live forever!

For a moment, I see

my whole world lifted,

A shard of glass,

Into that stream, that

other world of light-

A sky of watery pearls

closer than the elven-faced stars.

Muse (I)

Crisp wings of time, pulled

thin on rice paper skeletons

left in collecting jars,

Still fly past.

They await me, each nerve

a stroke of misplaced flourish,

Each artery beneath hard temples

pounding, pouring lines

like streams of water,

forcing through me,

and I am transparent.

Rushing through my filthy hands,

Ripping past the ragged spots, damned,

They wield pearls of light, lanterns

in liquid trickle- to another world.