Un-glossed

Would this word open,
this sad skeleton spin
let me crawl fast inside
to hollow crimson cobwebs,
me a pilgrim in the space
of its solemn prayer.

Would serif tip a cap or two
and then its needled pate,
why then crook its knees
if only for me,
to see what it was, would be
when it was born misread.

And then willingly would I
fall where it was led,
with a trail of tears, blackened
in wooden skin, dry across
my time-whipped tongue.

You and Poison

Deep beneath the curved arrow
flight of my heartbeat, I wait
until asleep
in the bend of a broken bow.

In three oceans deep you go
tie away
me from my spool-spun eyes
so tangling at your heels.

So crooked over my sky keels
on the breadth of your breath on
open fire
to memories to turned to wine.

To dreams I dose, powder burns fine
without rest
where my unloaded heart thought
to bleed in my body left behind.

Swan's Flight

She falls off the world,
slows the air- tight
in a breadth of compass
before it toes shadow.

My ache is high above
where she hangs--
unmakes me
on water drop breaths,
so they peel long tails
from unstemmed lips.

Still, she laughs waves
off her fallen wings
to hungry plates of glass
drifting too dull to break.

Return

My letters stiffen here, I
sit upon their frozen hinges,
scream across slippery sleep
where it stands over them.

I have let them live away
to love false and unmake
merry children, dear muse,
where unthreaded breath
cannot draw them up.

Prose is no friend to me,
for its fleeting victory I run
in its maze- it opens in me
straight rows of scars.

To Breathe

I am poor, with verse
my hands shake rain
shadows, meager tin-clap
libations at no altar climbing
a candle's broken beams.

Still you are here, sitting
to hear this beggar rise
courtesy for you,
windy rags of sun-skin
falling to ground, eyes
sleeping a home
in your warm breath.

And so you sing silence
on these words, torn
a flickering fire scars deep
empties in that open sky
choking me with sound.

Heavy Brass

The trees thread heavily bright
in the winded night. It runs
crashing with heavy footfalls,
breathy glow edged with smoke.

It makes light the hills
gray and rising, bloomed afeather
soft sage and heather clouds
in a sweeping low sky.

Beneath it I sit, strange
as the stars tearing roots
through the thick sleep above,
the earth springs
sculpted from ringing brass lungs
burning through the dark.

As I sleep the dust settles
in coiled rings around me-
a land broken, buried
with the march of music.

Send Me to Sleep

You are the last peak
of rhythm on silver toes
at the tips of waves, skirting
to part the dusk-

You are the first sigh
that clears the glass
from eyes of the shore,
so steep is the felled night-

You are rest, my dear,
where this pen can sit
on this thin floe and look
to follow your song,
a hammock in my hand.

Meek Words of Mine

I write to you, my eyes
peeling off the light,
my box floating in it, rocking
in the shells of stars.

So dry it is to wait there
for my prose to break
into fray sanding swords
down to needles, thin
as the scar of sea
stitched in my ear.

So the words beat slow
where the fog slings nets
to catch their bellies, swollen
bare in the places they fed
their blood to the clouds.

A Fish to Fly

I bare these words
past the hum of water
on their skin as they rise
(Up)
past my tight heart,
where breaths hide away.

I open them and wait
past their hems and see if
their dance will wake
(Up!)
through this heat, run me
speeding on my dreams.

Or they will wilt
before they form, they do
wait in the dust there
Up.
for when I cease.
for you.

A Silence Without You

My heart shivers, snowed in
with a winter of silence
armored and unjointed endless
a slaughter drowning the wind-

It knows not the refuge
between my night and yours
where valkyrie shield my brow
with hands of heavenly glass
crooked fast with rings leafing
with the cold morning sun-

It runs wild and kills
its fellows lest they sing
and sleep another night-
it vows to perish here
at my hand and yours.

To Wait For Love

My words break
their breaths, cough
down sleep winded
with the light of day.

They fear, they chafe
at songs; grit teeth gashing
into the wax of shadows
growing letters in my breast.

Creamy, pale prisoners
burn, cry out in grief
for the war I promised-
for the high heart
I swore them a siege.

Molasses Moons

The splinter of moonlight falls
a pearled bulb wrapping
in the low-clinging pond,
to find the water still
asleep with the sun.

There ghost wood pools,
its name frayed into thread
flung off its ancient cold;
its seeds scatter small
there, in that night
below this one.

I dare not laugh for it;
its cold braces my back
bare with its windows
thrown with a sash trailing
slow in sweet, hard wait. 

In the Ocean

The sea strums my hair
inks my dry paper-armor,
kisses softly all the sheen
off my bones,
unwinds all their breath
on a tear-tasseled kite,
a shell-ripple wind soaking
into the sky.

Then it leaves me
where it sifts in the sand,
seeps coldly into me
away from its long, wide pulse
before it is found;
my sleep scatters in its sigh
as it breaks my words, so
small
in the hollow of its roar,
on gleaming silver scales
heaving against my heart.

Trying to Sleep

Small as a breath, I jump

down the wet throat of a night

hatched in hunger, whittled

of its tears to cry;

I fold around its blisters

as they curl into vines.

I scratch hard, swallowed

past woven castles in the air, 

unfurling a creaking chorus sung

swinging from knotted bridges.

Then I am still

awake-

scatter-boned wings rake

the light from the sky;

it breaks to spill more.  

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.

For Jessica

I lay my plea here,
seamed in and silent
in the river between us,
trembling with an echo full.

I clasp no prayer
from a heart you never knew,
but may this go to your sky,
your road- may my small hope
light the shadows you walk.

With this, my muse
is but a wandering branch,
a leaf of sky in the stream-
it casts its wings down
to seek the sorrow in me.

Take this light of my day,
take it before it finds me
where I cannot rise;
take these feather-thin lines
and break them into flight.

His Finger Wills a Shadow

His finger wills a shadow
with soft, reverent breath
weighing but a candle's flame
as to pool on my skin.

There are old battles here,
blemishes drawn there, cut
from a different life, to seep
deep as the luring, chanting
persuasions in my blood.

But with him, I know
no clock, no tearing the bone
to shake or the knees to quiver,
or the eyes to string tightropes
for walking through glass.

For him I am still,
for he locks me in
myself again, in his hands
me, until he comes in.

Published.

This is positively terrifying, but I couldn't be more elated. I'm sorry I haven't been here much lately, but I just got my first freelancing assignment from a publisher, and I'M TO BE PUBLISHED! I know it isn't much, just an ebook, but then I think of all of the people that will read the portion that I wrote and see who wrote it, and I'm excited. I was going to post a storm of poems here, as I normally do when I have a lot, but since someone's paying for it now, I'm going to hold back a little more. I'll still come here, but I'm going to mix things up a bit more in terms of what I post.

The Seed and the Heavens

I close my eyes,
A seed again, cloaked
in a thousand years of war-
A mystery, my gates breathe
to the one who binds
my roots to the wrinkled shadow.

Beyond, she waits,
a lovely siege
with eyes of buried fire,
her form serene, yet unyielding
as the highest cloud
sleeping in the sky.

Come the deluge of stars,
we take each other,
intertwine like broken trees,
reaching, so blind
we forget who we are.

The cold shakes us away,
but we grow together
deep into the ground;
it keeps no one
we still try.

Knitting Records- Cabled Arm Warmers/Wristlets

With Red Heart Super Saver in color Heather, and size 8 circular or straight needles, cast on 37 stitches. Knit two inches of 1x1 rib, flat, not circular knitting. Then switch to K1 *P1 K4* until the last stitch, knit the last stitch on the right side.

On the wrong side, P1 "P4 K1" until last stitch, P1

Do that for one inch, end on the right side.

On a wrong side row, P1 *K1, slip 2 stitches to cn (or rn), hold in back, P2, P2 from cn or ln (if you don't use cable needles, are left handed, and you slipped all four stitches back to the ln after twisting the cable)* P1 on last stitch. This is a row with 4 stitch cables.

Go back to alternating between K1 *P1 K4* K1 and P1 *P4 K1* P1 for another inch, repeat the twisting of cables.

Then knit another inch of that 1x4 rib.

Finish with five inches of 1x1 rib, then bind off.

Seam together, leaving a gap for your thumb.

I'll try to post a picture ASAP.