Oh Solitude, you are a sunless sky,
a vast gray need, unfilled and wanting
without hope or lyric.

I call you from the stoney ground
come to me, steal away these dreams
that bleed my soul.

I call you from beneath the oak
come to me, eat these words
that reveal my heart.

Oh solitude, you are a cold queen,
a crown-less ruler, dispassionate and unloving
without prayer or poetry.

Fly, Solitude. Fly to the void
where the moon falls
and we can both forget.

what do the angry people see
through the squint of their third eye
as they rage for a cup of something
hot, or cold, or devoid of ice?

what do they dream in the Godless dark
where the bats are fluttering
but they can not make them out
through the stars?

what do they know, truly know,
when they scream out, out to the red pine
slumbering in the almost-winter nights
amongst an earth blanketed in the sharp tender
needles that were once them?

What do they love, these angry people,
when they slaughter all the little sacreds
that burble like a soothing brook
upon their soul’s torn edges?

she lied when she said
every poem is about sex

i tell her this through
her long tut tuts
her short tsktsks
her midland shhhhh’s

you’re wrong,
some poetry’s about love

same thing
she says

I dream of cinnamon bark
by a warm sea
in a distant land
where she can see
my soul with her eternal eye

I say her name like silence
under a red star
as winter becomes winter
and I cool in the dry air

she tells me, “Poetry
is enough.”

an orange cat smirks
into the white moon’s shadow

a nine hundred seven fireflies
and me – waiting to become
more.

an old dog on the back porch
tries to bark
but only a cough comes out.

soon enough,
the sun will rise
and she will see the truth

Suppose a song is the cotton wrap
around her wide hips, hands holding them
tightly, she twists
into the need for hope.

Suppose the rhythm is the spring pool
hundreds of tadpoles
chasing shadows, or fleeing
perspective becoming an honest reprise
of the facts.

Suppose the lyrics are a kiss – yes
suppose that.

what of the soul of the black cat
that ran under my feet
and died in the chasm where I tripped

is that love?

what of the soul of the mosquito
that exploded with my blood
when is ipped too much of me

Is that need

what of the lion sleeping
under the lush baobab
when his mates hunt

Is that want?

What of me, I ask,
what of me?

a woman in a transparent sari
sits silent draped gracefully
in light cotton

as young men pass
considering what they can almost see

through the lingering orange remains
of man’s beautiful machinations
she whispers

to no one at all, “I am
beautiful – I am,”
as she starts to sob into her hands

imagine she in pink silk
dancing, hands
before her brown eyes
the tale of beauty
beneath a white moon

imagine she, smooth flesh
white in the dawn,
long words
wanton in a wild heart,
the tale of truth
hidden and kind.

imagine she, pink cheeked
and innocent, as he begs
for one long kiss, the tale
of tawdry want in the universe
of pure spirit.