poem ex nihilo
we burn
as the sun sets.
i am watching smoke curl,
feeding sticks into the flames
one by one by one, searching
the shapes of autumn’s shadow
for a metaphor fragile
enough to carry trust
in its silky, river-
fed palms;
for the words to drip
down your open-mouthed
throat like a benediction
and swallow naked, like a sword;
for the way silent twilight
fills the negative space
and becomes a poem
ex nihilo.
expiation in flame
a season’s sublimated energy
blushes in the embers, rises
to kiss chastely
an indigo sky; rebuked
by a breath of cold night she
returns sullenly to earth,
glowering out briefly
at the darkness,
autumn’s air but ashes in her mouth.
promethea
Caught up in microcosms
and forgetting to breathe
I dance, shivering
over quicksands baked under desert suns,
phenomenon no less strange
than that I am at home in overcast lowlands
dripping dew and melancholy.
Huddled against a prying wind
and shielding what was once flame
from altogether extinction,
I look for direction
to a changeable sky,
try singing,
scribble in mud, hope
only not to become buried
in metaphor.
inedit (consumed)
two fires on a hilltop:
a demand
and a hope;
one requiring only my sanity;
the other devours my soul.
Between them,
lowing, I
follow this string of crumpled words
lodged somewhere
between my stomach
and my reason for being,
take a step,
(faltered like its heartbeat)
trip and sprawl
but advance,
a druid wringing spells
out of sodden dreams
and tired of being myself,
longing just to be;
breathless, blonde and singed;
a smooth swallow; an unfurled brow.
Trapped of my own weaving,
I can do nothing
but make my way.
