Five Poems
Consider the high tree,
Without a branch of Red,
But what is red to a tree,
That is not to my eyes?
As we walked I found it in stillness
Sunk in the earth, reaching up
Bearing the shadows of clouds
I sat in its belly, cradled, head bowed
You looked at me, and wept
You said "The edifice of meat turned to metal;
You love it even as it crushes you"
As we swam you found it floating where the deep chill licked your feet
So you climbed upon it, and wept,
As the sun dried your skin
I stayed in the water, you looked at me perplexed
I said "I carry it with me, casting its light.
Where you see darkness, the edifice of meat turned to metal sees wonder"
As we leapt from the tree, we embraced and fell
You felt it in my heart and I saw it in your eyes
And in your heart was fear
And in my eyes the distant mountains
"Why?" you wondered
"Because it is made of you" I answered
And you held me tightly
And where we met the ground was planted
An edifice of meat
That would turn to metal
The eyes lay upon her
They eye her and slay up higher
Still walking upright, taught
Still and unmoving, gravel and grooming, bought
Stills and unproven thought of grime and gripping undulations
Shrill sounds leave us unmoven, wrought of grinding ululations
Don't wait, a straight rut in or out
The late gut strong and fate shut now, abrupt
You great nut, wait not and say hot words
She'll listen, listless grizzled princess
Heavy eyes, or maybe blissless downturned spirits
Distant now
Thick ichor
Sick error that's you, fantastic
A prudent mirror of dull plastic
Bad or slick, you sad sicko
Get past it
Holding the left hand with the right
Enduring the search, all the ways we are lost
Reaching out to glass eyes, unseen and wretched
As beauty abounds we claw at it
As if to tear open its skin and bury ourselves inside
As the crime is forgetting each other
As if sated by the plastic mother
As with stillness and with torn flesh
As our bones are crushed and fed back with conditional caress
As if we could be so honest
You may not make yourself separate
That is the boundary
And all that your skin secretes must conform
For silent surprises in the gloaming watchers wait
Permanently unfurling with the evening dilation
We see each others' minds in the reflections, slipping inwards
Always expanding, the taste of the fruit of the weeping tree
Huge within, huge without, pulsing with quiet meanings lost
She reaches out, grasping at strands, wounds buried
Slipping against each other, is there nothing hidden?
Only a whisper shared in darkness, corrupt and frigid
Angular velocity, frictional beheading, and we are lost to each other