Save Us

"I am not the
perfect man you seek.
I have little to impress
you with.
I cannot save you
with my ambition,
my dreams,
my love."

"Ironically", she mused,
"You are perfect.
After all,
Who else could have crafted
yourself with tremendous
flaws and virtues
as perfectly as you?
Others have taken from you,
plundered your soul
for more,
left you wanting
for sweet rescue.
But truly,
what person can torture you
greater than you
so that
you would freely
surrender all that is
dear to you?"

"Then perhaps,
I can save myself
with my ambition,
my dreams,
my love.
And that is
most of all
what
I can give to you."

"I understand not
the explicit mathematics
of our spirit,
only that we are pure
as the light
we travel within
and our love,
given freely,
will save us."

Diary from the Battle Zone

I have seen the raw
horrors of this war firsthand,
its naked wreckage bleeding,
its perverse hunger feeding
the crippled screams
within lonely dreams
leaving its tortured soul desperate
for painless respite

I have seen the raw
agonies of this war firsthand
where from earth its soldiers disappear,
in nightmares they keenly reappear
where their ashen bones seemly mirror
all their death wish fears,
where their tortured souls slowly anticipate
relief from all that they wholly hate

I have learned to deeply respect
what the wisest have forever written
of the bitter fruit barely bitten
and the grandest stories time will tell
where on earth the angels fell
and before the fingers of those
tortured souls
would strain to deftly spell:
"LOVE IS HELL"

The Thin Whispers

We soon forgot our skittish
introductions,
a day's silent banter of
suspicion
and pride.
No wills were broken,
no wills won.

We trailed the
thin whispers
from the skies
hallucinogenic,
across uneasy
canyons
along the dry beds
and their bleached umbrella
spine

Brush turned to
scattered pines,
as we turned to
long slow draws
from a palmful of water
between brackish
rocks

Each day eavesdropped
upon evening's edge
pushing the trailless
ridgelines,
till
the thin whispers
sang

and
rang tiny bones
within her
and she ran
blindly
down,
down
into the startled
valley,
our aching
muscle upon muscle
breathless,
her coat gleaming,
reveling
full stride
in the blurred
tall grasses,
till we
took flight
within
the thin
whispers

To Love Differently

We have exchanged
no histories,
no storied details
amongst strong coffee
and
ritual laughter,
mild
confessions
and rehearsed wit,

still,
this silence
between us
speaks complete
as the
forgiven
moment and
the orbit
of small
planets

I seek no one,
no more
than
the evening seeks
its darkness,
Yet, I am
compelled
in my madness
to love differently.

To love you.

I do not love you as
the high desert admires
the wild blue Canterbury Bells
that rub your ankles,
(like a cat that grazes
affection in the hollows
of your neck)

I love you as
the sweeping heat squeals
and shudders to a halt before
the sudden storm,
and with your breath locked
in mine,
my soul inhaled into yours,
we exult across
the holy
sands

I love you as
the downpour wakens
the fragrant earth,
the ancient red rocks ingest
our wisdom,
the golden poppies,
like nervous stars,
blink in excitement,
and as we
release our quakened
light
beyond my madness
to love differently.

To love you.

The Untested Key

I exposed your
old diaries locked away
behind your crowned eyes
(as easily as you
chewed off your glove
for your naked fingers
to breathe)
and touched each of
your concealed desires
that were
carefully named
and dated
for a less guarded
moment

We rushed
the crowd of stars
unburdened from
the dragging of
shadows
and muslin,
the untested key
opening the cool
steel lock,
and teeth bared,
reveled in an
oyster dawn
fully
undone

She Forced The Restless Night

She forced the restless night
with rifle scope attention,
arms akimbo,
head weighted back
tilted by attitude and hair,
movement absent,
save jaws that kindly
chewed my imaginary future

My thoughts stuttered
in rhythm to the
teakettle steam,
vaporous,
useless
as the gazelle's dream
of outrunning the
lion's devotion

Still,
as the stars contemplate
their own eternity,
I consider my threadless
mortality,
amused by Hamlet's torment,
for I have chosen
to be

devoured,
as she forced the restless night,
feasting upon my glistening organs,
wet twisted muscle and sinew
entwined in fragrant seizures,
inhaling my soul whole
in open delirium,
and falling,
falling,
in storm drunken bliss
as we forced
the restless night