Big Eyes

Not big alone. Not by a longshot.
Limitless depth that I would stare
down for an epoch, unto infinity.
Wrap me in yeux until there's no me.

You probably thought me crazy
the time I recorded you, silent,
with some haunting, melodic hum
in the the background and blazing
white sunlight pouring from the
cracked drapes behind, limning
an angel apropos. You smirked devilishly.

There won't be words written against
you. I couldn't. I can not.
Requiems and eulogies alone suffice.
But they offer no solace.
I'm bitter, worn, tired.

Eyes in which I might have incubated,
been reborn--eyes big and deep
enough for such things--are not
looking at me with hunger, ready
to swallow my entirety.

I can't even delete phone pics,
toss out clothes you left,
and I stare at the same bloody
wall with discontinuous pain.
What good are substitutes?
How could Her eyes ever deign
to see what your orbs keenly reveal?

This is no pity party before dawn
and after dusk, when I should be
parlaying with the relentless
cousin of Death:

It's a celebration that you even looked.

To Helen Cameron, October 2012

Dancing, vociferating,
demagoguing, boasting,
hosting, toasting,
oscillating wildly,
leading, following,
fighting, showing,
proving, domineering,
warring, quitting,
are not my nature.

Rather...

I've not a stitch to wear
as I stare madly into
irises of palling teal.

Praising what I see,
feeling where others fail,
fantasizing over
us comingling--
a sweaty, passionate,
versicolor coitus;
making that fecund
gaze and those obscene
pink lips more than
passing niceties, instead
reserved for some late,
intense evening when
I recall the things I
actually do so well.

And then, perhaps,
my nature blooms from
latent potential.

Speak Low

We are

two ships

adrift.

I pray

to find

you--there

amidst

the waves

--again.

Dashed

upon

the rocks.

Embrace of the Sea

Relationships change you like a river.
Rivulets, springs, and streams pour into melt
and headwaters rush onward through obstacles.
Things upstream build the meandering course
as it flows through craggy valleys and caverns
where the passing time is lost in darkness.
At times waters still, placid or stagnant,
while just beyond a bend rapids roil reckless,
unchecked, carrying flotsam from the past.
Debris, deadwood, trash, dirt, refuse and tears
are born from glacial headwaters down, down.
But for all the waterfalls and white water
the river knows nothing of its destination.

Only when it reaches the wide embrace
of the salty sea is it complete,
able to disperse into one at last.

Fat Ones, Skinny Ones

I want to
know you intimately
smell your fragrance
strip off your jacket
expose your physique
stroke your spine
lay you down flat
spread you open
finger your insides
contort your body
fray your edges
leave indelible marks
toss you aside
forget you for days
use you at leisure
devour you entirely

and replace you
with another book.

Iatrophobia

It's always the same when I shock someone
by ignoring animals on the menu:

"You don't eat meat? Since when?"
"I don't count."
"You wanna save the baby chickens, right?"
"PETA's a joke and I admit meat
is pretty damn delicious."
"Then why?"

Call it the 'Gandhi Experiment'.

Doctors scare me with florescent whites,
steel tools with icy prongs, lithe and sharp
syringes, and cancer diagnoses post-
-metastasis. Male or female, they prod
with smooth and cold phalanges looking
to prescribe a sense of security.
Crush your breasts for an x-ray. Relax
the sphincter. Feel for prostate enlargement.

Eating too sweet carrots is self-ahimsa.
My motto is: Be the change you want
to see in your proto-oncogene.

A Cautionary Word

Playful twins, focus your mind,

peruse your heart with object

criticism, examine and circum-

navigate boundless walls that enclose

a wild, temperate verdancy.

Perch, like a cormorant scout,

in the highest boughs amid

plump, mauve succulents, pregnant

to bursting, and gaze across

that vast, uncharted garden

of the heart, with rivers like

arteries; a criss-cross intricacy

at once ablaze under Apollo's

rust-orange charge pulled in tow.

Half the life therein exists

fruitful beneath blazing skies,

And, yet, lunar radiations

follow closely at the heels

of the life-giver, denotes

separation as the string

of the Ramadan fasting

juxtaposes evening to day.

Twins, serious twins, alight

your lofty perch and freefall

like one too close to the sun,

rushing instead into familiar

darkness, like inconstant black seas.

Prowl, as the hunting panther,

amid the familiar brush,

serenely blued by Luna's orbed eye,

a pale and shadowed lunacy,

twisted but well understood.

She makes each step new—foreign,

though this vastness, belonging

always to the sly hunter

is unforeign. But the earth

is wont to shift, to shudder

and admit that unwarranted

but cool and refreshing mist;

it creeps in via unguarded

estuaries, roiling calm

upriver, then billowing

over sandy banks, coating

the trails in diamond dew drops.

Foolhardy twins, sated on

bright and free daylight of the sun,

embrace the ensorcelling,

bewitching nighttime moonlight

before it succumbs to harsh heat.

Prize, like first man did woman,

the chance to share in paths walked

solitary, yet freshly

viewed, altogether different

beyond the sullen predation

instincts and the lone wolf's howl.

Solidarity, basking

in eve's placid radiance,

makes that ensconced forest live.

For a time the beast will not

rule over this uncharted Eden

where the fruits of Love withered

in day from unbearable heat.

Instead, rejoice in moist, wet,

and pattering rain falling—

a life-sustaining blanket

renewing the soil for dawn.