Tiger Praying

"I've got to feel you in my bones again...." -spill canvas
               please don't leave.

Remind Me

Remind me again
how to pretend
how to live an entire life
to then begin from the end.
Remind me of rapture;
the forsaken stay in your sway,
leaves me a tiger in the ruins
wishing for you in the remains of the day.

"Sometimes I wish that the tide would take me....."

You were right about this lifetime
but keep following from the distance
compose me a serenade
to keep me moving through this dance.
Remind me again
how to comprehend
love letters slipping from my fingertips
that I read but never send.

"Sometimes I wish that the tide would take me....."

Remind me again there's time past December;
say you love me, say you won't...
tell me I how I have changed,
into the double dare you don't.
Remind me again there's time past December.
Together we remember embers glowing in the ash.
Lift me from the scorched pyre,
from the wreckage and reverie of our past.

Least

I fear all you see

is the worst there is in me

and don’t know how,

that ever came to be.

I loved you with all I had and more.

I loved you under lock and key,

because you were never very certain,

what the hell you wanted from me.

Now I’m walking down the road,

in your favorite over coat

trying to kill the chill over 
your beckoning ghost.

I’m an absolute mess

and I must confess

the things I need least

is what I miss the most.

Josephine

And her name was Josephine,

she was scarred and tattooed,

intuitive and lean.

She smelled of cloves and ginger,

“Danger” was written on her chest

between drags she pontificates

and lays the beast to rest.

We watch from gothic arches

as fireworks explode into a haze.

Josephine built a house of matches

and turned her back to the climbing blaze.

But Josephine you were good to me

even though landlocked’s never easy...

She was a cyclone twisting ferociously,

her raw fury shook the mountains.

We sat out the rain

and chased the train,

we drift to the forest of firefly fountains.

Goodbye is never forever

I remember as we kissed our last,

Josephine was a meteor over Mercury,

decorating midnight hours with a blast.

Changeless

Remind me of promises that never expire,

spark the life in me that leaps to desire

remind of a night bearing no end,

as innocent thoughts turn into wildfire.  

Please believe me like you do

from my dream of blues I'm true to you.

Keep our constellation changeless,

from the next life it will grow

and lead us to the same coast,

knowing the thing we now know.

It's to beautiful to forget 

to rare to ignore

and can leave you lying,

head on the floor.

Remind me of promises that keep past the day

and the tides I willing let take me away.

Believe in me once from your heart let me touch

the dangers of loving a degree too much.

Keep To The Night

There is no rough draft.

No netting beneath the wobbling wire;

just the thoughts of a doppelganger

breathing on your shoulder.

Keep to the night with me

because it's not our choice who we love.

Angel chains in our remains,

looks like perfect circles from above.

I keep to the night with you

we are guardians,

 we are the truth.

Stop me before I chase the baiting tide.

As long as there is you

and I am there crafting paper tigers

the whisper with you, come the night

is a sparrow flying higher.

I know you are here. 

Catapult

Catapult me straight across the skyline
beyond starlight and atmosphere,
and the blur of buildings and lights.
The breathlessness of great heights
shoots adrenaline straight, no chaser,
to tear through me on a mission
through all the branches,
fueling a mind like a treehouse of veins.
It’s the place that carries me on
down the same old roads 
when it all goes wrong.

“Pull yourself up by your bootstraps, soldier.”
Bootstraps or the bullet;
the eventual mantra of the forsaken,
of a heavy mind
and shards of a heart shattered.
To mend the broken limbs,
being baptized by the southern wind
and reminded of treasures that actually matter.

So I inhabit and sculpt the night.
I am a keeper of charms and chains.
In dusky hours I outstretch wings
through the glowing Baltimore harbor I haunt.
I sing that old song about how
“you don’t always get what you want”.
I choreographed this dance
so trust I believe
and know the value of an honest love
and being what you need.

November

This month is mercifully slipping by

reptilian sharp 

with the grace of bird formations.

I expect more from the war

within the the plaster of my walls,

I fall back for a split second

but always walk ahead tall.

I've worn the blackest boots,

my eyes are twilight dark, 

from my soul comes words

from my lips they depart.

My dreams are no longer demolished.

My dreams are rising from the ash,

souvenirs I couldn't part with

are falling into the recent past.

I'm packing a jar of fireflies,

and leaving the rest behind.

No,

it's sadly untrue,

I'll be remembering from time to time. 

Milkweed

Beneath the meadow milkweed
my heart meanders meaningfully
as I turn year by year to driftwood
The doves fly south 
when the iron angels sigh.


The rain is my only lover,
she covers me like a willow
lift the grief
fight for release
I am not suited for the down low.
I dared you as a child,
I pushed you up against the wall.
You raised the anti in return,
not a sound as tear drops fall. 


Please take my hand Adeline
lead me past that sad November,
and the rain carries memories
too heavy to remember.
They pierce the skin of faith.
They burn the flesh to embers,
while pressing on my tell tale scars,
pain and pleasure make my words limber.

Lucid

My lucid dreams are hazy waters

that dig beneath the floorboards,

and I lie and listen

to the riptide tearing towards me.

You came into my life

like a goddamn hurricane,

it all would have come to pass

if I didn’t love the rain.

The road is paved with a glitter of glass

embedded deep in city scarred streetlight

You’ve polished the urban scuffs

and taught me the lullaby of the night.

Mayhem tangled constellations

connect the fibers of our beings

just as the anatomy of our hearts,

keep the lifeblood beating.

You are the love of my life

my tattooed venus and angel kiss.

I never new so many things

because I never learned to love like this.

Your brilliance has been the shine

that lead me to your graces.

In your arms I rise from pyre

and lead you to a million places.

A Paradise in You

A paradise in you
where dragons dream in euphoria
wrapped around dark crystal
and onyx circles.
Your waves have come to glance my shores
at a most unexpected time.
A knowing smile
on the seemingly last chance highway,
where things are not what they seem.
We light a blessed candle
to honor St. Jude
and think only in the present.
Bodies covered in fine honey dust
and the sweat of when night is falling.

Push On

The road is long and the way is hard.
I'm sitting pretty and spare not pity,
in this jungle that is my city
yet I persist on because there's work to be done
and sadness just doesn't seem fitting.
Push.

Trigger

Thunder's a trigger

that unlocks the decades,

time's not a harbinger,

change is a shape shifter

that strikes in an instant

turning something to ruins

but I am resistant. 

No,

I don't wither

waiting for no one at all

it hasn't failed my burdened heart yet

but can't deny that I still fall.

Under the Thunder

Sunlight struck me

in the middle of the night

it woke me in a fury,

unaware and prepared to fight.

Like a vision leaving my mind,

dreams drifting on lightning road

leave me amongst the adrenaline 

as my heart reveals tales untold.

I carry on under pure silver armor

now unafraid of a taste of hell.

Artifacts of a love extinguished

and scripture no one lives to tell.

Your reflection in my constellation,

across broken glass and icy sea,

you don’t know me anymore

but under the thunder you belong to me. 

The spirit is willing...

Halo on the Lake

Time should have warned us
of our ultimate shipwreck.
Dammit, I can still feel
your superficial hand upon me.
I have never seen your eyes
but I can feel the shine in my bedroom
You know we were cheated
and our love unrequited.

I graciously let go
to lies guised as love songs.
Looking back now,
I don’t know if it was worth it.
But I don’t know if it wasn’t,
I don’t know answers,
just questions by the dozen,
time’s turned me into
something able of feeling nothing.

Time should have warned us,
of affairs of the heart
lovers become strange
as seasons change
and faces flicker in the dark,
nothing ever stays the same.

There’s a halo on the lake tonight,
and music from open windows
vibrate the fine strings of my thoughts
as I search my pockets for a light.
I’ll be a lingering interval,
a moment reflected in moonshine.
We make the most of what we take,
and the things we learn to leave behind.

Capers

Talons sharpened and drawn I wait,

in the smoldering 

but still living remains.

There’s unnoticed ashes

drifting undetected into your vodka.

I never thought you an angel

but God knows how I wanted to.

We see what we chose

and shut our eyes tight

as we willing free fall

into the clutches of lost causes.

Night again is my sentinel;

she arranges tokens and offerings

inside etherial music

echoing from this poets ink and scars. 

Magenta Rising

Honesty intrudes the unadorned hour

An unexpected breakfast in magenta shadows of wolves

-Love on a platter

pureed

creamed

frozen

melted

pulverized

molded 

sculpted

-And presented

Garnishing with laces of parsley and grenadine

She slumbered for hours, centuries

Awakened by a disheveled scream

Stirring the smell of cranberries

While other women dine on crumbs of their idolatry

You starve yourself

Nay, you’ll not find her ravenous curls

In the chocolaty abysses of Hell

Bring out the hammock and mirrors

We’re going to watch the sun rise with our backs to it.

-Kore Gleason

On the other side of stately morning;

You’re undressing into more comfortable attire

Of cranberry kisses

and slumber sweetly

Simmering in the heat of unventured love

Smoke filled

dryly chilled

finely willed

mercy killed

waters still

honey spills

Over her body

over her pristine bedsheets

And splashing to the floorboards to feed a monster

beneath it all

As I searched the world for precious things;

olive oil, a perfect circle and two identical snowflakes

She merely dreams with her mind so sharp

the nature of the beast is not slain

but cleanly rearranged under her instruments

Her night is my rising hour

To which I rearrange the words of my cobalt haiku

And slip between the strings of her magenta morning.

-a.s. barnabe

Ink

May ink connect us in all ways
and sew together our souls skin tight.
On these pages and on our flesh
we'll spill ink all over the night.
Ink will write sacred rites
which can never be undone.
Ink will mark us yours and mine
and bend the moon and sun.
Ink will draw the plans
of a future building empires.
We'll be safe behind the fine face
of a phoenix straight from pyre.

Perfection

We lay down our weight

buried in sleep and cotton sheets.

Our hold is perfection,

two shapes made for each other.

Press down on the bedsprings

press down on my heart

and the fine winding tendrils

that have been there from the start.

I have been chasing sidewalk

as the street rolls up behind me.

The beggar man sits hand open to change,

all I have for him is "everything is strange".

Devils and angels followed me to the Tavern

and suddenly life's not what I'd arranged.

So live, lay, and love in our perfection,

in benediction and bed sheets

in dragons and belfries,

your construction in me grows.

Shake the earth and quake the seas

because in all reality 

it's just you and me.

Tigers

I never felt from such shame
but we wanted what we wanted,
I held your mind I knew your game.
You need what you need
but I will always be haunted.

There was a dance for me
but that's all it was;
no celestial alignment from above.
All deeds and word
are beyond good and evil,
if they are an act of love.

Maybe I could have loved your soul more,
maybe I was in love with your name;
our tantric pose
our untimely snow,
we cracked the innocence
of the soulmate game.

Wreckage

You are my most compelling vice.
The round tips of you fingers
whose touch no longer lingers
through my affections,
nor across the fiber of my compassion.
You had the blueprints of my heart
and piece by piece you dismantled it.
I built a flying machine
from the wreckage of your chaos.

Bonfire

There’s something calling

from the blue moon ascending,

and the light of the bonfire

sweeps over your skin.

I light a smoke and don’t think twice

about how I hadn’t in six months.

The past doesn’t count,

when night is falling.

When night is falling the joker’s wild.

It’s dare or double dare;

no room for the falsehoods of truth.

Graveyard statues see the night time

breathing freely in the fog,

Repentance burns away the day

and small creatures come to life.

Slow song from the Ovation guitar

and the lake is a mirror.

In perfect formation the birds dive low,

low tides and lowlands,

this place is a willow;

strong in a storm but gentle as the lamb.

On Paper Wings

You fall again from the sky

like a letter in the wind,
floating close but out of reach...
the torment starts again

I hear you sighing in the photographs.

It slips into my ears
filling me up with starry skies,
twisting sharply into fear.

Devils and angels rage on all night.
The madness screams into the dark.
I'm of sound mind and body,
but insanity's racing through my heart.

Everyone hides a secret
embedded deep behind the scars.
Tell my why my scars still bleed,
like the weeping light of dying stars.

My darkest hour will never end
feverishly haunted with a ghost.
I was fortune's fool in fleeting time.
I gambled with the one I loved the most.

Crimson and clover fall under the black
but the tempest has yet to subside.
Once it's gone you can never go back,
the desert is the other side.

Fate is cruel and time is mean.
Exile makes sanity collapse.
Never fall prey to regrets,
because you can't change the past

Again you're drifting out of sight
as my soul begins to sleep.
Tomorrow you'll be gone again
and I can barely breathe.

I search the sky but there's no stars,
just a desolate moon and city light.
Winter's chill runs through my veins,
for everyday there's another night.

Aura

Palms to the Sky

Have you ever been to Portland?
Would you go with me tonight?
Maybe it's not as crazy as it seems
if we shoot out all the lights.
We'll stage a great escape
and become human cannonballs,
to land in the sand caressed driftwood.

The breeze through the screen
cools my face as if it were pressed to glass.
Too many years looking in,
too many places to know where to begin.
All the things that have come to pass
make us more than a sum of parts,
So shake me until I fall to pieces,
until you are asleep inside me.

Have you ever kissed a stranger
to push into the tempting danger?
Head thrown back, palms to the sky
face to the dark but open eyed.
Surround me with you radiance,
kiss me with your soul all night.
Part my lips and sanctify me.

My Swann Song

The summer haze drowns the city lights.

I toast the summer

and the blissful sky she's lured me with.

A swirling neon ribbon paces,

trapped in the incandescence below the city limits.

Engine fog dangles low

and fireflies light the way of rumbling foothills.

I'm a roaming gypsy form Lonesome Dove.

I keep moving,

it's how I'm built.

One eye open even when I'm sleeping

because that's when I do

my best writing.

Today sings my soul a Swann song

without a worry of what can go wrong.

Blind love leaks from a hole in my chest

putting terrors and tremors to rest.

Today I sing my Swann song

and carry into a tomorrow I belong.

I went wading through

our little stream of dreams

chasing tadpoles around the circles of love.

She always knows what's right

as she's looking left,

and how did we get here,

to a sea beyond our fathomless depth?

Lose Me

"got a coffee cup full of whiskey, got a broken violin..." -cp

A ghost ship pulling into the harbor,
your perfume still inside my parlor;
you have to care about someone
to bother to say "goodbye".
Your goodbye lullaby is haunting me like a house,
and places that never existed
beyond the syllables of your sadness.

Hold your head up high
as you scrape across the sky
and never come down to the little girls that adore you.
I find myself thinking
before I catch myself drinking,
it is what it is despite what you allude.

 

Azure Waning

Azure and emerald 

flares of question 

trip the light fantastic 

from beyond the silhouettes 

of this industrial ghost town. 

It is not in our dance 

to restrain our intentions 

and manipulate our actions 

in haste to bend the night. 

Spin, spin, spin, 

the lovers move, 

and stalk each other ardently; 

desperate for the falling rose pedals 

of tampered reciprocation. 

Ours is a separate peace, 

of stained glass ambiance

 and curls of clove smoke, 

in a favorable circumstance 

of uncertainty.

Dragon Tails

Let's go chasing dragon tails

and whispering secrets to the wind.

Your fingers wrapped around my heart

my dreamer, my lover, my friend.

Send me across the universe

dripping ink across your pages.

I will sculpt stars for you

to shine through out the ages.

This poem's simple as a love

unconditional and enduring.

and when we kiss the sky ignites

I feel the whole universe stirring.

It's On

Tonight tonight it's on tonight....

Mayfield

Watching your body folded into sleep,

getting higher from your respirations

and then plummeting,

like evening doves diving,

from rafters of the old Mayfield.

Your phoenix lies still tonight.

In vigil and awe I swoon over

the tattooed Venus on the rise,

with a sway that could cut glass,

shake the Heavens,

and raise up fire and brimstone.

In all her luster

She willing chooses generosity

when it’s natural to take.

I find myself entangled and undone

in serenity of what she creates.

I’m undeserving but forever grateful; 

for the touch which her spirit changed me,

my archaic map is meaningless,

her aura’s the deepest of my framing.

Running Blind 5.09

I want to run so hard
my breath stabs at my lungs, 
with an icy vengeance. 
I want to run blind
until I run out of street,
or collapse from sheer exhaustion. 

Birds will swoop in suicide loops, 

shrieking and cawing as they mock my falling, 

but I won't care this time. 

You know I've walked these streets,

 I've prowled these concrete sheets of city heat. 

I've danced in the rain 

when the

fires came and brought shame,

 to the soul-mate game. 

I dug my fingers into the source of her life, 

the heart of her strife, 

and a place I'll find in myself tonight. 

So I run over broken bottles, paper, feathers 

and other sidewalk treasures. 

No stopping for traffic, red lights, 

angry horns blare at the girl with wild hair

and a stare no one should dare to fuck with.