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.