Doppelganger

love holds no regard
for anything but it's own interests.
she is an extraordinary machine
of exactitude and fire.
what cradles us is also
that which swings the blade.
she will offer
a brave new world
steady things of temporal importance
and she will burn your house down
faster than a New York minute.
love is a doppelganger;
just when her likeness comes into focus,
a careless blink
will wash it all away
.... and the feeling she leaves you with
you will chase after like hell.
she burdens herself not
with the responsibility of proof
because her existence is lawless.
but you can find her attestation
in the placement of things;
a lion in the ocean,
shoes by the bed,
the blood in our flesh,
and the tessellation of our souls.

Skeleton Keys

On the train and feeling perilous
My mind slides
and I am precariously on your breath;
don't hide, my love
don't hide my love
Forge it into new shapes
like skeleton keys.

I miss the burn of moonshine
but I'm am fingering the bottle
and tasting for tremors
Guilty and giddy and so far gone...
Inhale deep of dewy dressings
as I drive the clamoring to your chest.

Exhale now,
as I draw the poison out
and lick clean the afterglow.
I write of you and me
in the sycamore tree forever
breathing deep the mayhem
like the sweat of our souls dancing.

I run my blade against this friction
and I draw
the blood of fiction
you're made of feathers
hot sweet addiction
as my body strains to listen
for dialogue caught in the crosshairs
for an echo in the empty
my breath is ragged
from sleeping alone at night.

I grow tender in your hands
as my own smash things
I shouldn't be touching,
and I don't want to be better
I don't want to be tamed
I don't want to be reasoned with.

There's nothing in this sentience
that could hold me back
from screaming out
and prying into your name;
feed me to the beast
bury me in the surf
take up with me
and the fireside piano
when the liquor and night
has been
unkind.

Begin

Lay your weary body down
gently over the marigolds, lover.
Exhale the turmoil
inhale this solace
and then let me take your breath away.
I would like nothing more
than to slide down the railing
and spoon you like ginger;
Weave my fingers into you,
we become each other
as I cradle your body
with my heart.
My skin is your skin
against all odds we begin
...again.
Who could have expected this?
The late nights
the flickering light
the will to live
and dying rites
kindred spirits in a world
of star crossed lovers.

Passing By

Lying outside in a breath of the night

with the beggars passing by,

sitting alone in the garden of sound

and the horses race the sky.

Poor man asked me to tell him a story

of the times we all once knew,

I said that I couldn’t remember

but he knows that isn’t true.

Waves roll in and crush the darkness

of a swelling sea of souls.

Let me jump blindly into the void

and crash into your folds.

I walked past the elephant graveyard

where there’s no use for lullabies,

faster and faster like planets spinning,

wheels of affections go passing by.

Blind man sitting at the edge of salvation

with catastrophe at his side,

Proud man looks through the eyes of the dead

as the buildings stab the skies.

Lying outside in the a breath of the night

I saw the shadows come and go,

Dancing on the walls of my mind and body

this city’s lifeblood is in the ghosts.

Floating

strike a match within me, love

i rise on the heat beneath your fingers

i want your daylight streaming

and expanding from in me

to spin from your eyelash

and chase butterflies into your attention.

the distance is great

the beast is baited

and I find my hands sinking

into my resolve

and resounding dreams of winter

have left me floating on my back.