EM

Why do we do it? Smile,
sweetly, slyly slicing a delicate
line down tender flesh

It separates, blood wells up, we
Feel alive. But I am not that,
not physical that way.

I
Slice deeper, into
The ectoplasmic envelope of emotion
I swim in, I cut a deep line,
With the sharpest kindest blade,
and all that wells up are
Quiet tears
You'll
never
see.

elements: not a love poem

Earth:
Blood pulsing
Soil streaked
Coarse
Ribald
Rotund
Voluptuous
Rooted
Touch, feel, revel
Burial
Birth
Creation

Belief from
the gut
Love from
the loins
from the messy
bloody
heart
Laugh and eat and touch

Air:
Pure, thin
Rational, soaring
Sunny
Open
Clean
Smooth
Invisible, yet
Everywhere, tangible
Think, reason, analyse
Know

Proof from
the evidence
Love from the
head from the
cold, bright
intellect
Fly, stretch, soar

Sky touches ground at
the horizon line, the binding
infinite
One thin line of touch, 360 degrees
the binding
infinite.
Fire mingles fuel of air, fuel of earth,
Water becomes part of earth,
Evaporates, mingles with air,
falls to reunite again with
Earth.

The energy of each of us circulates,
Circulates
In a closed system, we are
Water, we are fire,
we are earth, we
are air.

God and goddess,
Each bound to the other,
the binding infinite.

Bob Marley sang, we all are one.
I a part of you, the lake, the tree, the sun.
You a part of me,
The bird, the sparks, the sea.
The binding infinite, and ever will be.

What if it breaks?

Smashed to red pulp
Like a dropped tomato
Like a Pollock nosebleed
Like the ketchup packet my brother stomped
That time in the mall before he got kicked out;

Smashed and then scraped into a small pile and
Dried and then
Tucked sadly and carefully away

Like the rose from Nan's funeral or the
Corsage my first boyfriend gave me at the prom.

As long as you don't think about things
They don't hurt
Right?

nor can it fly

This is the bird I gave you because
Near you, it always sings
You love it, you say.
You feed it and tend it but you never let it out
You never hold its trembling tiny body
And feel its heart race.

I wonder if you have a room full of caged birds,
And love them all equally,
Platonically and
Distantly.



My heart is a triphammer,
My heart is shot silk,
My heart is
not a bird.

Truth is

She lay on white paper and had the child
Draw her outline in purple and black
Then she stood, stared at the shape before her.
With her eyes unfocused, it looked enormous
Shaped like a continent filled with ugly buildings
And smoggy cities and dense grey highways.

She took a green marker and drew inside
The shape she felt within herself
And it described an island paradise
With beaches and breezes and
Small animals that rustled the undergrowth.

What is truth but refocused lies?

Not eros

I have been
Wooed by words
Before

Swept away
Semantically, set
Adrift

Gave my heart,
Blindly to man and
Muse

But
vision complicates, creates
Distraction, physical needs,
Greed for warmth, strips
Away the purity of the
words
alone.

Someday my mind
Will master this body
And this will be
enough.

sheherazade's cousin

You are
Perhaps another shimmering oasis
soon to
disappear, and even if
you aren't, you
are not my oasis. I cannot water here.
You have said, and you
are king.

I need reassurance once in a while that
I serve a purpose beyond being the keystone in
The arch that holds your ego in place. Perhaps
not even the keystone, maybe the stone two
places to the left of it.

When I am removed, your sultan's palace will not
crumble, you will simply find
another stone.

I want to find that place again of being
Essential, needed
I want a courtyard to hang on my every word. I
want to be fed grapes.

I deserve this... but I sure
don't want to head back out into that
desert tonight
unwatered.