End of the Day

Looking at the burning drifts of a sunset, 

mauve on gold, 

dripping from charcoal clouds, 

and this sensation I can't quite place, 

this feeling of wanting to chase that sunset...

endlessly; 

this feeling of loneliness

and liberation 

mingling within my mind.

Tundra

The earth's balding surface,

studded with burnt match tips,

wavers like a ball of mercury in the heat.

Luminescent waves crash

on green shores

of crackling chaparral.

Animals cringe against heat,

fur explodes in flames

like firecracker wicks.

Eyes loll;

cracked marbles

in reddened sockets.

After the firestorm,

the ground is littered

with bodies 

now reduced to black piles,

sooted skin peeling from

ivory faces;

eye sockets wet

with softened marbles. 

Grandma's Basement

I ask,

“Will you take me down there,

where the big spiders are?”

The door creaks open

and the darkness creeps out

like long, boney knuckled fingers.

I’m brave,

I think.

I do make it to the bottom of the steps

where a bare bulb casts angular shadows

across ruddy stone walls.

And then I’m running

back up into the daylight

because there are spiders,

and they are big.  

Ojo Caliente

Iron water mistress
and her velvet caress.
She surrenders willingly,
transforming
from water to steam,
arms spreading open,
becoming the night,
with its stiletto heal stars
burning hot white.

I roll within her embrace,
as she rolls into the sky,
both twisting
in places where we cannot survive.
She surrenders 
in the cool
current of wind,
her once white coils
now nothing,
gone from within.
I want to surrender
as my lips part to kiss, 
but I am not her,
and she is not me,
I cannot go so willingly.
 




 

Spoilage

Lightning dawns on the horizon;
eyes drifted upward 
breathe in the glittering show.

Water pours from the sky,
harvesting cake from my mouth.
Pasty white frosting bleeds
off my chin and down my chest
like melted clown skin.

Thick copper strips of wax
seep through my pores,
boiling golden warts 
upon my shoulders blades,
then growing transparent
and leaking feathered crimson
down my spine.

My skin is whipped egg whites.

Molded cheese blossoms in the sky,
as acrid blue fireworks.
Crystalline flies
swarm from the explosions
drowning me in stagnant hues. 

Radiated, I finish my pastry
and fall limp into the cesspool of grass,
swarmed by green mechanical thoughts.

Possession

A gleaming drop,

a Sapphire ruby squeezed
from my knuckle.
A moment in time,
a single red dot.

This word "my":
my knuckle,
my house,
my property,
my blood....
hmmm,
really?

Not so sure;
really.

Aren't we just borrowing?
Tirelessly borrowing.

I hold this three-foot square,
my shadow a bit more,
but I will move,
eventually I will be gone.

Maybe not gone
in the sense of "nevermore",
but certainly gone
from this spot, 
and then from this shape.

Even now I am fleeing myself,
leaving that self of a moment ago
for this self here and now.

And so now,
a day later,
the Sapphire ruby is gone,
and so too
the crystal pain
that marked that moment.

I don't think we are that different.
We seek to possess,
to hold onto something,
if not many things
then at least a few,
and how futile it is.
And we know this,
yet we struggle to surrender.

I know this is nothing new.
I'm not more enlightened
for having written it,
nor will you be so
from having read it.
But I am compelled,
so I write,
and if you are still reading,
compelled you are as well.

So there's that.