The Black Wood

 

I smell you
the black wood
pulse of subsonic desire
the white stones
and wet pine
blurry shadows with yellow eyes
with dog breath

I awake to the scent like a song
cold wind just above the water
a morning fog
his majesty in velvet crown
with birdsong calls the sun to rise

I hear you
in hot hymnal
breath from the black wood
that alluring edge of whispers
tangled roots
footprints where silent the wraiths passed
silence to usher me awake
heart throbbing
the blood in me stiff
struggling to gain air
to tie my boots and start marching.

TA

Left Knee

Skinning you from your witch's robes
proffer your naked flesh to Old Moon
with wet lips plucking sadness in your voice
soft midnight blue like first snow
   settling on your round breasts

left knee

realizing too suddenly that capturing you
is impossible
not in four lines of long-form poetry
not from a man who isn't sure how to own his name
a break
and then a single left knee?
of what is essentially an endless linear loop
like time itself, I guess
like the way I loved you in that dark red wood
bleeding from the parts of you the asphalt took
so clumsy the wine hour falls
not from a poet nobody's ever heard of

three piece combination
right elbow one
left elbow two
Sal Paradise
and all those beat mother fuckers.

TA

To Last The Night

 

Citrus twilight climbs the distant canyon wall
in pursuit purple evening
a crown of broadhead pine
atop the shadow
charge the last of dying day
color collapsed some time ago
into somber tones
monosyllabic ghosts
a gathering of minion spirits
stewards brokering for the day's undress
mothers clinging in killer's claws
to their surrogates
affiliates not yet disconnected to the source
that power of the womb

from cold eclipse of bough and stone
a panther wandering willy-nilly into moon whisper
her orbit pools of quiet footfalls
her soothing rhythm inaudible
a lull to sleep nevertheless
a false promise in that pussy's purr
 
Callisto
like Europa
and strange Io
her revolutions no more reverent
than those captive to Zeus' heavenly embrace
brightest diamond winking in the swelling empyrean
yellow like the cat's eyes
soft of paw
hardened heart
a nitehawk in whistling spiel propounds for all
his hunger
the night comes fully
and the things caught in it
we have only ourselves now
to blame
until morning's glow.

TA

A Night

 

We sucked until the smoke ran out
in the red light
sober like a Sunday forgotten
this mirror me wearing folded stockings
boiling magic inside his crystal glass ball
frankly I'd rather his golden curls be on his head
but they're on the floor in roadkill agony
positioning me on his chest
like roadkill ecstasy
not like this
like this

once a southern sugar swallower
a traveller kept like his pet
ogled by the jewel thief
no no little pet
the ball is dangerous
and hot
come curl inside my lap.

TA

Heat

 

Sometimes the heat
the sweltering hell summer heat
wearing gramma beads
and lingerie
choking in my fantasy
hung from a red hanky around my stubble

sometimes I can fall in love with the heat
it's home, after all
sexy like the shadows in the sugarcane rows
baptized in holy water
in sweat
like holy sweat
like holy fuck it's hot
revelations in white rows on a mirror
rap like a rosary keeping time on the radio,

they say a lot of things actually
honestly
it's hard to tell
who's the wolf
who's the lamb
work the hay
go home
turn up the air conditioner
sleep the laborer's sleep
work the hay again,

they say
death makes life sweet,
the heat
it reminds me to live that life.

TA