Maison D'oiseau

Here is the house with rivers for walls.
Mine is the body with voices for skin.
In your eyes, setting suns and cycling stars.

Mine is the port with a shore made of wind.
Docks are easy, moorings leaden;
morning birds fill every tree. 
______

for quadrille #59--cycle

Testament

I folded a love letter

inside a bible

and left them both

on a table

in the garden

overnight

in the rain.

As expected,

my new lover 

appeared

wearing the sun

and the wind

like epaulets 

on his shoulders.

With a strong open fist

he broke my loneliness.

A dove flies

to cold

lofty

Ararat.

_____

for my BFF's most entirely awesome 55 thang.

 

Orange Peel

The white inside an orange peel

velvet soft as a water dream

bears the stunned blankness of betrayed wives.

Circles and sections,

heart beats, desires, babies, birds,

all in a grain of sand

or the eternal and silent dome of the sky.

The white inside an orange peel

fragrant with what it has already lost

remains beautiful, sensual, for a short time

but is already dying.

Circles and sections,

heart beats, desires, babies, birds,

none of these are meant to endure--

their purpose is goodbye,

their pinnacle sleeps in dust.

The white inside an orange peel

was/was never/ was/ was never one with the fruit it sheltered.

Lover sweet, lover who stings the knife's cut

all the same, and doomed themselves.

Circles and sections,

heart beats, desires, babies, birds,

all born of the branch and gone to the table,

the plate,

the necessary separation and then--

returned to the garden, the turned soil, the green shoots

and the endless rot and rise of everything. 

_______

Geometric Onion Dome Girl

Geometric onion dome girl has a resentment against stars.

Everything must be rooved--taxis, coffins, bus kiosks, and especially churches

because every little light can't be a christ.

Geometric onion dome girl got a paper cut from a phone book

while trying to give blood to the past to revive it.

The operator denounced her, 

just for old time's sake,

and quoted maxims instead of backing up her soul

with a more modern device.

Architects don't care about onion domes anymore,

and geometry is all angles and curves.

Revolutions never happen in the rain.

Tea is weak and poetry no longer burns.

Stars don't even light cigarettes,

and so the savior of circumferences plots a mid-point

between 

ennui 

and

effervescence,

shooting herself into space like old light in transit. 

______

for the Sunday Muse #8

Three Short Poems

"Jones"

Jones
finds Empty
and fills it
with lonesome lies
in a fake truth suit.
There were better Parts Unknown meant for you.
_____

"Chop Shop"

Chop
this shit
into lines-
it still won't be
poetry, baby.
You have to pay to learn that foreign tongue.
_____

"Mercy Clouds"

Look--
water
ripple-topped.
Gone tomorrow
with the mercy clouds.
Kiss me now. The sun will warm my suitcase.
______

for Fussy Little Forms--tetractys. 

Suicide happens when a person's emotional pain exceeds their ability to cope with that pain. But there is help. If you are in trouble, pick up that ten ton phone--tomorrow can be better, even if you don't believe it right now. National Suicide Prevention Help Line: 1-800-273-TALK.

"Goodbye...my friend. I didn't know you, but I've been places you've been." (Tim Hardin)

 

Crimson Amperage

In my fingers, a knife with two blades and no handle.
On the blades, blood.
Enter my relative, with ten mouths
who wears the knife as jewelry.

In my mouth, a scream with two pitches and no end.
On the sound, a honed edge.
"Hush," say the ten mouths
but I sing back crimson amperage.
_______

some cold steel 55 for my BFF.

yulimajiri

A ceramic cup

--winter-white--

is my body--my bones are

stems of brushes--

my blood is paintwater.

The window is nine panes.

The walls are blank, the door to the hall ajar.

Outside,

wintry mix.

Traffic, graylight, finger-wind.

Rain falls of its own weight--

snow's geometry fragile as dreams.

When they kiss, one disappears--

the dull shine of sidewalks

leads everywhere, nowhere.

A ceramic cup

--winter white--

is my body.

I touch yours (again) in the stems of brushes,

soft tips brilliant and singular

then done, swirled

in the cup's anonymity.

_______

for Toni's "Shades Of Rain" at Toads.

Jose Feliciano's amazing rendition of a Fred Neil song about rain: