those hard smooth stairs pressed from prayers that could not be granted,
I will leave twin birds each with half a song.
You will know them by their scent,
and by the midnight-storm sea-water blue of their melancholy.
My kiss will come back to you, folded inside their feathers.
Follow the marble to where it breaks,
take the root-bone broken dirt road that splits the upstairs floor.
I will strew lilies to guide you, as sweetly as an easy death.
Oh, did I mention how restless, how diffuse
is the road I have lured you down? It webs out, becomes thousands,
becomes legion, and down just one of them is my bed and my heart?
I wish you luck.
Place these non-seeds in your hand and let your breath begin them.
Follow them. Splinter as you do, and I'll kindly bury each letter of your lies.
You should have loved me right, when I flowed hard for it.
Now, well now, this is the only way, and I have avalanched everything behind you
with black gems that turn to rot if you touch them.
Just do the best you can, my second chance baby.
Just pretend your feet are magnets and that I am true north.
Just follow the strange-birthed backwards sun that comes up in the west,
so that you, too, can know what it means to be scorched by a blank face.
______
Check out the song. I dare ya to sit still.
Why is it when the sweetest juice turns sour it still makes a better drink than water? The image of a straight and simple course turning into a diffuse and incomprehensible labyrinth really is the one that hits me hardest, and which seems to tell truths usually unable to be articulated. The vid is fascinating(of course I can't understand a word of it) and the way the men have chosen to both disguise and present their sexuality with gesture instead of form is very effective as both style and substance.
ReplyDeleteShay--This poem was like dry ice. Alluring, and so cold it burned...
ReplyDeleteLike a scavenger hunt .. the map is detailed, showing me the way .. but there will be no winner.
ReplyDeleteYeah, what hedgewitch said.
ReplyDeletesorry but I couldn't have said it better
like always, i enjoy your creative word sense
gracias mi amiga
'twin birds each with half a song' :)
ReplyDeleteI imagine this song on the wires of the wind late at night reaching far to where the departed lover sleeps, inserting this dream, this curse, this sour-mash forever feathering love song.
ReplyDeletePhew! What a rush!
ReplyDeleteThose last lines deliver a palpable punch to the gut... That'll teach her.
Wow. Blew me away. The twin birds with half a song. And the feet that are magnets and you true north. Fantastic writing!
ReplyDeletetwo birds. an owl. hmmm.
ReplyDeleteno one writes anti-love better than Fireblossom.
As (nearly) always, that was starkly beautiful. True north, here I come!
ReplyDeleteAnd that video you posted was interesting. I watched it all the way through simply because the soundtrack was so unexpected but it fit so well.
this is my new favorite!
ReplyDelete"those hard smooth stairs pressed from prayers that could not be granted"
how do you come up with such fan-fucking-tastic phrases?
(go back to work! if you're starting your vacation with this level of poetry, i won't survive the next month as you continue to outdo yourself!)
loved the video!
♥
Ouch..."scorched"...the way this poem makes me feel...touched by something hotter than fire.
ReplyDeleteK
Oh my!
ReplyDelete… a love letter is alluring - this one tells me to RUN the other way - lies and all.
ReplyDeleteThe video was fun - I can't understand all the words - but how many good ol' rock n roll songs have I been singing incorrectly all these years :P
Thanks for playing - glad you peered into the orbs and saw something uniquely Shay.
"I will strew lilies to guide you, as sweetly as an easy death."
ReplyDeleteThat is just stunning.