Spit of Your Beauty

o my incomparable,
you
have unhinged my mind!
let it wander azure-eyed
from ecstasy to ecstasy.
shatter my skull,
pour in the wine of madness!
i am crazy
for you,
with you,
with us.

beyond the sanity of fools
is a burning desert
where your helix is whirling
in every atom:
drag me there,
let me roast on the spit
of your beauty!

Call Me Indigo

the way your beauty snags
my skin when i'm waltzing
through an afternoon, for the thousand
crows caught in my mind,
how it rains when i think of you
on misty-black days.
call me indigo, azure, cerulean;
call me
every shade of blue for being
so in love with you.

the way you pluck
nightingales from my heart; writhing
as if it were my ribcage being played
beneath a moon that is no grapefruit,
but the bottom of a jelly jar.

still the sound of you
rising from my blood like a prayer at midday,
or the ragged song of cicadas
tugging frogs out of watery homes.

well, the day is too dark
for dreaming; the neighbor's pitbull keeps barking,
my mcdonald's steak bagel is eaten by buzzards,
and my brain is full of love
letters that have never been sent.

Visual Wealth

the visual wealth of you-
growing ember
of eternal life,
lava of grace,
buried stream
singing from well to well,
transcendent dream-
consumes the cells of my mortality.
me, a thunderous heartbeat,
lost in you.

Easter Blessing

i collect fortunes
each breaking dawn-
a fortune of color and texture,
of light and shadow,
or motion and moisture.

i tuck each fortune
into a brain cell
and hide it.

later,
the easter blessing:
discovering
each glistening treasure
anew.

Separation

gray,
shades of black.
the lack of color is cold.

only she has color,
only her color has warmth,
only her warmth has life-
her life moves ankle-deep
through gray powder.

the powder covers
living backs,
flowers, trees, birds
and the singled roofs
of dark houses.

the sky:
one shade of gray
except far on the horizon
where it is black,
one shade of gray
with gray powder falling,
cold, bleak,
forever
gray

Without You

winter; the woods
empty; the axe
sunk in a stump;
its thud a sob
startling the sleep
of a dreamer
waking, calling
where am i? who
is there?

Paper Afternoon

paper afternoon
a stage set in broad daylight-
life away from you

Perfection

my sensuous soulmate,
goddess of priapus,
voluptuous venus,
nectar of aphrodite,
charming beauty:

God has sculpted you
from a solid block of desire.

in your presence
other women are but shadows;
trembling, envious vacuums.
you are perfection!

Fossil Beetles in Amber

i ransack my mind
for poetry,
finding nothing but matchbox cars
and a piece of frayed string.

my brain has suffocated
in another day's rush and tumble.

a few crinkled words-
notions captured
on faded red and green
accordioned crepe paper,
dehydrated thoughts-
unfurl
dusty verbiage:
glissandi riffs
of separation's purgatory.

notions of your beauty
pleading to be freed-
fossil beetles in amber:
images of sensual perfection.

Op-art

i lay on the first stroke
of color:
a big, wet
hilariously smeary lip-stroke.
after that,
the canvas of your body suggests-
even demands-
i do this or that;
talk about liberal art!

Liquid Morning

in waxing light,
i rock with the motion of morning;
in the cradle of all that is.
i'm roused from half-sleep
by the spectacle of your
silver-tipped beauty,
cries of the sandpiper.
love is my will, and my way,
and my spirit runs, intermittently,
in and out of the rhythmic waves,
runs with the intrepid shorebirds-
how graceful the skitter before beauty's sea!

in the first rays,
all is a sacred scattering,
a shining.