Tenacious Tom

i put you out,
tenacious tom.

you pay no rent;
i put you out.
all my best rooms are yours:
my brain and heart.

get out
feral feline!
i put you out.

disconnect the electric,
throw water on the fire;
i put you out-

stubborn desire!

Her Curses

my soulmate loads me
night and day with her curses,
honey always on her lips,
yet i know she loves me.

how?

i equally expend myself
day and night
in perservering longing-
knowing too well
my hopeless love.

But Now

oft, i have strolled near the garden

the fertile fragrance wafted
o'er my insatiate senses
and the honeysuckle
drew the bumblebee from its hive
to silken stamen cup,

her pollen was potent
her nectared petals shimmering saccharine stars
her verdant vines summoning venus,

but now

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.