'how are you feeling'
i want to say
'like a mouse
in falcon's claws
the falcon hit by lightning
like the lightning wind cloud rain
the mouse falling
like the ground leaping to catch
the mouse so soft
but hit with raw agony
at the mouse's death
like wet earth crumbling
like sun so sad for the mouse
it burns the sky clear
like the cooling corpse'
they don't want
discomfort's raw
infinite nuanced truth
so i just say
'okay, you?'
even that sacred blaze
time made semi-divine
each second's jewelled
breath in a silk damask pouch
detailed in beadworked tears
even that endless breath
feeding the cataclysms
of life unfettered by aging
even the spinning of multiverses
shivering through the dance
of fiercely imagined gods
glimmering in and out
of reality's spotlights
even the endless aeons
would not be time enough
to map the gift
of your skin
draw it on the skin
of my chest
in the mixed inks
of our sharing
draw it clean
and strong
so i can feel it burn
through days and nights
incandescent beneath
my clothing
a promise and a hope
and protection
all together
in the signs
that mean the sounds
echoing the shapes
of mouth and the paths
of the air that has charged
me with life and love
reminding me
that you are real
in the world
burn and dance
and consume
shift and flicker
companionship
in ways LEDs can't echo
alive in ways
i seldom feel myself to be
how the textures of the room
melt and flow
but are somehow
confirmed solid
through malleability
how there is warmth close up
but hurt too close
and cold only a little distance away
fragile fire
easily extinguished
dark always waiting
for your end
let it wait
a while longer
there's a gulf between
rational mind
and self
sometimes
a void implacable
frequently unnavigable
a brightness, silent one moment,
yammering superheated billows of noise
the next
horror filled with horrors
rifts of teeth and bludgeoning
blunt force dramas
i cannot cross
however clearly I can see
the shelter on the far side
i cannot cross now
but when i close my eyes
on the back of the lids
i have neon-pink tattooed
"patience"
i am the unfinished overture
leading to nothing
hundreds of bars of almost music
the misshapen thing they find
when clearing out the house
all that need to make
scrawled on five-line staves
fingerprints of dancing bitter love
lacking the time to build the skill
to fulfill a want so ill-defined
the pages mottled in a box
but so necessary to the hope
they might one day be more
than just enough
they kept it through decades
your tongue
on the back
of my neck
or your lips
in the small
of my back
and how both
track my spine
while your fingers
dance their own
explorations
elsewhere
and all
from just words
on a screen
but no less
true for that
after eclosion
when the wings have dried
and the small, temporary
beauty of the butterfly
has been added
to the sum total
of the world
the sad
wasted marvel
of the womb
it grew to birth from
falls to earth
to undergo
its own
quieter
metamorphosis
it's a border
despite the light/heat/dry ice
the room squashes the sound
to something almost solid
this is a between
i am briefly untouchable
the aim is symbiosis
transition from many
to one to cast a single shadow
made from slightly too much sound
movement/feeling/senses overwhelmed
i dictate time
to everyone
when it works
there is nothing else
the ending burns like re-entry
but being reduced to ash
might be a sacrifice
worth making
ships swallowed coffee
brought on hundreds of camels
or unloaded from dhows
warehoused, traded
a hub for centuries
before an empire bypassed it
and smashed it
in the kitchen i pour water
tamp ground beans just right
screw top to bottom
sit the Moka on flame
and while pressure brews
and i wait for the gurgle
i wonder what mark, if any
the city outside my window
will leave on the world
whether that moment
has already passed
when
this world
has hollowed
my shell
feed me
to the rich earth
burying the toes
of twisted trees
whose sheltering
leaves cool
tired hills
whose slow rest
cradles a place
where water's dance
shows stars
a thousand
thousand
shimmering
glimpses
of their
terrible
exquisite
thousand
thousand
year old
beauty