The wings
that carry us
shall rot away one day;
we shall fall if we are not taught
to fly.

The wings
that carry us
shall rot away one day;
we shall fall if we are not taught
to fly.

Dark night can’t hold you, not just yet,
despite this spring tide shine.
Run back inside and don’t forget
to warm that wretched wine!
Like a stretched-out cat, she gazes into a
melting mirror but does not know herself.
Her reflection stares back vacantly, neither
offering insight into past’s predicaments nor
future’s footsteps.
If we could rip away our skin
and love the blood that drips within,
this hate that soils our world with pain
would vanish like a morning rain.
That droning throat buried in
his fingers, cracked and tanned as
barren earth, narrates the tenderness
of our times.
Into the wind, from hoping souls,
agile lungs stain this burning night
with the bittersweet shades
of our days.
Somewhere past midnight,
but well before dawn, silence
falls betwixt brandied cheeks,
yet our hearts wail on.
Eyes not yet open,
hidden in warm honey,
stare into comforting darkness,
searching for safety.
Will you look upon me,
or shall my face be your
eternal, distant,
advocate?
Eyes not yet open,
hidden in a flourishing orchard,
refuse to see the
dangers that await them.
Shall I look upon you,
or will your face be my
lone, unknowable, lantern
in life’s teeming tide?
To cast a shadow in
a land without light
is the fight of giants.
Blessed are those who
stretch for high heaven
to burned-out beacons,
unaware of their bite.
Nowhere to be seen, but
in the clouds, we shall meet.
Oh Rosie, run beyond the slope
before my blood runs cold!
I feel that clammy, wraithlike rope
assert its faithful hold!
Her feet fly faster than a hare
away from Devil’s ditch,
for scents of flesh float in the air
as Johnny’s eyelids twitch.
Salt-smudged mud, square-toed Oxfords;
hard leather heels flap like blackbirds
through a New York morning swarm.
Time don’t wait for crusty-eyed snails
full of midnight gin and tipsy tales.
That green-fisted fiend snaps at her back,
whatever the score, he’ll beg for more.
Those chords don’t tweet for love alone,
but for now, she owns the throne.
The shindig sheathed a shadowed year
in reams of cheese and streams of beer.
We stumbled home at half past four
and fell asleep upon the floor.