Blue Jay

He fluttered chasing hawks and owls
to roost in an open field
only did he leave with wounded wings

Pines trembled against
his song that even in
beakless wailing did his tears
clear the night away—

but a lone blue jay that goes to nestle
and flatten its crest
is only but a dream,

Receding, withdrawing,
there is only the sky who awaits his return
and a pith of blue to fall into;
He howled thus
and sang with such deadly affection

The Midnight Man Pt. 4

We pulled over a climb
Breadths of burdock were in spring
Silver and dirty white
sank beneath the blue
I wrap you around my fingers
and you coldly settled on my brow
I stutter in an unlit night
and fall the bright words did,
but I battle you for another day;
I’ve set twenty two years aflame
dreaming of demons at my door

The Midnight Man Pt. 3

The daytime is setting
in this broken subway
High and dry downtown
But I’m not done with the night
I saw you walk uphill
my mind race you to the bottom
Oh I reckon scripted marauding gaits
and learned curtain calls;
dragged feet on a freeway
neon lights are blinking
the city winds navigate
roadblocks and traffic signs
of speeding days, and nights
slithered like venom on my throat
Only a vice such as yours
can clear away this smog made of ice

No Bloodied Hands

Let there not be mire
but the taste of fresh air
or that we may fade
in some other place
Let there be fire
in peoples instead
so they may embrace
no nothingness
or else build a fortress
and swathe the night anew
or to awake tomorrow
with no bloodied hands

Tomorrow Perhaps

How far have you set out
When will I be your sunset
How I've waited for an unending dawn
or that we may fade with the rain

Oh, tomorrow perhaps,

The glare above the sky is
only but a thousand more dusks

Vice, Venom

He sat down by the Apple tree
    perfecting his sorcery
And his thoughts brewed poisons
    as the world mowed and crumbled
    while he was plucking the seeds anew
He sought and sowed a thousand more thoughts and fought
    the Parrots and Donkeys in the Marketplace
His art cajoled them in the form of a Manuscript
They chewed his words and left no trace

He wandered with no sense of time
Though in fact he was on his way
    wondering what crime
    it was to endure and get by
    when the world neither rejects nor accepts
    the truth it was just a miserable Chance

He creased his brows, burned them to a tumult
He disappeared into the Midnight and Imagination;
    try as he might to grace himself a soul
    there were no piths but only its ghost

His magicks have become the dark,
    the cruel and the stark
They’ve sown to hate the virtue that was
    Crying Truth from the Blood
    and how he rules the lazy world in Untimely sighs

Saint Sebastian

You fought with a leap of faith
    and was almost blinded in your haste
    as you ran to fight your foretold fate—
    the saddest story—
and you would’ve won if it were not
    from the way he kept you in pursuit
    with a well-draped loincloth

And so he lifts his arms only to make you hiss
    and you bow down on your knees

He’s pinned down to the barks;
And you’re pirouetting into his willowy palms,
    rawer than you’d be willing to admit—

The tribe brought him as a sacrifice
    and the soldiers shot him to taste his blood
    (they are his champions and rivals)
And when the arrows fell off the ground
    He crushed everyone’s heart;
    and tonight, he will break yours, too

High and Ever Deep

Keep me from the Bare Archer,
I suppose you don’t leave yourself alone
when I whisper in the wrong ear
prying an unfazed crowd—
oh Icarus flew dangerously,
You don’t fly
to where pins and needles are;
I can’t help but look past the glare
to pull you back to the ground,
to a cascade unfound;
But you don’t have to tell me,
I know you’ve ebbed into the sunset
as timeless words become my leap my faith—

Lethal and Always Apart

When they cruised the streets together,
all the buses and pavements roared back
Their faceless moving in sunburned tracks
left them with nothing to say to each other—
There’s usual silence
over unusual nuances;
Cradling and watching what sugar and beans
become few and far between
no matter how wide the streets;
And so did they stand apart and always lethal,
gripping each other’s neck and won't let go

The Commoner Pt. 2

As I walk to the earthen, smoggy kingdom,
my brethrens carried torches to behead the throne
What wailing sounds they were in the distance!
I hear they offer graves to merchants
“...for breakfast?” the baron asks,
No ration to them who defiled the land!
And so I sold my book to a catalogue
of old-age fairytales and that wondrous ode,
Oh but their pulled legs betrayed their uncouth mouths!
Them words sung by angels, such majestic sorcery,
I would’ve carried my torch, if only lunacy was my mastery!

The Commoner

Born in a swallow of earth and sky and for four hundred and eighty eight years The Commoner Still thought that the earth was neither gold nor grains, But was worth more than three hundred Years of silliness and more than half a century of grazing paradise out of dominatrices, imitation and half-meant jokes of complacency, Lethargy; and Today he stands naked with a royal dress, outdated, outmoded, insufferable for ever more.

The Story

“You ought to have a breathing truth,” I once said,
You were torn asunder to an answer so soundless
to lock lips with the lipless–
because you were ever so sworn,
“But like a running wind,” I reckoned,
You thawed but left no trace
but only the dregs and pins
of the fearsome seams
of the old darkened lights
we once called hearts and minds,

and I surely remembered,
you long ago walked defiantly
like a huntsman, for I was the bullet
when I inched past your breath;
to commune and marvel;
only to trade them with the sunset
you loved most–and ebb into one,

So I ask for your regret;
Will the glare above the sky be the only but
a thousand more daybreaks and sunsets,

as you don’t trust you could take me anywhere, you said,
You could only sing such silent dainty madness
and I would only lay awake until I forget what has been
a cascade unwound so that we may grow up thick,
though I am insofar to see
the way beyond the folderol–
maybe you told me a fairy tale, after all

Most of the time it's waiting

–with sweaty shirt and trousers
amidst people roundabout,
in perfect silence,
against a buried time that is equal to none
but the swerve of day and night,
on clouds made of dry breath,
under a starless firmament with which only
your voice could give direction, as if
my whispers could beckon;
–above a castle in the sky,
for your return, for your return

M'aimer moins mais aimer un long temps

You've buried
me with a thought since,
with a thousand miles, with
every sunrise–
you chose not
to fight though your eyes
intended no truce;
your smile took forever
and I could only gaze as much,
affluent, unsaid–
like how the rain fell
without care
(like you would've been) while
I deferred to a callous hand;
you smelt of asphalt,
the sun
and stew and mangoes, and my
moon-kissed face
chafe against your lips

Until This

Always would I tell, wherever/whenever
though you'd always whisper; this is it, this is -
it dawns and sets and I'd wander some more,
then you, you would not dare forgo; this is it, this is -
my time and heart and soul, wondering,
wondering where and when (I try to reckon);
until this, until this.

Everymen (The Midnight Man Pt. 2)

You were just chasing pavements
When the roadblock tore them up apart
Then their cars ran you over,
I think construction’s just about to start
As though you smiled like you mean it
You’ve always wanted to take that leap of faith
But when you set out to wait
You just come around –
As you would’ve thought
That maybe it’s just a yellow traffic sign
Because you’re writhing against the stake
And the speeding red sunshine
Turning to a calendar when you awake;

it was such energy!
Time to chase some wild goose!

Try to be out of the woods
Your doctors told you to always catch your breath
You’re supposed to smile like you mean it,
because right now you’re just biting your nails wet
Do you meet people that often
Because you cannot trade your wits for yesterday
because you when stay put again
They’ll just run you over
As you would’ve thought
That maybe they’ll say the green light
is a word of advice
and the speeding world news televise
your haste has been an accident;

it was such energy!
Time to chase some wild goose!

You walk and crawl around the edges with a pistol in your head
You’re told the bullet will spill your blood to fill a dearth

As you would’ve thought maybe it’s the red traffic sign;
The Raven-haired, he’s just a passerby
The Midnight Man, he’ll only ask you why
Them Everymen now everybody walks off: wrap yourself up

Untitled (The Raven-haired Firefly Pt. 3)

The capricorn boy at sundown left
chasing pavements at the forest
But the clouds have poured in; to crest
was to know by midnight he has wept -

with a flicker, with the wind and moonbeam
The raven-haired firefly rushes with a smile
Like a thought, it disappears for a while,
only to escape within his charred dream

The Ocean Drowns Through You

How do you taste the earth
You felt
without a trace,
for twenty two years: what dearth
would’ve seared
your skin

What do you see, what do you dream:
the drop in the ocean–

I hear you see, walking above the stream,
the fire under your feet:
You raise your arm, rocks turn to wheat,
the gushing of wine

and how it glints –

Time is lent to what you meant
to make, to rake;
The ocean is wide, the ocean is sand,
the ocean trickles down your hand –

Does it fade, does it make say,
“It will trade for yesterday”?

Time is meant to what you lent
to make, to rake;
You are earth, you are dearth,
you are a drop in the ocean –

The ocean is afar, the ocean is sky
The ocean is such great height;
The ocean crashes on your feet –

but I can see it drown through you;
I want to see the world surrender,
I can see right through your eyes