Apokalypsis, the entire collection

To the electronic edition: With the exception of the actual name of the Sunday Girl, removed until apropos, this is the sum and collection of the volume "Apokalypsis", currently being edited for publication. For this 1,000th post to the Amomancer blog, I present you all 99 poems that represent the cut of my works to the muse known as "the Sunday Girl" or "White Sunday", through September 12, 2010.

Dedication

All to my Sunday Girl, in whose inspiration all these works were created.
I am but the lens that focused her beauty, spirit and soul onto the page,
wherever our paths may lead, I am grateful and humbled by her inspiration.

White Sunday I: Torn and Tossed

Torn and tossed, a Pentecost of more than five dimensions.
Slow to break the fast that lasted half a step of the dance
and then some. Kisses in scarlet and solferino, memory runs
and locks itself away. Playing for time expended in chance
opportunities that pleased all and none depending on the filter
of the perspective through eyes closed in a repose I once chose,
not knowing the price of commitment to the greater good, impure
like a diamond, to a first water. Last man out as the second sun rose
to bring a light that castrates the night but only for a season
or a score of seasonings, reasonings resounding in a pounding
like an elusive heart that has finally found the tempest tapestry, reason
enough to wait for the late fate of the sound of a heart, resounding.
Lay with me when you are ready, I am in no hurry to waste a resurrection
on the muddied middle of the hymns to a flawed law of perfection.

White Sunday II: nails into wood

nails into wood
nails into flesh
the strangest meetings made to mesh
in pain and regret, the stain of a sweat
beyond prophecies and made mysteries.
the deserts fade
the deserts fail
to break the spirit of a dream that doesn't pale
next to the cold shroud, the veil of a cloud
that now will descend a faith to defend.
we bend our will
we bend our whim
and find that we are mere mortals against daemons grim
that make us believe and forget to receive
a sacrament taste of a lover displaced.

White Sunday III: roll away the stone

roll away the stone. the stone that seals just one perspective.
for while the flesh is bound by walls and time, I've slipped free
to be a thing of light and quanta, bouncing through the ether
to both send and be a message, in and of myself, as such.
much to relate and yet can anyone relate to the inexplicable
except where a touch or glance communicates subtler truths
than all the hand-wringing head-shaking games when we must
filter reality through the lying layers of the necessity of survival.
the soothsayers and naysayers and game players protest.
too much. hiding from the hidden. forbidden mockeries spilt
like a glass of Pesach wine, long forgotten but the stain remains
for the celebrants to discover years from now, contemplating
what it is and what it means and if blood is really that red.


White Sunday IIII: White as illusions

White as illusions, cast to shade scarlet and crimson
and the black of the human heart in better lights,
transcendent nights where the perfectability of a kiss
becomes a sexorcism that banishes demons of clay and brass,
glass spiders in graven images imagined to be more
than they were less of, more than what they were,
and of a substance hammered by the artisans
who knew well their craft as they laughed
at their own cunning, running rings around Saturn
and laying myth to the Achilles Heel
of the lost worshipers of polytheism.
A communion of stones and water,
bones that slaughter even after the flesh fails
and the evangelist sails for a purer night
than offered as sacred sacrifice to fallen idols.
How long can you pray to the failed, the scrailed words
on tablets of earth and bone, the deeper demons remain
and the pain is inhuman, put aside for a time to come.


White Sunday V: you are a lantern to my soul

you are a lantern to my soul,
lambent to my touch. your surrender
awakens me to make sacrifice
after sacrifice, pieces of myself
given as evidence of a new communion.
the old idols fade and crumble
into piles of dust and sand.
nothing can stand the test of time
but that which is willing to wait.
wait until the time for idols is passed
and we cast ourselves in images
of our true selves, severed from lies
that we even tell to the mirror
to make clearer the falsehoods
we feed upon. I have no need of riddles.
the religion of ronins is patience
and the desire to see things as they are.
I should like to see you naked,
with nothing between us but hope.


White Sunday VI: a legend perhaps given

a revelation perhaps given before the moon rises.
too soon for the civilization to wrap its soul around.
inconvenience in a thunder clap from out of everywhere.
truth surprises and tantalizes at times most inopportune
but bearing kairos over chronos, time enough for riddles
told in a practiced measure. the rituals of passion
stripped of the sacrament of true spirituality.
flesh to bread. blood to wine. a sense of the divine
in the taste of the sacrifice, given willingly.
cold stone idols and the shadow of the sun passes
into another night, where the chill fill us with doubt
we smother in platitudes and quotations. poster logic
without an understanding of the words, the whimsy,
the amomancy of the brave, slave to nothing,
but bound to speak of small words, sighed and undenied,
inscriptions on warm flesh, to be kissed, drawing out.
water from stone. wine from water. blood from wine.
and the cycle closes with a prayer shared between lovers
and the belief that they have found faith in the night.

White Sunday VII: memory fails me

memory fails me
at the altar where I kneel
my sins confound me
a past I can not conceal

there are angels in the air
without a thought without a care
and those of us of human form
must trade our souls to be kept warm

the visions recede
the incense precedes

and we are left to dance for hours that stretch to years

our passions resist
and then they persist

and we are left to pray to idols stacked like Russian dolls

you are lovely
and I cannot help but speak
words of yearning
the dream is strong, the dreamer weak


White Sunday VIII: prayer is not wasted on your soul

prayer
is not wasted on your soul
pain
that tried to wrest from you control

of all my fervent promises unbound
in all the sacred travesties I'd found

blood
becomes proof of truth and light
touch
that communicates the night

in all the eloquences I must speak
in the moments before I become too weak

kiss
with a purpose and release
dream
and may you find love and joy and peace


White Sunday VIIII: like an ancient elder serpent god

like an ancient elder serpent god
avatar of a darker spirit
slithering up from out of shadows
scale on cool stone, voice like the winds
passing through the drying grass
where once grew trees of life and light.

like a darker priestess, summoning,
waiting for the red and black to melt
and run together like blood and night
the knife left buried, deep and silent,
the violent path to penetrate a heart
no longer of value as you evolve

like fire in the depths of an ancient fen
where no one claims the spark that set
the moss and dead twigs to crackle
like the cackle of creatures in the black.
like the taste of lips and lilacs, warm,
the promise of a ritual of ragged passion


White Sunday X: The prison is inside

The prison is inside, we hide our hearts
that none may break them. Pretty venoms spit,
hit their mark, but we are strong for our parts
and bind ourselves in bright rags that are split
only for pretense, we are not naive
to the purposes of tender tensions,
but we choose to guard that which we believe
essential, saving pretty pretensions
for the kiss and coit of those we can drain
for our nourishment and inspiration.
Leaving not death, but life and light, the pain
sucked in the instant of immolation.
I draw from you a flood of blood, a feast,
I share with you a thousand beasts, released.


White Sunday XI: let slip my leash

let slip my leash and I will run
run with limbs of quicksilver and skin of glass
passing the wind in my flight
laughing at the sun as I bring the night
not the darkness
but the beauty of the night
the song of the stars
the perfume of the moon
the sound of crickets and distant fading winds
as they shake the sleepy trees

I will run to you, eyes full of wonder and thunder,
seeking only to spend what time you allow
padding along the darker paths
to feel the heat of your skin
when you lay to rest
to smell your breath as you sleep
and imagine kisses I would never dare
as I wait for the rising sun
and run back into dreams
where I will await my reward


White Sunday XII: Nothing good can come of this

Nothing good can come of this.
Nothing good at all.
I feel you pierce my shadowed bliss.
Now in my sunken hall.
You've overrun the battlements
where I had made my stand.
And now cut deep inside my stones
I'd marked with sacred brand.
You're everywhere at once, and yet,
you dance, you dance away.
You've toppled walls in sacred halls,
you drive my thoughts astray.
And what would you, my conqueror,
demand to ransom back
my sanity, my vanity,
my soul on which you snack?
Benign malevolence you are
and beautiful, beside.
You've broken my defenses, token,
and in my heart, abide.


White Sunday XIII: The baptism of desire

The baptism of desire, the fire burns away the doubt and shame.
Risen, like the phoenix, in heat and light and a solferino flame.
Passion descends on you, enters you, pure in its own right, no carnival
can drive away this mystery of the touch, avatars of the carnal
gods reborn to taste with lips and hips the eclipse of bartered ad val,
the baptism of desire, the fire burns away the doubt and shame.
I feel your tempested breath upon me, until nothing but you could tame
the lion of my loins that drives deep to fulfill an ancient aim and claim.
Passion descends on you, enters you, pure in its own right, no carnival
to bid farewell the flesh that meshes in urgent, ardent and unsubtle
stroke and writhe and kiss and rage and the poetry of the deeper thrall.
The baptism of desire, the fire burns away the doubt and shame.
I would gladly die tween the thighs that wrap and slap me, with a poet's name,
taking me for what I am, I surrender my urgent thirst and proclaim!
Passion descends on you, enters you, pure in its own right, no carnival
for I am not to surrender my couer rage for you, but in you, the same
as you will lay upon my flesh the consecration of your sacred scrawl:
The baptism of desire, the fire burns away the doubt and shame.
Passion descends on you, enters you, pure in its own right, no carnival


White Sunday XIIII: the curve of your hip

the curve of your hip
warmer than I expected

my hands trace your body
your grace even in repose
waking in me the songs

have I become an altar
to passions or is it you
or are we sharing brisance
without over-thinking it all

I can smell the heat of you
the sweet wet taste of jasmine
that I have been greedy for

discovering a goddess
in the way you move your hips


White Sunday XV: would you be among the witness

would you be among the witness
who see me off the edge
daring all to choose to risk the fall
on a lover's boldest pledge?

would you read the tattered journals
and the scripture of my fate
choosing love above the cowardice
that is born in barren hate?

I am not here to ask you anything
but to speak my mind and leave
I have nothing to make offering
never tasking you to grieve

I am just a wandering minstrel
who is not afraid to lose
speaking of the errant arrogance
in whom, for love, I choose.


White Sunday XVI: touch and taste and sound and sight and scent

touch and taste and sound and sight and scent
the veil is rent
and senses flood like blood from a wound
but this warm fluid is not red
not yet
but wet and pulsing life
of a sweeter degree
communicating your desire
your fire
as you kiss fingertips
with lips
thirsty
hungry
trembling to speak
to seek to express
the senses overtaken
with a simple kiss
or stroke of hand
or fingertip
or eloquent tongue
silently making love
that you may find me on more than a page
that becomes my cage
when it is locked away
in rooms you only come to
when you are alone
and you want to feel
your senses light up like a pyre
of dried exotic woods
that you can dance in the light
naked
in flesh and metaphor
grateful for my lips
fingertips
the truth they speak
that you are beautiful
worthy of reverence
and all the deity I need
for my faith to be restored

White Sunday XVII: I want to hear your spirit

I want to hear your spirit
softly calling me
your veins throbbing at the memory
of my touch and trespass

I want to be your addiction
your nasty little habit
that you'd barter your dignity for
your life for an afternoon
with me pumping through your veins
messing with your mind
flooding your blood
dancing in your trance

I am here, whispering your name
a mantra of possession
a sinister confession
that I want to be wanted


White Sunday 18: will you lay upon the altar

will you lay upon the altar
and offer me your soul
just to see if I will snatch it
in a flash of lost control

will you touch me with desire
that is ancient and anew
draw me in to share your pleasure
a hunger, pure and true

will you dare be my redemption
for my arrogance and fall
that I might yet deserve to set
my compass to your call

will you lay upon the altar
and offer me your soul
just to see if I will snatch it
in a flash of lost control


White Sunday 19: white

white
white as snow as clouds as dreams
as a puff of smoke
purified by your perfect kiss

white
white as light as milk as frost
as the milkweed seeds
scattered like random thoughts

white
white as bread as bleach as rage
as a blank paper page
waiting on you to compromise its virtue


White Sunday 20: I heard it

I heard it. The sound of silence cracking around the edge
where the sedge has withered, all dithering aside,
I slide into to momentary gap between words
and find myself absurdly off balance, like a buffoon
in a Renaissance morality play, caught in the act
of acting like a normal human being, a role I am
rare to fill. expectations being what they are
and every scar has a name and a story
that rides with it to the place where the ancient
stop aging and become, themselves, memory.

You are beautiful. And brave and passionate.
and I am not a polished stone, fresh plucked
from the shore to show to friends with glee.
I am driftwood of an intriguing gnarl, you are
an unique flower of a tree I had never encountered
before I caught your scent, all jasmine and spice,
like a pear warmed on a very hot day in August.
I reach to touch your skin and crave to taste you,
your juices sweet and savoury to a familiar tongue.
And I wonder on the nature of wine and desire.


White Sunday 21: if I lay my offerings at your feet

if I lay my offerings at your feet
would you, at least, consider them?
or would it be a sure defeat
to kneel and kiss your vestment's hem?
questions asked and answered yet,
I have. in past times, failed the test
where my sure heart was given, set
on goddesses who swore in jest.

White Sunday 22: There are angels and demons

There are angels and demons, creatures of perfect beauty and vile affections.
Then, there is you. Faint taint notwithstanding, it adds to your charms
and I find no harm in having a healthy curiosity and a desire for pleasure.
Indeed, I look forward to when skin meets skin and the thin protections
of our civilized illusions melt like tears before kisses, in my arms
I would find you no less beautiful and perfect, measure for measure
a treasure of your heart, I hope, manifested in more carnal expressions
that we can share with purpose to an expression and consummation, warms
to heat to fire to immolation, in which I would lay suttee, to blend my fate with yours.

White Sunday 23: I shall make of your flesh a living scripture

I shall make of your flesh a living scripture of Psalms
of love, silencing Solomon and raising a new religion,
bound by passion and earnest sharing of brave hearts.
Fire and light, the taste of you like roses and jasmine,
the way you hold me in sacramental sacrifice, sacred
as any prayer as you dare me to touch corners veiled
by your need to bleed in colours for which there are no words.
I have heard your chants and mantras, prepared a feast
in your name as I lay my hands upon the altar and draw
the very venoms I have tasted in lesser vessels,
vinegar and dregs of oils spoiled in mockery of joy.
What do the dead know of life? What do the silent
know of the sounds made when souls surrender to faith?
Consecrate me and I will lay a seed in the loins of memory.

White Sunday 24: will you fade away when I come to stay

will you fade away when I come to stay,
will you find a reason to deny me?
I have stepped up and out and far away
from the reassuring stones beneath me.

that I want you is transparent to me
and to all who read my poems and prayer.
that I want you is a miracle to see,
an unexpected corner of life, faerie and fair.

will you fade away when I come to stay,
will you find a reason to deny me?
I have stepped up and out and far away
from the reassuring stones beneath me.


White Sunday 25: more than a moment

more than a moment.
more than a kiss.
more than forever,
a prayer for you, this.

more than a meeting.
more than a smile.
more than a merging,
purging all guile.

would you come in the moonlight
daring all to the chance
to encompass the twilight
with a dance, a romance
that defies all the logic
and all of your doubt,
that belies all our histories,
the mysteries, cast out.

more than a dreaming.
more than a night.
more than a mem'ry
of exquisite delight

more than is given.
more to receive.
more than you ever
have dared to believe.


White Sunday 26: This is my Pentecost

This is my Pentecost. Not in chronos, but kairos.
This is important. This. You. How the pieces fit,
not in the force-them-in-and-we'll-work-it-out-later way
that so many people can live with, but how they fall
together. Effortlessly, for now. No doubt there will be
times ahead where things tilt a bit like everything does
or even we find the tunnel of love is a corkscrew.
But if we ride the moment and trust, just enough,
we'll be fine, like lemon wine. I need this kiss.
I need to see you dance once more, barefoot,
catching my whim and will as I imagine centering
myself in the way you move your graceful hips,
trusting your lips don't lie in word or parting
to slide breath between us. Cinnamon dust
and the morning light, a rose on a silver tray,
the way things are supposed to be if we believe.
Grieving over lost and caustic causes, pauses
in the slipstream of the wind of Icarus.
You will find me. Bind me. Grind me.
But in the end I will say it was you who defined me.
For that is the ultimate purpose of a Pentecost.

White Sunday 27: miracle

miracle.
anomaly.
a strong longing for something,
someone,
from an unexpected corner.
the taste of lace,
fingertips,
wet and whetting an appetite
for tight places
and faces
that will touch with silent eloquence.
and we will be
transfigured.
remade.
a sacrament of flesh and blood
shared
as a celebration of our own
testament
to a new state of being.

White Sunday 28: take me into you

take me into you. your body a metaphor
for your heart. your soul. the heat
of your body, swallowing me up until
I spill life itself into you, lost to me
forever, but given with great joy and faith.
there is a mystery here, a beautiful
mystery as you feel me moving inside you,
taste yourself on my lips, hold with hands
my body, pressed into you to make us
an evolution of passion and surrender.
no pretender here, just your radiant skin,
drawing me in and wrapping about me.
taking me for your own. making me your own.
an allegory for our spirits, wet and afire.
I will surrender to you all you want, and more,
if only you will bless me with the sacrament
of your body as a parable, a testament, of your love.


White Sunday 29: your sorrows are my sorrows

your sorrows are my sorrows
your pain, mine own.
I will lay between the rocks and you
and keep you safe, and warm.

I will give you the best I have to give,
leaving no thorns in the flowers I bring.
I will learn to eat what you eat
and never make you listen when I sing.

I will lay beside you when you need me
and I will carry our load when you are weak.
I will listen when you when what is important
or even not, is what you speak.

I will bring you herbs fresh from the meadows.
I will kiss your lips, and yours alone.
I will make this life what I can make of heaven,
and never leave you, never alone.


White Sunday 30: You beg the trespass

You beg the trespass, steal the crown.
Lips of peaches, ripened to red,
you dare to wear the crimson gown.
To draw out venom from your bed,
power claimed in the pleasured art.
Now courtesan and queen, priestess,
couer rage born in a battered heart.
And paramour, the idols press
and are shattered in your embrace.
Wondering when and where you've gone,
Helen stares into empty space.
The unexpected quarter, on
past the Pillars of Hercules.
Our fires burn in four degrees.


White Sunday 31: I surrender my will

I surrender my will, seeking yet more
than mere arrogant posturing, the touch
of the divine. Shackles of pain are poor
purpose in the heavens' mystery, much
remains to be experienced. The sight,
God in the grace of creation, your heart,
manifesting transfiguration's light.
The power of love echoing to part
the seas of the tears and fearful distrust
built on the coward's easy perfidy.
I would merge with your divine, kick the dust
and find the most remarkable beauty:
You as angel and the evangelist
seeks only for the blessing to persist.


White Sunday 32: What shall be our witness tree

What shall be our witness tree,
our silent witness to our vows?
Where lovers come to speak their hearts
as we did, long before they came.

Perhaps a pine, so tall and straight,
evergreen steadfast symbol.
Catching the odd snow in winter,
keeping live the promise of life.

Perhaps an ancient oak, so strong,
Atlas to the forest sky, true
and earnest, indestructible
next to the frail neighboring boughs.

Perhaps a magnolia, sweet
and heady, refreshing the wind
and flowering to welcome life
and all its possibilities.

They are all witness to us, here,
in the silence of the forest,
where we speak words to God alone
and to one another, our hearts.


White Sunday 33: I feel the sky

I feel the sky. it weeps for lovers, lost, never
having the opportunity that we have found
to lay down the tepid temptations and sever
heart from flesh, to be woven together and bound
to one another. into a single thing, heal
and seal and feel the pulse of my life inside you.
as I will feel you, fit in me, cast to reveal
all that is worthy, all that is, within you, true.
not the platitudes of rude suitors, seeking spark
but not fire. seeking an abstraction of you,
but never the woman, the child, the bright and dark
angel now woven into me, so very few
are given such surrender into victory.
and the sky no longer needs weep for you or me.


White Sunday 34: take you the sacrament of my white wine

take you the sacrament of my white wine.
draw out the essence of my surrender,
swallowing my issue of the divine,
your reverence and severance, tender,
from the false religions, idolatry.
old passions pass away, your fingers play
and your warm, hungry mouth tears my flesh free,
the white blood of creation, a wine. I lay
hungry for redemption, tithe of pleasure.
for now, soft pink lips draw tight about me,
tongue, eloquently silent as you measure,
feed and bleed me of all resistance, free
of all free will, your temptation, tender,
witness of your wish to grant me heaven.


White Sunday 35: there are religions

there are religions, ancient and new,
that do not stir the soul as much as you
stir mine. the essence of your spirit,
the mettle of your soul, near it
I am pulled into the gravity of joy
and can do little but fall, destroy
me with but a single artifice
if you want to see my bliss
turned to tormented desolation.
but know you, my passion,
my affection, is as real as the sun,
and as radiant and heated, won
by nothing more than your being
the revelation I am, in your words, seeing.


White Sunday 36: for you I want to heal the wounds

for you
I want to heal the wounds
and end the pain
the doubt
the questions that are irrelevant

ten thousand reasons
exist why we don't make sense
ten thousand more
rise to match the impertinence
of anyone
who says love doesn't matter

it does
and can move mountains and part seas
and make the skies light at night.

for you
I want to say the things I have never dared
and share everything i have ever shared
and all because
and all because
and all because
for you
I was put into this world

White Sunday 37: you may rest here

you may rest here
if you like
if you are weary

I will stand
sentinel to your heart
and your soul

letting no thing
no one
trouble you

my arms will
press you
to me

my heart
will play rhythm
to your breathing
as you sleep

burrowed in
like a kitten
in a blanket

I am warm
and gentle
and mean no harm

I will lay here
and hold you
until mourning comes


White Sunday 38: if God is God

if God is God should it matter
if we care more for them
than they for us

for there are ten billion
people in the world
and only one God

we need only love one God
(who is confessedly
a jealous God, anyway)

but if we accept the divine
as divine and limitless
how can we hold God faithful?

it is a question for those
greater than me and wiser
for I have so much love I ache

love for everyone, everyone,
but a special sense of love
for the one, jealous God


White Sunday 39: I am here for you

I am here for you, and yet for my needs.
Greedy and hungry, thirsty for love that
bursts on the tongue like raspberries, the seeds
and juice filling your mouth, no weak or flat
notes in this symphony. Power rises
and rafters rattle, for there is no place
for mediocrity when disguises
are discarded like impudent clothes, face
to face we stand, even at a distance,
reaching for one another to so yield
our essences and crack the resistance
that has, for too long, been a crust and shield
against love as real as would burn heaven
when we give ourselves to transcend our ken.


White Sunday 40: I’m for trading my memories

I'm for trading my memories for dreams.
You have taken me, awakened me and
I am not desirous of a return, seems
that I am ready to move on to stand
proactive in a last-year world. You plant
hope in me. Hope and firecracker lust,
desire and passion kindled to raise chant
to liturgy. I want to conquer dust
and damnation for your grace, your face,
for every trace of all you have offered
in evocation and prophecy, trace
the tears and tenderness proffered
in acknowledgment that there is something
real and worthy and beautiful coming.


White Sunday 41: will you close your eyes

will you close your eyes
the first time we kiss
and let all that you are and know
flow into me as I melt into you
my hands sliding down and peeling
your fabric armour
so that we may begin and continue
what we will continue and not finish
for many, many years
if ever?


White Sunday 42: You shivered in the cold

You shivered at the cold and thought the room
would be empty on your return, iron
headboard still cold and hard and your bridegroom
gone, a sea of insecurities, dawn
and midnight, stolen in a promised kiss
that would never come. But I kept faith, held
on when silence roared for I would not miss
this consecration for life or withheld
my love for doubt. You will always find me,
patient if not perfect. Not only skin
but lambent determination to see
this through with you, to everyday begin
the best I know how, in your heart and arms,
and surrendered to your brave love and charms.


in response to her poem "Only Skin".


White Sunday 43: eyes that do not beg the greater question

eyes that do not beg the greater question
but ask with gentle reproach to be given
a moment's, an hour's, a night's release
and peace from the sorrowful shallows of life.
skin, soft and taut, warm to the touch.
lips like rose petals, soft and full of life.
breasts, flawlessly risen to pink meringues
that demand a taste so as not to waste
the beauty of their pleasant presence.
thighs, lean and inviting, more than a night
on white satin, calling soundlessly the lover.
the feast is spread and the bed the canvas
to the work of the art and religion of surrender.


White Sunday 44: I will blossom to your touch

I will blossom to your touch.
grey bark falling away.
my limbs rising to seize once more the heavens
and wring out the tears of angels
in the name of love they cannot know,
for it is but for the rare mortals
and the small gods.

I will blossom to your touch.
new roots laying in, deep,
anchoring me to you, my Earth and Venus and sky.
you are the gentle magic of my life
and I will draw my beauty, every petal
and leaf and limb, from your dreams
and share with you.

I will blossom to your touch.
I will find my way to you.
I will place myself in a convenient corner and grow
until I am the source of the shade
until I am the tree of your life
until I am the bearer of fruit
until I am gone.


White Sunday 45: damn you for awakening me

damn you for awakening me.
I had slept longer than I had dreamt possible
and had accepted my fate as a sleep unto death
but you walked in and with a single kiss blew breath
into these grey and shriveled lungs. I feel life.
I am alive.
my heart, no longer merely beating because it can,
hammers within my breast with the fury of creation,
flooding my mind, my soul, my loins with the need
to express myself in manners proper and necessary.

damn you for awakening me.
I had surrendered to my prison and laid down to die
and you decided that you wanted to see if the legends
were true and my wings were still able to blot out the sun
as I wrapped you in them and carried you to the top
of Mount Aetna,
to be ravished as in the legends I thought were myths,
having lost my faith in the gods of love and their child,
now a woman of comely form and wicked wiles who dares
to summon me from my tomb to fulfill our union.

damn you for awakening me.
your cries of passion and fear and tenderness burn away
my doubts and I am now more phoenix than golem.
I am now more the hungry heat, incarnate, than thought,
roaring my spells of summoning to draw you closer.
we melt and merge
and the prophesies never told us what happens next beyond
a general sense of a happy ever after ending, our spark struck
to burn eternal in the hearts of all brave enough to look up
and see your beauty in the bowl of the sun, reborn as I am.


White Sunday 46: I’m not going anywhere

I'm not going anywhere.
Well, not on a vector remotely away from you
in the long run.
I plan to stick around,
cheer you on in all life's little competitions,
pick up the pieces
when you get blindsided .
It isn't that you need me, but that I want you
to have the advantage.

So I'll sit in this comfy chair,
you know the one, and see what happens next.
And after that.
See if you see your way clear,
not because you are unmotivated now, but truthfully,
there's a lot
we have to deal with.
Yet I'm not running, but standing my ground, standing around,
waiting for your blessing, to begin.


White Sunday 47: I can only say what I know

I can only say what I know.
There is a point where desire and love are shallow words
but we are loath to confess our needs.
Need, the unwillingness to go without.
Oxygen, water, food and your love.

Not love itself, for so many sins
are committed in the blank slate that hangs fate on a word
so that trouvare may sing memories.
But you. Your love. The heated sweet cinnamon
of your eyes and thighs and no disguise.

You are naked to me, beyond metaphor.
All attempts to cast you as cat or stone or mythic beast
is a waste of my soul, you are your own legend.
And as I confess the crackling flames of lust
and soft adoration, you are as a fulcrum.


White Sunday 48: in this bed

in this bed your maidenhead is certain to be found.
a new release, a perfect peace, a love without relent.
for in my life and in my soul, I am forever bound
to you alone, and we atone our follies, my lament
is reconciled, my lover and child, born of ancient dream.
touching in fashions transcending our passions, joy
and revelation, resolution and revolution perfecting theme
of love transcending the shallows, the parapets of Troy,
thrown down in the name of the arrogance of man
to think that what is divine can be touched and held.
you are here because you chose to be, the purpose and plan
of love fulfilled, a consecration, illumination. what was felled
is risen and given as sacrifice to the gods of love, who nod
a beatific grace to acknowledge the presence of a wise and merciful God.


White Sunday 49: your love is a revelation

your love is a revelation. a purifying spirit
that consumes me in a pillar of fire and light.
I learn from the universe the nature of love.
I learn from the universe the nature of dreams.
a perfect epiphany. a perfected epiphany.
your beauty and faith and earnest touch
is a gift I could never be worthy of, your love
is spiritual and physical and mine, by grace.


White Sunday 50: the bitter herbs

the bitter herbs
taste better with kool aid
so I can wash them down
and get
another paper cup
another paper cup
and I tell myself that I can't taste
the bitter herbs

but

they were there
they left a strange sensation
in my belly
and smelled of
cinnamon
kisses
and the colour of your lips
at an indecent distance

so

I can say I took
my wormwood, but I never really
tasted it
like I did your sweat
long nights trying so hard to say
that for which there are no words
just the magic of your touch
incendiary

and

I need to be immolated
desecrated by your passions
given and received
in the music box of memory
wet with our hungers
to feel anything
to taste anything
to know anything

for sure
for ever


White Sunday 51: teach me of your mythologies

teach me of your
mythologies.
the legends
that you see
dance
when you close your eyes
and realize
that reality
is just another excuse
for the cynicism of others.
for Plato said
this is all shadows.
but I
have great peripheral vision
and have been known
to move my neck
enough
to see things most
can't or won't.
I need
a frame of reference
whether it is
Aphrodite or Venus
or another pantheon,
altogether,
so that I do not
defile your temples
(in a bad way)
or utter
insecure profanities.
this is important to me,
as you are,
and I would know my place
in heaven
and feel secure
I will always
wake up in your arms,
and you in mine.


White Sunday 52: some insist that vows are mad

some insist that vows are mad
take what you can and run, they say.
I don't want to live that way.
those who do, they make me sad.
romance is not found in spark
we play at being lovers for.
the shadows dance by, by the score,
they flicker out in solemn dark.
alone I sit, a vow to clutch.
alone, and yet with more than most.
a dignity, not memory's ghost,
I gamble all for your honest touch.
dreams are but for waking from.
I want your all. for it I've come.


White Sunday 53: and when all things that ever mattered

and when all the things that ever mattered
are in the meadow, by treasons scattered,
I'll smile a thought and catch a memory
on sweetness not a mocking travesty.
a gentle touch, an earnest kiss we share,
the way you brush the moments from your hair.
I lay awake and watch you dance for me,
a perfect moment trapped in memory.
these times are ours, from idle eyes we shield
the naked hearts and fantasies revealed.
upon this bed we pledge our sacrifice.
for all we gain, this bartered Pascal's price.
and when we part it will be tapestry
we wove together, our meld history.


White Sunday 54: this is not a place of skulls

this is not a place of skulls,
but of flesh
and the infinite possibilities of life
seized at the perihelion,
fire and power
flowering like your heart in a kiss
surrendered to.
remembered in time,
precognizant memory
and a possession
of what was already held,
a symbol of the sweet baptism
and the transcendence
of brave and constant hearts,
words unleashed
to preach to us
the gospel of innocence.
burn me with your beauty,
make the duty of my vows
a joy for as long as I walk,
as long as my soul inhabits this sphere,
making way for the next
and a place for you there,
if that is your will,
as it is mine.


White Sunday 55: I will trust you under Heaven

I will trust you under Heaven.
I will trust you with my heart.
I will trust you to be faithful
and to never tear apart
all the fragile, earnest windings
that we're weaving with our prayers,
all the bright and lambent findings
that can purge the past nightmares.
All I ask is that you trust me
just a little, till I'm proved
as one who offers honesty
with his passion and has soothed
all the earnest, learn'd doubts you have picked up on the path
to this moment, where I pledge, I will give no cause to wrath.


White Sunday 56: faith and hope

faith and hope.
prayers and sacraments.
the frame of a new religion.
a better religion.
love.
accepting, forgiving.
wanting to be part.
willing to surrender.

God is in the details.
I don't know enough
and even if I did, would I trust
my own judgment?
Not likely.

a word. a promise or two.
a broken promise
is not a lie
unless it is made in vain.
but I believe you,
because you just seem right.

right for me.
not a perfect fit, in the classic sense,
but someone I have been
in training for, all my life.
someone whose incongruities
excite me.

I would be the same for you.
my deepest, coldest fear
is that you will tire of me,
for that would break my heart.
my patchwork work.
all the scars already.

I believe in you
as I believe in God,
more than I believe in myself.
when you say "I love you"
it feels like I have done something
very, very good with my life.


White Sunday 57: I’ll wait for you on the cusp of the night

I'll wait for you on the cusp of the night,
see you walk between shadows and the day.
I'll lay with you with passionate delight,
at the dawn, if you'll have me, I will stay.
Often lovers lie even with that word,
blaspheming for a solitary touch.
I am not here for purpose you've not heard
from my lips, testament of just how much
I want to linger into the light, days
becoming nights, becoming years and life.
I want to know you in all earthly ways,
embrace you in the manner of a wife.
And all of this is but one moment's thought,
but one that I know will not be forgot.


White Sunday 58: your breath when you sleep

your breath when you sleep
is so reassuring to me
evidence of a God who would
even if just for one moment
foretell heaven in my life
as you lay beside me
dreaming your arrogant dreams
your body warm and soft
to my trespass touch, bold
am I. bold and passionate
about you, my princess.
my goddess. my queen.


White Sunday 59: Does your lover know you talk to me

Does your lover know you talk to me
(the tears you've cried over them and more)
late at night, when they can't see
(as they tread on you, as if the floor
were higher up in their purview
and you were just now passing through.)
Do you know how much that breaks my heart
to know that they think love is rage
and you allow them, for their part,
for you conceive no way to gauge
the truth when pain is all you've known
as part of love, you've never been shown
the mercy that is passion's kiss
when raising up your hopes for real
and prayerfully, the arrows miss
for lovers guard you with their steel
and share with you all that is theirs
and elevate you and your cares
to heights of elegance and grace.
(with tenderness and faith's report)
They kiss the wounds and touch your face
and never make of you their sport.
For love is twisted by the bent
and simplified when heaven sent.


White Sunday 60: The light is red and turning to the grey

The light is red and turning to the grey
the sun is set and resting for the while
I turn to you and ask you for this last day
I turn to you and ask you for your smile.
The moments bend and befriend us for now.
The moments melt like snow on eager grass.
The night has come and left with us a vow
to let us rest as lovers in stained glass.
I hold you near and need no other ease.
I hold you near and feel the fears unwind.
I pray that God will leave us, each to please
and will, in sins forgiveness, be most kind.
I do not know for certain many things.
I only know the peace your presence brings.



The Sacraments: Baptism

Let the waters pool in the river in preparation for the ritual purification.
Transcending the acts of transgressive pasts, lasting long enough
to wash away all sorrows if you let it penetrate the waxy scale
we shield ourselves with, the lies of self-preservation, for we are not
alone in this world. Bare skin purged of sweat of fear and folly,
prepared for the entry of an Holy Spirit, incarnated as a lover,
who hovers over the water, drawing up the resinous ruins
and purifying it in a reign and rain of redemption, the purification
of what we were that we may live again, twice born.


The Sacraments: Confession

Forgive me, for I have sinned.
I have lain with false idols, not knowing you were out there,
calling my name in subtle somnolences. The pretense bared
only when you spoke my name, that once, naked and open,
calling me down from the heavens to lay with you, flames
licking and burning away all doubts in a moment, no apologies
for the fiery furnace unleashed to consume the past, the present,
and to leave a field of cleansed ashes for a future altar.
I confess my transgressions and ask your forgiveness,
bless me with your kisses and touch, prepare me for Heaven.
I would be made worthy of your divine presence in my soul.


The Sacraments: Communion and Absolution

I will take the flesh and the wine, divine, into me and make it a part of me.
Transubstantiating your essence in heated flesh and the blood of your desire
into a purifying agent to make me yours, to prove and purpose my redemption.

Your blood, mingled with sweat and the essence of your fragrant regions,
a taste like jasmine and the iron of my conviction to your divinity. I accept
the absolution of your surrender to my thirst and hunger. My passion.

And I, to you. Take my flesh into you and draw out the warm wine,
the leper's blood of my surrender to your tender and urgent needs, seed
given as feast, released, and we have taken two separate souls and merged.

Drink deeply, consume completely, leave nothing of this vessel,
for it is nothing without you to draw it in, sharing again your flesh and blood
as you swallow me, hollow me, and refill me with your transcendent spark.

The Sacraments: Confirmation

my words you heard at the peak of my ecstasy hold true in the shallow shadows
of a room where there is no artificial heat or need to play pretense.
I would love you even had I not just melted into you, leaving part of me forever,
and I will still worship at this altar if the veil falls and I am cast out and away.
this was not a little boy playing at manhood. this was a lover, unlike any other
you have probably encountered. ministering his faith into you, and drawing hope
that you will confirm that this was more than another sawdust trail conversion.
do you reject the madness of this graceless age, where our Gods are all artificial?
will the laying on of our hands and lips kiss away all issues and doubts,
the stigma and stigmata of our self-imposed exile from the mediocrity?
speak me words of your heart, true, mine are constant and are of love for you.


The Sacraments: Matrimony

the apple harvest.
the earnest offer made.
your answer holds my soul.


The Sacraments: Last Rites

I am sworn unto death to love you. And beyond if permitted.
I will not love you as long as you live, but as I do, assured.
So here we are at last. Mortals. Lovers. Friends. The vows avowed said
to trust without doubt or fail, love for as long as time is measured.
I would feel your hands on my face one last time, breath on my skin, warm.
It matters not who passes first, but that we find ourselves again
within arm's reach of one another, I will miss your gentle form,
curled into me and sleeping like an ardent angel, far from sin
and far from those who would pluck her wings in envy and I will dance
alone with my memories of you. Frail essence of dreams, next to
the truth that I had not loved like this before we kissed at distance.
You are as beautiful as Summer, as perfect as Spring, and you
will always be my Sunday Girl, no matter the day or season.
I found love to measure God against. Peace and joy in your passion.


The Sacraments: Ordination

Ecce ego vobiscum sum omnibus diebus, usque ad consummationem sæculi.
An evangelist from a ronin, made by your love and his faith in it.
Dreams subject to the wind, but strong enough to tack and track the future.

I accept the commission, whether it be to your bedchambers or the night.
The cold stones are small comfort compared to your tender kisses, my love,
but I am given to this ordination, this extraordinary moment of grace.

I will feel the cold winds and the sharp stones that will be my bed while I await
your signal at the window that I may re-enter the city and claim my place,
beside you, before you, the more you dare, the more I care.

We will conquer all that before was too much for one alone to overcome.
We will conquer all that before was too much for one alone to understand.
We will conquer all that before was too much, but never again, my love.

This is a defining time, a sibboleth for the true romantics, awakening
slowly. One by one they come, then two by two as they are reacquainted
and the night fills with dancers and lovers and the voices of poets.

The sacraments have been taken, the vows made unbreakable if we will them
to be more than just words. Poets. Amomancers. Dreamers and weavers
of life and of the purity and surety of the passion you have returned to the world.

Ecce ego vobiscum sum omnibus diebus, usque ad consummationem sæculi.
This is our world, our world to explore and lay together and speak of what we have found,
sounding out the worlds of corners of life where no old worlds existed.

I am your priest, your preacher, your acolyte, your pope raised from an heretic
who had lost his way and will and had forgotten love, as he had been forgotten.
And then you came to me and made gentle words into amomancies to heal me.

I am stronger now. Still feeling and reeling from the scars of the unrepentant
who do not understand the nature of this brandywine, this heady intoxication
drawn in sweat and sweeter rain from the tempest of your body, into me.

We are lovers. And we shall reach for the heavens with renewed hope and faith.
We are lovers. And we shall teach all that heaven flows with renewed faith and hope.
We are lovers. And we shall teach all that heaven is now resident on this earth.

Kiss me and be slow and meticulous in your touch, awaken me at any hour
to call me to you, to demand I execute the sacraments again to prove my love.
I will not turn away from this joyous duty, I am purposed to your happiness.

I have been shaped to fit the curve of your body, the bend of your soul
and the darkness within you is of relevance to me, for I do not leave poison
in the wounds that they may not heal sufficiently, I will take it into me.

Ecce ego vobiscum sum omnibus diebus, usque ad consummationem sæculi.
I am a patient evangelist in your name. Bless me and empower me again.
And again. And again. I will share my sacraments and thank God for your existence.


The Sunday Girl

the Sunday girl,
I've heard them say,
is bonny and blithe and good and gay.
and maybe, that's just what say they.

but she has potential.
a good mind
and passion.
more than she realizes
and beyond the mere spectrums
of intersecting lips and hips.
fire. couer rage.
enough to bare her soul
in words woeful and wicked,
rising on wings of fire
like some creature from Greek mythology.

or my mythologies.

she is growing, changing,
her thoughts are rearranging
as often as she changes lovers.
and then some.
which is perhaps why
she changes them
because they can't keep up
and she runs like a child in the meadow
laughing at their clutching hands
as they try to make it all work
but she's not ready for the steady
stability of a still-life portrait
to be hung in a hall. not yet.
maybe never. that's her decision.

freedom is just a word.

I know, in sad wisdom the truth:
you can't own the Sunday girl.
she may choose to lose the illusion
of freedom
for her own reasons
for a few seasons.
but, then again, she is the Sunday girl.
full of life, in all the impossible shades and hues,
the pinks and the blues and the darkest,
archest shades of grey that stay
just long enough for her to curl into a ball
and cry out her banshee-wail
challenge to the fates.

she is the not-dead.

the Sunday girl
she knows she owes you nothing
for the trifles you give her,
be they power and glory or immortality,
she's not the kind to bind herself
to your suppositions.
frustrating, but true for you
and for me, unless we choose to see
the world through her eyes
and realize
that this is the Sunday girl's world
and she is here to merely,
fearlessly, but not without tears,
make dreamers dream of her
and those like me, who grant immortality,
a purpose to our powers
more intimate than a kiss or a coit.

although I may wish it otherwise.


Sweep

the curve, the nerve.
don't hit the nerve.
the blood is all we're after
the laughter of pain
the stain on sheets
the endorphin feedback loop
that little death hidden
in a scar
that perfects the sweetness
with a facet to be traced
by tear and raging rut.
I would kiss the flesh
and draw away the venom.
not to make it go away
but to share it.
and take it into me
to have something
undeniably
in common
with the dark woman
with the nightshade eyes
and a scar
or two
or ten thousand
to mark truth worth touching


The Forge of Aphrodite

like well earned sweat:
wet.
we set to settle for nothing short of radiance
in the heat of our mutually assured seduction.
penetrate my consciousness and impale me
on your soul, as deep as you can get.
feral,
wrap your legs and lock me in, in a skin we twin
and thin membranes cannot hold back what we are:
a sanctity of desire
fire burning away the
grey
until all that is left is white hot flesh and
pink,
solferino cravings, engravings on memory in sound and fury,
the jury of our own needs, bleeding the
taste
of jasmine.
I want to feel you,
heal you,
peel you and
conceal you
from all the pain but this:
that we are ephemeral
and all that passes in this heated moment will pass,
glass smooth water to hide the crest of crashing waves
that radiate from within you to
capture
my flesh and fluid.
druidic rituals of fertility and transition,
pagan
perfection
as you take possession of my
soul
and my erection,
laying your claim in a passionate frame and flame
that
licks
away the impurities
in the forge of Aphrodite.


Paramour and Nothing More

An essence spun of red honey and of nightshade.
Paramour, and nothing more, golden fleece and jade.
Dreams drawn like fevered blood by leeches from a soul.
A kiss denied and deified to play its role,
lovers lost, crossed to toss their lust to dust and coal.
An essence spun of red honey and of nightshade.
A touch, a glance, a spirit's dance, so unafraid
to leap from the shadows to merge and purge the shade,
dreams drawn like fevered blood by leeches from a soul.
Thoughts given tongue, tongue given flesh and all control
surrendered like an illusion of virtue, stole.
An essence spun of red honey and of nightshade.
Every player acts, every actor played
a hand or made us what we are, our penance paid,
dreams drawn like fevered blood by leeches from a soul.
I want nothing more than the paramour not fade
on waking, not of just illusion but the whole.
An essence spun of red honey and of nightshade.
Dreams drawn like fevered blood by leeches from a soul.

lyric: romanticism

as the sun
traces fire across the sky
I smile into your heart
and hope to never die

for memory is no better
than a fantasy
truth just hopes you'll set her
to her destiny

we are not forgiven
any more than we forgive
we'll never know the answers
if we refuse to live

and I am waiting for you
with a dream forever new
and offer you no riddles
just a place where words are true

imagination

my imagination knows you too well.
the sound you make when I touch you, gently,
the feel of your body, curled into mine.
the tone of your voice when the words are fell:
but how they are spoken, reverently,
making me aware of divine design
in my encountering you, this frail shell
nothing but vessel for my light and heat.
paramour who conjours you as lover
and friend, companion and peer, fires of Hell
and the kiss of redemption, bittersweet.
I close my eyes and dream to discover
your presence where hope cast a patient spell.


Addiction

I want you to suffer from my withdrawal.
feeling lost inside.
the throbbing glide denied
until you demand your next fix
with wicked smile and earnest guile
to lure me again, willingly,
to flood your veins with the my alchemy.
my base metal turned to gold as you hold
me deep, hungry for the rush, the flush
that leaves a deep and satisfying aftertaste
in both our mouths, evidence
that it was more for you than another pill.
another drag.
another sip of the nectar of forbidden fruit
that made your muscles ache and, awake,
made you walk in the land of dreams,
allowing me to taste you, to waste you.
not on carnival sideshow rides
but the full, merged and surged encouraged
purging purpose for which, even now,
I dream of in wicked prick'd metaphor
of an injection of my crude fluid
inside you to elevate your thighs high
to a dance of fire and desire sated.
only for the moment.
I want to be your drug, your addiction.
the friction of our flesh meshing messages
to our ancient brains, caught between moments
of civilized conduct that reassure us
that this is more than mere white blood
and the maddening taste of jasmine tea.

Satin Chessboard

I'll provide the fire.
I'll provide the light.
you provide the battlefield on which we'll spend the night.

you will bring your passion,
mine will be there, too.
I shall bring a tenderness
to share and comfort you.

I'll provide the questions.
you'll provide the thought.
I'll provide the formulae
to unbind the Gordian knot.

you will bring the red wine.
I will bring the white.
but in the darkness which is which
will be hidden from our sight.

I will play the suitor.
you will play what role
you choose in moments to defend
your flesh, your heart, your soul.

I will lay as sacrifice,
leaving nothing but to your will
to play this satin chessboard
with your purpose and your skill.

I'll provide the fire.
I'll provide the light.
you provide the battlefield on which we'll spend the night.


Exhortation

take control. take my soul.
there is no more illusion.
naught to lose, if you choose,
the heat of perfect fusion.

edges melt, a fever felt,
impurities vaporizing.
strike the spark. split the dark.
we fall to birth a rising.


In praise of precognition

I have and will love with fierce devotion,
emotion layered upon itself, born
in respect, in a genuflection
upon a desire, a fire, torn
from the heart of the sun itself, a heat
so intense it makes mock of memory.
It burns away the pain, the incomplete,
the scars that others left in sorry
semblance of their lives, wounds to cauterize
with a persistent, insistent brisance.
A healing kiss long time coming. Arise
as does the Sunday sun, to live and dance
with a passion that blinds Prometheus
and renders lesser flesh extraneous.


I dreamt about you

I dreamt about you
before you were born.
so maybe prayers get answered
anyway.

you're here, at last,
and you say you're gonna stay.
if so, that's the best news
I've ever heard.

you're inconvenient
in so many ways.
that's why you suit me fine,
and perfectly.

you're unexpected
like the summer rain,
and just as necessary.
at least for me.


lyric: everything and more

I feel a rush
whenever I see your name
your voice cuts deep
and reaches me in my sleep
your sultry smile
makes me think of your kiss and touch
not asking for much
just everything
and more

I feel your eyes
even when I am miles away
your presence bends
around walls and distance that
we will break down
in time and trust and heat and all
not asking for much
just everything
and more

I want your word
and what it means to you
you are a drug
and my veins burn when you're away
I need you now
and there's no methadone
not asking for much
just everything
and more


kiss in every colour

I can kiss in every colour.
I can thrust so deep you'll weep.
I can take you in the sunshine
or the darkness, while you sleep.

I have hungers you can't fathom
but that you, by nature, fill.
I can enter and off-center you
and test your skill and will.

I am not here for the hour.
I am not just for the ride.
I am here to sear you with my heat,
to declare theocricide.

I've no question of intention,
and I know my pace and course.
All that's left is your surrender,
and to guide me to your source.

I am here because you called me
and we both are past pretense,
we are elements of a chaos,
and this love makes perfect sense.

Let the time for patience wither.
Let the revelries begin.
let the dance of chance be taken
and the flowers bloom, within.

I am here to feast upon your pain
and you upon mine, true.
We are here to well-matched purposes,
we are the blessed few.


Ceremonies of our nature

We are all creatures of habit
reassured by repetition, repetition.
Fitting our lives into boxes
that we might better guard hearts from recognition
by those who seek only prey.
By those who cut and tear with evil ambition.


upon encountering wildflowers

I observe you in an filtered light,
bright it still shines,
but only in the hues
that you choose
to let your unique spectrum
penetrate.

Every photon. Every flash.
And even when the colours clash
there is a harmony like a field
of wildflowers on a distant hill,
breathing sky and light to thrive
even when there is the arrogance
of desolation nearby.

I would inhale your essence.
Eyes closed, to focus my senses
and allow my defenses to lay aside
the grey walls of cynicism and regret
that shuts out the world too often
that I might not soften my heart.

But there is something, je ne sais quoi,
that slides past the refracting flaw
that I left unsealed in case.
In case there was still a meadow
full of fireflowers and the grim, dancing petals
made of blossoms that laugh
even in the dark. And because of it.

Blossoms that are beautiful and pure,
in the frame of their intentions,
and that organize their chaos such
that my head swims at their attar.

As it does, as I compose these words
to, in my own, sad and shy way, express
something that falls back to words I forbid
myself to utter, that I might not release
myself from bondage to crack'd hearts
that never bloomed
even in the best tended gardens.

I would touch.
Yes, I would, although I would fear my death,
already drunk on every breath
of your petals. I would touch
with tender disbelief and grief
that I had not found evidence
of a truth I have preached
until now. Here, in these wildflowers
that grew without my will or efforts.

I would taste without doubt, without disgrace,
from face to tapered stems that I find
would bind me as they wind me
in their beauty, as great at every petal
parted to let me worship that a miracle
is possible, indeed. That a single flower
would hold such power is incomprehensible
to me.

Yet, how sensible is a field of wildflowers?
How perfect is their chaos and the random
scattering of their bed, fed by the order
of natural things, like a laugh. A tear.
A memory upon which is built the trellis
up the side of a tree that, to me,
I would have never thought to employ.

Stormweaver

gonna make a believer
even out of the deceiver.
gonna break and take and wake
the foundations of the earth, to make
the skies light up, explode and arc
with the fire you inspire, ripping up the dark.
translating the vision for the blind and unkind
who've never really seen it and will find
it alien to their understanding, heat and light
from the same source, the full course, night
flowing into day into life and splitting infinity.
stormweaving by the power of will, making trinity
the pop of an indifferent champagne cork. power
is the prerogative of the fearless, the flower
of creation is found beyond where we die.
I cannot be bound but by the sound as I try
to use words to explain why I am here, closing
the gap, cutting the crap, the slap of posing
against cold stone idols that failed the test.
a copper conductor becomes the terminus, blest
by the possibilities and defiance of dogmas
of what is to become of the fallen, the laws
of nature not knowing what we can do, proud,
with a handful of rain and the friction of clouds.


Fit in Me

fit in me
break the metaphor of penetration and find inside me
a place to face yourself
the you I see so perfectly
independent of the scar tissue
or perhaps because of it.
the light scintillates as it reflects
off of what others have called
flaws
and I call
you

the you I want inside me
sheltered
and secure
pure to the diatomaceous earth
that so many writhe in
trying to get clean when
they already are

I have been to the stars
more times than you have kissed lips
you really didn't love
just because it felt awkward
to say "No" after dinner.
I have stood in airless space
and contemplated the cold
as it creeps into me
with no real purpose
just nature

I want you inside me
filling me
willing me to love again
an unconditional love
and kissing your scars
and the curve of your thighs
and anything else
that needs kissing
to prove my ardour and respect

you are beautiful.
and diamonds are but coal crushed
until it gives up the illusion of darkness
and powder and blossoms
into a crystal
I would gladly buy for you
sight unseen, words unheard
no matter it sounds absurd
it is balance to the universe

tuck yourself in
make yourself comfortable
strap yourself in
and grab on
I can ride the shock waves of magnetaurs
if you provide the meaning
to the exploration
of corners of myself
and you
and the extrapolated God

the snows have melted
and run away to rivers and mud puddles,
nevermore the pristine white
that once blanketed creation
so it is left to us to reclaim innocence
the innocence of wisdom
but you can call me Daddy if you want

I will not change my heart
but place it on course
irrevocable and sure
and trusting in you
because there is something
something
something there
beyond sweet lips and quick wit

fit in me
for I am incomplete
and it is not a crowbar job
for you to slide into the grooves
that are still waiting for the right fit
the right person
the right woman
the one who can forgive me
and herself
for things best left at the altars
when I stand still for you

and you climb inside


intimacy

what care have I of moments outside
of these,
where I please you and you speak
the inarticulate language of love.
dreams in a kiss
windows in the darkness
the writhing of mingled beings
being what they choose
not losing in the loosing
of the bindings of lace
that I might raise you to me
as I seek only to give to you
all my fire and desire
for you are mine and fine
as the wine I drank from you
between the warm thighs I delight in,
kissing and missing no curve and fold
that informs you of my passion.
I will be your lover
when light without heat fades.
and leave my mark inside you
to guide you closer to the man
who would bind himself to you
for the truth he has found.
and you are beautiful.


So once again

so once again there's an electric lady,
to challenge me my purpose and my dreams.
shall I dissolve again into the ether?
shall I resolve the conflict, as it seems?

I once gave up my poor and mortal birthright
that I might touch the sky and see true things.
I am stronger yet and wiser, well, and so
my choice, my voice, is now not waxen wings.

so once again there's an electric lady.
the light so bright it burns deep, with sweet heat,
an apokalypse that so gamely trips
into my world, my arms, the suite now complete.

bring me what you care and dare and bear to share,
I am unafraid. Stronger now, I would take
you into my sphere and pour myself out,
like waterglass, and loving vows ne'er forsake.

for the final time, my electric lady,
I stand before you in this human shell.
begging redemption, no pretension,
I would not, your tender love, to say farewell.


The Sunday Girl Returns

the Sunday Girl looks to the red, ramshackle cracks
that carve themselves into the chaos of life and cries
that all she wants is to be whole. but she wants more.
yes, for a moment she wants to find the shattered pieces
re-assembled, so she can see what it looks like to those
who lack the eyes and hands and souls to feel the flaws
that are the law and the order of the universe, not the
Max Factor pancake smoothness that looks so fake in close-up.

the Sunday Girl wants the freedom to be herself.
not as she was, for time runs away like an uncooked egg,
but as she should have, could have, would have been if everyone
didn't want their pound or inch or pinch of flesh, then and now,
and even tomorrow, on the die-now-pay-later plan.
I will collect the pieces, if she lets me, or just point and wave
to where I think they fell, if not carried away by a passerby
looking for a souvenir of greatness not yet realized.

the Sunday Girl may do with them what she will.
she may toss them, toss them, toss them aside and kick
and scream and dream of being totally in control of her fate.
but truth is stronger than will, and I know this for I cannot
fly or outrun light except in my mind and words and dreams
and I will give them to her, as mortar and spackle, for her heart.
what she does beyond that is her will to fulfill, for I am not
the Sunday Girl. just a stranger in love. with cracks of his own.


your resolute

you can leave me to die
but I will not, can not,
for that is blasphemy
to my purpose, my vow.
planets may yet shatter,
constellations scatter
it will be no matter.
I am your resolute.

the sun will burn my flesh
and the cold will numb me.
fading thought will dumb me
down to the snapped masses.
I am given to stand
and to offer my hand
to my promises' command.
I am your resolute.

I am throwback to grace
of a different time
a different place where
courtly love was the code.
defiant to the gates
where Orpheus awaits,
the champion of fates.
I am your resolute.


No apologies

you said
no apologies
and I embrace that
we don't owe the world
anything
but the echo of our heat
drying on sheets
and in the wind

words
consecrating passion
the memory of life
the purpose of life
the beauty of you
pressed like a flower
in the book
I am still writing
because you came along
when I thought I was done
and undid the last chapter
into a whole new arc
full of mystery and fantasy
and love and shadows
and I am grateful
for every excruciating second
as the clock counts down
to a purpose
for which I will not apologize

except to you,
for my having taken so long
to get here


I will pass through the fire

I will pass through the fire
my flesh clinging to my bones
the smell of ozone and burnt hair
my lash-less eyes reopened
to see with an even greater clarity and charity
I will pass through the fire
for your love

I will pass through the fire
my hands torched and scorched
my feet bare and blistered
my silent tongue loosened
to speak of the moment when I broke with life
I will pass through the fire
for your love

I will pass through the fire
my coeur rage waging war with self-preservation
the hesitation I once felt, melting
my doubts, I have lived a good life
and if this is the final gate, I have no regrets
I will pass through the fire
for your love


Hephaestus to Aphrodite

You are beautiful.
I, deformed.
A god, no doubt, but not one
that they burn fragrant oils
to gather the favour of.
I am unworthy of you,
unworthy of your love.
It burns within me, this passion,
and yet it burns before me
that for all bonds and bindings
you will never really love me.
Just the idea of me.
The lame god, in the forge of souls,
hammering shape to metals
I have drawn out of lifeless stone.

You are beautiful.
I, deformed.
Cyrano suffered thus, and ultimately
it cost him the woman he loved,
who would have loved him back,
I suspect (ask Apollo, he would know).
But he was man and she, woman,
we burn at a higher degree,
our passions set fire to the skies
and people run and scream and dream
that their hearts could survive such heat.
But they are not that sturdy.
You seek balance in my malformations.
You laugh and smile and feign passions
beyond the novelty of my hideous countenance.

You are beautiful.
I, deformed.
For all your beautiful words and soft touches,
I know what and who I am. I know the smell
of burning sulphur under my nails and know
that my kisses are that of a brute, a thing.
Not a god, which is what you deserve.
I am twisted and I know my place.
Those things which I craft, that is what is sought
by those who follow the twisting labyrinth
into the hot bowels of the Earth to find me.
Lovely ornaments of silver and alloys I alone
can make and master, for I am Hephaestus.
But that does not make me beautiful.
That does not make me worthy of a goddess.


Walsingham in Padua

I have given my word.
Strange word, word.
It carries itself and more, boring eyes in the back of the skull
when you are full of your own definitions of honor.

It is said there is no use
in worrying about the water
when you are dying of thirst and you find it, bubbling up pure,
cold and with the slight air of the center of the Earth.

I have lingered enough,
bare feet calloused by pain,
denying myself and my desires. The fires a test of the metal
that is at its best zested by a kiss extended into madness.

I have broken with the past,
giving up more than you know,
accepting a new commission, a new purpose, head bowed
in humility that belies my arrogance and my skills.

You asked for me by name.
I am called back into service
of a distant liege who may keep me in foreign lands for a time
before acknowledging me at court, welcoming me home.

But I am grateful and ready.
I have counted the petals of the lotus.
I have tested the metal of my blade and my pen, obeying
the rituals that may seem arcane to you, but define me.

I will serve you until I fall.
I will not swerve or lose nerve
even if left, like Walsingham in Padua, to await the time
when all is to be revealed, I will stay true to my vows.



Another hollow midnight

another hollow midnight
these are the times
when I wish I'd liked the taste
of that first cigarette
something to do with my hands
my mouth
my money
besides sitting here
sitting here
like a deflated toy balloon
to avoid pacing
or curling up in the corner
and finding solace
in shadows

another hollow midnight
it's not that she's
not here
obviously
because the sheets are straight
and there is no telltale
outline
of where she fell
with me on top
finding my way

another hollow midnight
it's that she chooses
not to be here
and I can't argue
with her logic, because she's right
we make no sense
at all
but that's the way
the heart chooses
to speak its mind

another hollow midnight
reflecting on the cigarettes
I never smoked
the memories I never had
and the dry air
that swirls up around me
when it should be
wet and clinging
like lips and hips and hands
when lovers
want something
something more
something true

another hollow midnight
I think I'll write a poem
and tell the world
how it hurts like glass shards
under my tongue
in my heart
and there are no ashtrays
anyway
if I wanted to smoke
just those mocking sheets
where I laid the rose petals
as if to summon here
when I knew the odds
all along

I will write for a while
then lay down
let the petals wither
let my words ferment
congeal and spoil
before I flush them
like used condoms
from a prophylactic heart
used to the feel
of latex instead of flesh
but hating it all the while
romantics
don't like the secret handshake
of those who don't understand
another hollow midnight


cleansing the wound

alone against the rocks I lay.
broken. roadkill, but for final breath.
no more dreams, no dragons to slay.
I am just waiting for the death
that promises its loyal blade
in prophecies and tributes sung,
a morbid, maddening song is played,
and we slide in beneath the dung.
for comes a time when passions fade
and grey possess all we held.
when sacraments are mocked, betrayed
by dark illusions, echoes welled
in tears of pain to taunt the path
and sell to us a coward's wrath.


Adversity

faith without challenge is not faith
love without tension is a wraith
of a ghost of a passion, untested.

I am pale and sick and lay alone,
but you have sworn greater stand
and I will lay alone in your name.

be well and strong, hurry back,
but do not short shrift that which requires
your attention and your focus.

I will wait, I promised. I do not wait
to keep the promise, but I promised
so you would know that I would wait.

patiently? as best as I can, like a man
who has tasted honey and then has none.
but content the feast will return.


To a lover

This is not for the cold catalepsies
but the pure warmth you can invoke
with a soft smile or the simplest ease
with words of truth and love. In you awoke
my slumbering passion, admiration
for this woman who steps into my life
with hesitant grace, elegance hard won
in her own sphere, now as near as a wife
though more than one reasoned season shall pass
before you may choose to lose your ronin
reputation to the gentle impasse
within sharing, caring, daring to win
whatever it is within my power
to grant to you. I am your dreams' bower.


Matthew 6:16

My love is a constant thing.
Unbroke by words that may fall
from your weary lips and heart.
I celebrate you then and
ask for nothing less than life
with you beside me and strong.

There will come some storms and pain.
There will come some night and rain.
There will come the wax and wane.
But you never need doubt me.
I am given not to fade
in the face of the harsh lights.

You are still so beautiful.
I can recall soft words spoke
that burned and churned my heart's quick.
So bring to me your edge, hard
and hack me a little bit.
In love, resilient, strong
I will remain your lighthouse.

That you ever may find me
watching over you, even
when you don't think you need it,
as that is my nature, love,
that is the nature of love.
And I am of its nature.
For you, and with you, alone.


Chastity

surrender me your chastity
I'll give you all I've left
to fill your aching soul with me
and taste your tender cleft.

I'll answer to your fantasies
I've sins yet to atone
with tender touch and savageries
to make of you, mine own.

I want to be your satyr king,
your lover, daddy, prince.
I want to find you swallowing
every hot and throbbing inch.

And when we lay in aftermath,
in completed, heated rests,
we've miles to go along this path,
I'll kiss your perfect breasts.

When at length we resurrect
and wake to find our thirst
reawakened by our wild aspect,
we'll sate again this curse.

I will never ask your grace
to let me taste one trace
of another's heat and sweet disgrace,
for I know my need and place.


Lighthouse

I want to be your lighthouse
I want to stand alone
in the darkest storms that threaten
to break your every bone
and throw you up upon the reefs
your sails all ripped to shred
I want to be your lighthouse
and defy the raging dread
of the past and all its thunder
the liars and the lost
who just wanted to be with you
no matter what the cost
to your vanity and sanity
your sanctity and joy
crushing you beneath their fury
like a child's ocean liner toy.
I want to be your lighthouse.
I want to stand for you
I want to be hold aloft the light
that you can follow, to get through.
I want to be your lighthouse.
I want to be relief
from the terrors that consume
your sleep in black and burning grief.



About the author

William F. DeVault composed these works to celebrate his love for a brilliant creative artist whose world he fell into by happy accident.

For the occasion of her 21st birthday, in the time of the apple harvest, he assembled the poems in preparation for their publication, at her consent and assent.

No apologies, no regrets, wherever this road leads.

This is his 12th book. He considers it his best.