daring acts of repentance reached by name

your eyes
petal soft
they always come into me like this
brown like leaves

where do they go?

a tormented soul
a struggling dialect
a windy kiss you leave
branches and grass and leaves uprooted
in your path


the calm in you spills into me
like an inlet
filling the rocks and hardened paths
that no man had crossed

i am engulfed in your potential
halos of yellow and red
floral meccas melt into my feet
crushed only by the sheer weight of my desire
of my mahalia moment

and in this moment, I love you like I never loved before, because I know you.

I gave into you once
yielded to your deceptive beauty
your warm rivers and lakes
so sweet in my malleable mouth

this is the curse of competency
you are the empty ache
no amount of human love will quench

I rounded your rocky shoulders
heaving and brooding with the
thickness of what you lost

I have been habored by your hope
floated in your delicious delicate parts
bathed by the unearthly beauty
that never seems to settle, but unnerve

I have been caught in your
red song of rage
that beautiful quiet rush of roses
swept into the torrents of your
baited breath
as you sigh, so unsatisfied

We could have been great
but could is an auxiliary verb
it does not invert

like the wind
It comes bringing things it collects
and it leaves

my eyes meet yours
and I know you
your lakes and rivers
your firestorms
your tender branches
your cold caverns

and I thank God
for freedom to love you
and let you go

the last kiss
is mine
it is red roses
it is yellow flowers
it is bright bridges
over the troubled lands of you
it is gentle wishes
and an endearing love
that endures your changing seasons
it falls upon the moon cast in my eyes
first
then yours
then lips
touching the very center of you
loving the very heart of
what could be

and parting
with the ease
of calm waters

swim

woke up this morning
drowning in a life
that I didn't ask for
searching out my own survival
waiting on my rescue

a deep breath, and I go under
the minutes that I wasted
wondering, worrying, waiting
for something to breakfree

My mind is mired in the
thickness of any and every
perceived injustice
I ever knew
wet with the words
of all those who
took from me
my own breath
to save themselves
in a cold and lonely ocean


woke up this morning
drowning in a life that I didn't ask for
but must live
While holding my breath
I let go of a living life

But the waters are deep
I know I could die here
stuck in my sorrow

But the past is past.

The weight of my why's
can no longer anchor me
I must let go
with a buoyant hope
a thrashing joy
a swimming mind

I must keep my eye on your hand
and listen to the quiet swoon
of water parting
....
and reach
reach--
reach---
reach--
reach---
reach--

Isreal's Advice

He blew into my ear
hot kisses
of needy words

Keep waiting on God
We seek God
But God is not lost
We are

I thought of the ones who left
before they came
and dared myself to believe

When it is time, he advised knowingly, gently
like God
One will be sent
to love you
He, will find you.

dropped stitches

The earth is a red line
hot and seamless
it tears the sternum
in the center
of my soul
ripping
past
with furious force
leaving behind
unravelled memories of myself
my unself
my selfishness
that haunts me
like my holes

within the quiet meditation of Your presence
I am revealed
the scared sad girl that I am
the bold strong woman that I am
The two of themt
wins in one soul
fighting a battle
neither started
nor finished
but one must win

It isn't personal, but it is an intimate battle.

To love him
any him
I must loveYou
all of you
I must forgive me,
each of me
and pray
that in the process
I am able to stand.

In the end I am the great house divided
a grand garment unmade
angelic ashes in the heavenly hand
of a potter who has the eyes to see with faith
what my
vision cannot comprehend

U missed it

There was a word for what we were
But you missed it
A song, caught fermented, poured but spilled
A table set for a guest who never arrived
A band too big for their own britches
Lost in acres of stolen sounds that were given
But never returned to their listeners

Somehow being you always meant
That the meaning of me, on the tip of the tongue
Must’ve slipped my mind


There was a beauty in who I was
But you missed it
Too busy looking at the motivations of
All those other people who wondered
What it was, and who I was
That you could no longer see
Me


There was a sweetness for what we had
But you missed it
The honey mouthed
tingling fizzy pink lemonade kiss of naked
Naturalness
The decadent deliciousness of our richness that
Somehow had become bitter rote
When my footsteps fell in perfect alignment with yours
As we walked silently across the parking lot
You got in your car, and left
With a sour look
Mad ‘cause you weren’t the cook


Yesterday at
sunrise over the Mojave of the mind
As I sipped on mojito muse
And wrote a poem

I am sure you would have loved
Had you learned
What you were missing

Beautiful Bones

You may have broken my heart
But like a mended bone
It has grown
One side latched to the next
the wound, the crack, the flesh
has closed
memory is made in place of fracture
like a woman awakened from a deep sleep
I am
Strong and strident
Singing with a renewed pulse

Ready to run again

The Last Reminder (In memory of Jeannie Guzman)

Use me
Use me until I am all used
Until there is nothing left to squeeze
To empty
To hold
Use my laughter to water your garden
In the winter
And my tears to wet
The curved faces and arms of a churlish summer
Lace every memory of me you ever found
Until it gleams like hope
And wear it on dates
Until one day white and wedded with hope
You walk
Use me
Until my sweat becomes
The levy that leaves
The dry land dancing
With wet
Use me
Until my name no longer
Sounds like me
It sounds like thee
Until my love no longer
Lingers
But lays down
Before you
Lighting a pathway to
Peace
If you really love me, remember me
And use me
until another uses you
until the rhythmic interlock
of time and space
becomes as it always should have been
full of music lessons

Yes, use me
My love
Until I am all gone
Then I will
never really
be far away

Electricity (you)

Lead me into the valley
That has no secrets
Bewitch me with your brilliance
Whisper words of loud love
Provoking the eardrum of time
To explode with fuchsia rays
conducted on a sovereign stream
of bright blended hope
Run your words into and through
stiff fields of fire
brazenly with unassuming gall
Travel ten thousand roads less traveled
Until your compass returns you here
Give in to me
And I will yield to you
Until there is nothing left

Your respite

Be still



When the roving bands of

Want roam the valley of your soul’s earth



When heaven and earth

Eclipse at the meeting of your mouth



When the sound of your own sorrow

Fills the lungs with soulless wind



As time touches your cheeks

In tepid tears



Be still

All creation kneels in eight perfect

Octaves of applause

Shifting the light to display billions born to sing

His operatic praises



Take heart,

Knowing it is yours

God hears

riot

a schizophrenic summer
of ungentle dreaming

the maiming of the mind
bleeding hot laughter
their rage destroys
simple screams