and in the beginning

there was the word,
black upon the edge of my tongue
and sweet to the point,
as if by speaking i could remedy
the extent of the problem,
lick the salt from the wound of the page,
swallow
or spit the semen out, feel your fingers
hooked in the hair at the back of my neck
as i allow poetry
to tilt me back until i reach breaking point,
just far enough so i can see your eyes.
for there is nothing quite as pure
as this, the pinch and
the slide, the grab and the slap, the
break and the crunch of the moment
between my teeth as i recite
each line of this moment, the sounds
of the corners of my bones as they fuse together
at the base of my spine,
the soft whisper of a bite
along the shadow of my neck as i arch
to allow you easy, easy access.
i am still listening, and whispering,
and reciting the lines of this love
as i go over
the edge.

Writing For You

06/20/12

I am writing for you,
about you,
the beat of my heart on the line,
the collapse of my lungs
as I breathe these words
over and over.
I find I don't know how
to deal with it anymore.

More of a Poet

I think I’m more greedy

than you can imagine,

spread out and dyed,

smothered in the freshly baked pages

of imagery gone wild,

swinging out across the sand.

I want to swallow and taste

the bitter hue

of words gone sour

in the library of our thoughts composed,

boiled, shredded and baked

in the oven of our small apartment.

I’ve got the sensation

of all your angles and panes

stamped across my tongue

despite my actions of trying to

scrape myself clean of you

with a bloody knife.

I’ve got you printed deep within

the pages and painted

across my skin,

despite my horror.

I’ll never see your grimace,

your smile, your laugh

carved and curled around the words.

I’m expecting myself to write fantasy

in which you don’t exist,

the wall are white

and the sheets are clean.

You’re more of a poet than

I am though,

for I can still feel your presence

moving inside me.

organic

for my college professor.

there are these moments
when I'm left with nothing
but a white haze that slowly
clouds through my brain
in an attempt to rid myself
of your voice in my head.
for it's been eight months
and I can't quite let this anger
dissolve along my bones
and wash away into the fresh grass
of summer, my legs
cross into the sky and this page
still blank of all the empty words
forming in the base of my mouth,
my tongue dry against my teeth
in the silence I carried all year
around you.
because I had given up waiting
for this to get better
and am still trying to slowly rebuild,
to strip away the embellishments
and go back to my foundation
before I let you touch my writing
and imprint your voice,
your rhythm, your structure
and design over mine
in an unconscious attempt to please you
and your anger and disappointment
even though I could never have controlled
the outcome of your moods.
because I want to go back to when
this was all organic, uncontrolled
in an all consuming spiral of words,
the pages of my notebooks sticky and matted
with blood, flowers and molted
with colours against the damp of my tongue
licking the ink from the tip of my pen,
with poetry as my lover,
stripped naked to the core of my words
and my voice scratched raw across the page.
there is no need for your words here.

The Way You Write

For Rosa Saba.

I love the way you write
as my eyes slowly rake
over the page, clutching
the curves and turns of each letter,
your charisma smeared
across each line
as your voice rings though my ears,
pulling me under.
There's that catch in my chest
as this feeling spreads, molding,
stretching, tugging my body forward
as if to embrace your poetry through the screen,
until I feel that I'm close enough
to touch you and capture some
small amount of your talent
and joy, because
you always seem to know
how to phrase it.

Exempt

I am exempt from you,
disillusioned along the lines of your skin
as we trace, fumble together
in the dark, a silver shadow
stretched thinly over the body of the couch.
You speak in rhythm
the roll of my name sliding down your tongue
as you attempt to squeeze me down
between the bite of your lips,
envisioned in the fantasy in which
I never leave.
But in the brief light of the dawn
that shutters through the crack between the curtains,
there's not enough warmth to hide
the empty presence of my body
locked in the fading arc
of your arms.

Exactly

I know exactly what I am, even
if I can't word it, even
if I am taken by surprise
against the window of this moment...
because you gave me
these words, in the blackened form of
a lover,
a kiss smeared across the page
in the form of whatever ink was available,
the ring on my hand
and the overwhelming sensation of poetry
stamped across my tongue
in the many languages
of God.
There is no satisfaction entangled
within my arms, strewn
among the sheets and stuck
between the frosting of a kiss...
because,
I've tasted too many other colours,
drunken a different rhythm and sold
my soul to another language
in order to be free.

I couldn't even go back now
if I tried.

The Poet's Lover

Saturday morning,
I lie alone, buried within your bed,
white sheets stained blue, black
in the fit of hallucination
bordered along the edge of your pen,
for I am forgotten,
abandoned in the frenzy of artistic rage.
I don't think I've ever heard your voice,
just the muted, suffocating rasp
of pen against paper.
I know the sounds of vowels squeaking in fear,
curving around in soft puddles
of unknown inspiration.
I know the harsh cried of consonants,
the joyful smile of alliteration,
the secret sighs of metaphors,
imbedded within your poetry,
your madness, your joy
unbridled within the glimpse
of literary violence,
the sweet sounds of sensuality on fire
as your love is melted to the page
without even a chance
to cool.

The only whispers of a conversation
I hear from you
are painted wide within the arcs
of poetry.
There are no thoughts other than
this moment of carefully
knitted words.