Ideal (unreal)

How truth stands alone

Like I never could

Unshaken and unmoved

and here I am tottering on these stilts

clutching the tops of the trees

crying out take me take me

(I promise I could be what you need)

I'm lying.

like always.

But if I could mean it into truth

I would

leaning on the tones

adjusting the vowels

hammering the consonants

into something constant

but all I've ever built you

is a golden road to the great city

the green city of my love.

(Just put these on, put them on

they're here to protect you

from the brilliance of the light

look how the emeralds glow.)

The truth burns so bright.

I can only play with mirrors

to get this look just right.

Truth shouts aloud.

I can't even speak

only scratch these signals

into the pebbles I throw

at your window.

How truth stands alone

but I want to stand with you.

What comes of listening to whiny pop.

You're just another throwaway thought

a story I didn't bother to write

with an interesting premise

but no where to go

a plot with flat characters

that walk around saying things

like you and me 

throw in a couple words like forever 

and I've got myself the perfect comedy.

I'm done with this scene

through with these plays on words

even shiny toys get old

so sorry about that introduction

 a tantalizing prologue indeed

but today I find I'm not up for a mystery

and I've lost the taste for suspense. 

So please just walk away

I'm ready to turn the page. 

leafmeal

It looked like a brown-edged baby

curled in it's knothole coffin

so I didn't touch it.

It didn't fit the day

just on the edge of hot

with a breeze to sweep away the edge

but still my skin is tingling

with the thought of it.

Things should be alive on a day like this.

To the Valley Below.

(Suggested listening. Lazarus. Porcupine Tree.) 

I ask you. Can we follow the storm.

So we turn east 

and I watch out the far window 

the last strip of light be swallowed.

There is just a scattered streak

across our faces 

freckles cast by the headlights and the bugs.

I wonder if I rub if they will come off.

It is farther than we thought

but you keep going and I sit curled

with the seatbelt carving strips into my cheek.

You are silent and so am I 

thinking about the rain and when it comes

how clean it makes things.

One day I will probably tell you. . .

but not tonight

with your hands on the wheel and 

the long highway stretched out from your eyes

and the storm just another mile ahead.

The rain sits like a bead curtain

over the land

a rattling sparkling door

that you have to only touch to enter.

Stretching my arms out across the seat

I drum my fingers against the dash 

and you nod your head to the beat. 

Soon with all the rain and wet and roar

things will begin again.

They will be clean again. 

I think about all the dirt and stick and stain

and stretch my fingers further 

till they are pressed against the windshield.

Perhaps it will begin there and stretch

down my long arms like a mountain slope

to gather like a sea around me 

drowning my sins and shame. 

The rain streams down the glass

pooling and separating and cleansing.

Suddenly the storm is gone

and I am still dry. still dirty. 

I look at you and think of how I see you

all clumsy handed with child's eyes

with the broken bird wing across one palm

and your redstained fingers clenched

saying I didn't mean to I didn't know

I know.

I know you didn't know, didn't mean to. 

All across my skin though

I can feel the angry horrid things 

I wanted to say, that I said at night

on the phone with a stranger to you

as if it didn't count because they didn't know

who you were and that you honestly

you didn't know.

Something about this storm

gave me hope that in all of it's weight 

and wonder and striking out the moon

that the wet and dark would make me clean

erase me so far that I forgot all the things

I never meant to feel.

One day I will give it to you.

A single red feather and the word 

forgiven.

Perhaps you will give it back

and I can be clean

again. 

The lightning strikes one last time

and in the flash we glow

like angels

with perfect wings. 

on the edge of again

This is the same night before
the same darkness at the door
and it leaks through the lock
a twisted shadow growing along the walls.
This is the same old story
with the same old ending
when rosy fingered dawn chokes
the darkness down
and I stand witness to the crime
Who knows what a thing like guilt
will do to a thing like me
all pulse and shock
I am tonight a dreamthing
a knotted string swingin above the bed
spelled to catch what I may
my being growing taut with fear
the edges of who I am drip with dread.
a long knot of anticipation
and a loose strand

Anti-age.

Sometimes it scares you

that all the stretch in your skin

the changes from white to gold to the tiniest rose

at the very edge of your fingertips

is just another version of the sunset

a great swell and then darkness.

I picture it coming like a great glow from another glow

a stolen light that begins to burn

it's own internal walls

a careful looter who never spills

too far into the airy streets

but sometimes you smile and forget

and all the light goes tumbling

a great clumsy gush from an overflowing spring

and we are all awash with it.

So take a moment golden girl

with the silver slash of a smile

take a moment and glow with me

and we'll face the night together.