All is Full of Love

I haven’t been beaten hard enough
With the splintered cross
To give a damn about their contorted features
I haven’t hidden long enough
In the tormented rainforest
To know the comfort of murk and serpents

But yet my knees are giving out
Under the waterfall you send plummeting
Into my animate puddle
Rattling your bucket of spare change
At my window
As if to beckon me
Driving me further and further
Down forbidden paths
To chase the phantom feelings
In the name of frozen numbers
Stitched in a welcoming blanket
An overcoat of generous proportions
And a smile of congealed plaster
Emblazoned with the target
And whisked forth by wild birds
In too many colors to name

Goodnight, my would-be lover
I will know you quietly
While the rest of the world
A spoiled broth of time
Shudders in disgust
Sinking its unfathomable fangs
Deep into the curious ribs
Within my curious torso
Lulling me to slumber
On the highest bough
Of a tenderly collapsing tree

Glorious Chariot

Along the perilous curves
Of a snaking thoroughfare
In constellations of raindrops
Speckling the windshield
And the mewling of rubber blades
Wiping them away
In gentle, protective seatbelt hugs
And their satisfying clicks
Just past the headlights’ reach
In brilliant rearview reflections
Among coffee stains and rock salt grains
And fogged breath on the window panes
In the humming heater
And the throbbing speakers
Beside the pilot’s throne
And within every tiny stitch thereof
Under the sweeping ashen hood
Somewhere between fourth and fifth gear
Poetry hides
Waiting to be driven

A Face Melting in the Rain

It was at the crossroads of change
On a titanic ark of slate and nails
A billowing furnace factory
Caved by the shovels of foreign tears
That I was first made to swallow therapy
To let it squirm in my stomach
And rock me like a landslide

Now, as the hummingbird flies its backward course
Through valleys of sickly depths
Over hills of glass and tension cable
The lump in my throat grows rapidly
To the size of a time bomb or worse
And I tremble in the wake
Of every wrenching gasp for air