One by one the days fall beside us like yellow leaves
We have no conscience, oh, what we’re becoming
Month by month the rings on our tree trunks
Like old wise eyes grow wider
And winter lends them a dead disguise…
~*~
all the times
that my pretence
falls away to reveal
a dissecting evil
crashing against the
enamouring dopamine
of your crystal eyes
and whenever the bats
residing in my belfry
bite in rabid shreds
as i told you the reasons
why i don’t need the sun
to watch over my lies…
i didn’t know it hurt.
and even when your mouth
moved to speak of the
florid diamonds leaving your
bones with every suspended
breath i took, still i ignored
it, and culled the butterfly wings
you were only beginning to grow
crushing them for my own fool’s
grey stained glass interpretation.
i see my sorry mistake now
what an envious tongue i was
to impede and torture change
and wring them dry in deception
shivving the lunacy fringe deep
in my virulent, violent strain
perhaps the sense was never mine
to keep in mine caustic waste.
you merely wanted roses to
bloom in your pulsating thorax,
but my scissors never gave
you the chance to do so
and a different shade of scarlet
touched your skin that day.
but despite the endless famine
that haunts my soul, there’s
still thistles to be removed,
fertile soil to be revived, and
you handed me the trowel even
when i already lost sourly to you.
it’s another chance to repair all
the misfortune, to mitigate all the
repercussions, and to plant a
thornless blossom in this stygian
garden of choked weeds and demolition.
i won’t count my stars before
they paint the sky with yellow fire
but i can always count on the
misbegotten heart, sparing
another courtesy for the misguided.
no more plucking petals from
shivering deoxygenated lungs,
no matter how temptingly pretty
they may be to my twitchy fingers;
may the poisonous chemicals
no longer adhere to sprouting foliage
and murder them in cold blood,
may the flora in ingenue poetry not
be mendacious and remain untainted,
and pray let this withering, barren
desert of a garden be resplendently
efflorescent and verdant with life once more.
~*~
Now time, like an ocean, knows tide, like a notion
To toss about the house and lose inside the couch
Piles of our thoughts run miles in the dark
Just trying to get home, age by age
We rime with our seasons’ rehearsed routines
Still turning and returning…