Looking Glass Graveyard - A Sonnet

Our distance was measured by passing fields
slipping from open window picture frames.
Back roads unfold over a wet windshield
marked by rusty signs that once bore their names.
Skeleton trees lay silent by the shore
as thick water lapped their dense flesh away.
The horizon line met the grassland moor
muffled with sunken tones of bleak, ash grey.

My eyes settled on the rib cages, stripped
and honest in their sweeping curves.  I tried
holding these memories before they slipped
wet with time into the abyss cold, wide.

The world lay just beyond this haunting place,
fast and large, another facet of space.

"Second Chances" Revision 1

  

I will carry you 

curled in my bulbous stomach

for months.

Darling,
I still wont know you.

What if I can't love you?

In those fast moments 

after I hear your voice for the first time

I will wonder if you, 

with half my genetic code

can escape my demons.

Homeward Bound

I could feel our fragility
as the vinyl record cracked
and fell into a valley.

I joked,
"If you get any closer
I'll kiss you"
"No you wont," he said
I have known him
since third grade.

I focused on the size
of his hand over mine,
sweeping gently
over the life lines
love lines.
how they mirrored each other
how it wouldn't change a thing.


Tomorrow, I would be on a bus
to nowhere
and he would approach the skyline.

Second Chances

Darling,

what if I can't love you?

After carrying you 

curled in my bulbous stomach

for months,

I still wont know you.

And in those fast moments

after I hear your voice for the first time

I will wonder if you,

with half my genetic code

can escape my demons.

February

They sat plainly
with cardboard cups
that gave off wisps of steam,
boats on the wooden sea
between them.

I pretended to read
a tale told by an idiot,
as she slipped her
small and wandering pinky
over his;
just the brief glancing
of flesh.

I became suddenly
aware of our ever
approaching deaths,
that I had never witnessed
honest love until this moment.
Only written pages
remain as our shadows.
  

Linger

You gave your innocence
and he took it greedily
malleable in his hands
thick and sticky on his lips.

For years
I have seen him stare
dark and knowingly at
the grooves of your body.
We cannot escape temptations of the flesh.

I know you think constantly
of that night
under the stale light by the kitchen sink.
I don't know if you regret the way it felt
when he held you.

You call this feeling love,
and maybe it is.
I wouldn't know
anything of the sort.

I'm Not A Catholic

I lit a candle for you once,
knelt until my back was sore.
Wax pooled,
but I don't know
that any amount of Hail Marys
will save us.
Most prayers are selfish anyway
and don't have a right to be asked.
Somehow it always comes back
to you
and me.

After Lizzie's Poem

Image Poem #8 [Rib Cage]

This lamp recalls a
twisted, metallic rib cage.
I entwine my fingers with each bone
As if in this way I
Could keep you anchored to me.
----------

Everlasting

We share
the curves of anchors
on our feet,
Holding fast in the tempest.

After Christy's Poem

Brief Image- Christy

Eyelids half-mast
fingertips twitch
as thread
misses needle

 ---------

RI

Lines of white sails
flocking near the shore
Long necks oscillating
with the sea.

Organic

 I put my hands in the earth 

and dug for my heart,

throbbing, dripping of life.

Mauthausen, Austria

For the souls still wandering


Walking the hand carved
stone steps to the valley,
the rain soaked through my umbrella
and I couldn't escape the tears.


Concrete hard on my feet
white walls and snaking slender pipes
wiped clean of sin.
The pungent smell
of urine lingered.


I touched the thin buildings.
Cold and haunting
they pulled life from my fingertips.
A silent prayer stuck to my lips.


I haven't told anyone about this;
hope was just beyond the prickling
barbed wire.
The swaths of green fields
abounding one after another
on sweeping hillsides.

Formally - Image 7

Slippery hands clasped;

lock and key.

Flashes 

of  knobby knees

exposed shoulders.

Our voices,

screaming headlights

in the dark.  

Fishing - Image 6

Gasping,

hooked in the sleek flesh.

I wish I could give you

even my labored breaths.  

After The Storm - Image 5

Shiny tears
slid on your hot cheeks;

eyes puffy, like a child
just out
of the sea.

Fellowship

I wonder
if the stained glass hears me.

They draw crosses of their chests;
I don't bother.

Their knees melt to the ground.
I keep singing.

They don't write in the harmonies, you know?
Deviance is frowned upon.  

Untitled - Image 4

The wheel hums rhythmically.

My cracked fingers
guide the wet earth.

I hold years in my hands.

To Nurture - Image 3

My mother keeps

my baby teeth

hidden in her jewelry box,

pearls nestled in soft tongues of velvet.  

Wasting Away - Image 2

The video cracks as it plays on the wide screen, the colors dulled

 results of age.

In rows

figures sit with convex backs

they too are growing older.

Flight - Image 1

Your heart pumped gently under

the curvature of my ear;

wings beating, low and deep.