All this war and yet, there is nothing I would rather be.

I have grown to appreciate,
            as a nonpartisan–
            a silent sommelier–
the subtle earthy notes of irony with which
my deflated ego scolds my hollow spine.

I know my own hypocrisy, my instability, my naivete.

I have been raised in the midst of myself–
I carved and nailed these philosophies together to make trellises
around which my elastic grapevine limbs have learned
to wrap and coil and hoist themselves toward the sun.

I have built myself,
and I, alone, tend to my vineyard.

There are distortions in these wooden lattices,
and there are seasons when the grapes grow sour
or the vines do not flower
at all,
but the crop is resilient and the wood does not break,
and there is enough sunshine here
in the summertime to sustain
and to yield something complexly beautiful because it has been weak,
and it has known the cold.

I have built myself,
and I, alone, tend to my vineyard.

There are plots of land far more fertile than this one,
foundational structures far sturdier and more symmetrical,
grapes far sweeter and more robust of flavor,
but there is no wine I would rather have flood my veins;
there is nothing I would rather be.

She dances in the dark spots
Between the street lights, like
A patient drunkenly twitching
Before an operation,  

There is but a lick of anxiety
In her performance, deprived
Is she by her cruel audience, but
To their defence
They are merely the empty foliage
That sit on each side of the city lane,
Like shadowed guards
Who gleefully imprison her in chains,

Where will she go
After the moon retires and
The trees offer her the key ?

Perhaps, she will follow the stray cat
Down the dimly painted alley, will
She give in to the ***** feline, who  
Beckons her with a fickle whine
And who stares obtusely
With such precise baby-doll eyes,

Or will she simply sink
Into the leaf smothered ground,
Face anchored and stitched
To the pavement, her beauty
Famished and her heart envious
Of the four-pawed beast
Who now dances on her corpse.

show me how to wear diamond
dreams without trembling
beneath their weight.

I am a pebble, peeled off
from a peak, fraying and falling,
faltering at its feet. end up

locked between the lips of
married mountains; eyes
hinged to the sky, feet sinking

into earth, chest caving into
a coffin where my heart hides
its head. as despair crawls
in to devour the decay, I linger

between the decomposition, dead
to dust to soil—waiting
to bloom again.

body blazing, he roams
with flames for feet, drags earth
behind his back, as in magma
melting mountains, as in moon
pulling, seas shifting; skull swinging
open
        like windows
                             at dawn—

all gloaming, sun slept on the satin sheets
of his mind; make merry the morning
melody till it awakes, it wakes—

he weeps, tears trickling like candle-wax
dripping from its flicker. he flares
& firmanents fall through the fumes,

bruised, blinded
—burning bush for his
banquet.

ash and cinder know not
his swelter. he bore the heat now
he becomes the fire.

sky, a sea;
the sun is a ship sinking
slowly
into slumber  

& i’m a seed
sleeping
on soiled sheets,

sproutless, seeking the solace

of silence,
the nascence
of night—
the delight

in drawing dreams from dust
to dusk into day
into divinity;
in withdrawing

to the wild and wondrous
womb of waking.

when you trickled, the past pulled from my eyes,
hung like (f)lashes from my eyelids—still
growing with my face, still
oscillating old images

of mama’s smile, sunken
in dimples, deep as her love for me
as a promising oasis—how
she’d ooze her only moisture
to quench my thirst,

of my little legs leaping
up the stairs, after weeks separated from home,
hoping to find mother, healed,
grabbing me into a hearty hug,

but rather finding
dad, direly drained by grief,
a grand gathering of greasy eyes,
silence, sobbing, and the sweaty sequel of
i’m sorry, we—

it was the day of her funeral,

& i was a five-year-old, already wondering
what it means to be a child without
a mother, what it means
to live to die

i let you drip into her grave, wishing
i could go along with you,
with her

but look, i’m rather
going along her prudent path,
stretching it to all the painful, all the pleasant
places,
striving to complete it

& though it’s tough
to walk this wicked world,
i’ll pass the peak,
wearing mother’s wounds
as wings.

It wasn't that sunny out
Just overcast enough to have a picnic in the garden
You never liked when it was too sunny
It made you uncomfortable
It gave you the feeling of being thrown on a stage without a script
Spotlight shining into your eyes
Followed by the anxiety before a performance

You didn't know if a bad performance is better than none at all
Yet here you were, on a stage set with hibiscus and orchids
With the sun shining in your eye
Wait no, not the sun
Her name was Soleil
She just had eyes like the sun
And she wanted an unrehearsed dance
Before you could realize, her spotlight had already engulfed you
You never liked when it was too sunny
Yet you're here smiling and not feeling too uneasy

So you danced, leaping from shadow to shadow
She came closer, shining even brighter
You covered your eyes
While the shadows under your feet disappeared
You wanted to retreat with them but it was too late

You, who never liked when it was too sunny
Now found yourself engulfed in her heat
Evaporating with no cloud cover to save you

Mercilessly, she, who wanted an unrehearsed dance
Started dancing with you
The hibiscus and orchids caught fire by her feet
She took no pity of them
You didn't either, knowing you were joining them soon

You watched as she reached to touch you
She held you like paper
As if she was ready to forge the sun's signature on you
You held her like a dancer who forgot what move came next

Without warning, she removed the cover from your eyes
And set fire to your lips
And set fire to your body
And set fire to your garden
Yet you smiled with the taste of the sun lingering on your tongue

This was the first time you've tasted fire
And you didn't want it to be your last
You thought, maybe it wasn't that bad to be ignited in her spotlight like this
She whispered into something your ear but you couldn't speak Goddess
But you knew that all you wanted to tell her was "encore".

A small boat sitting at the harbor's edge,
bobbing up and down with the sea's waves;
Catches my eye on this November morning,
calling me to bring it to a nearby cave.

I sought out the owner of this handsome skiff,
blue and gold shining in the clear ocean's light;
Yet no one responded to my strong, eager voice,
so I ran to the rescue with sheer delight.

Once I finally reached the tiny flailing ship,
I pulled its long rope from the water's edge;
Then bound it and tied it with all my might,
to the flag of its colors which sat on the ledge.

Relieved but exhausted from my ordeal,
I sat up with surprise when my eyes grew dark;
The world became nothing but a swirling brew,
concocted from seaweed, shells and bark.

What I didn't recall was the time I spent,
as captain of this boat many years before;
My head was bursting with pain and confusion,
as I crawled on the sand from the windy shore.

It was just an illusion from my seafaring past,
while missing the voyages we used to take;
I only imagined what had happened that day,
my youthful vision still alive and awake.

(At night I dreamed of that nearby cave,
where my first boat was nearly lost in a wave) !