Do not stand at my grave and weep..
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awake in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft star-shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry..
I am not there. I did not die.

"For a spine", he said, as he grabbed a wilted leaf.
"For her eyes", he said, as he trapped the water from the sea.
"For her heart", he said, as he hollowed out a tree.
"For her smile", he said, as he held a fist of broken teeth
"For her soul", he said, as he pointed at a darkened street.
I am a twisted spirit that God mistakenly set free
Because he never expected greatness to burn its flame inside of me.

In the deep of time indigenous tribes
surfaced a red earth with protruding plateaus
and burnt canyons along the Cimarron River.
The ancient Anasazi settled
at the core of this mesa.
Scattered ponderosa pine.
Yet, their sudden demise echoed curiosity.

Navajo sensed a struggle of two infinite worlds,
a quivering inundation.
Circling its haunted ominous shape,
a skull with one eye, the apparition of light
rose into a blue desert sky.

Violent storms crackle hot lightning
strikes in a sulfurous summer-
an oracular hothouse.
Navajo talk of spirits or the gateway
to fire. Heaps of iron and lodestone
lodged in the cap. Only two
brazen, cat totem poles guarding its passage.

Standing among the mesa
to feel the verve of the earth.
A New Mexico sun beats down
burning the drowsed terrain.
To see the legendary shaman glow
in his ephemeral blue nimbus.
Bathed in gaudy turquoise.

Sensing the dark encroachment
of a ghost. Near the bony hills, soared
a turbulent black bird in full flight,
upward.

I hate looking at you
And
Knowing you're not *mine.

I will sit here and watch as they burn.
Sit here waiting, yearning to learn.
To see how they act, and hear how they cry.
The names they pray to, as they die.
Truest of truths, all revealed to me.
Now unable to hide what they really want to be.

On this ground I was born raised and lived
In the years since my birth
I've sowed much wheat, and many rocks I've sieved
Making this land mine, this sky and earth.

The blue, clear skies, and evanescant clouds
Have dissipated now, this land is torn
I'm a mere denizen, yet here I still stand proud
So that on this ground my children will be born

The dust roils in ferment around me
And flings topsoil in my face
No green thing, nor bird nor bee
Is allowed to thrive in this barren place

And for my progeny, their future I mourn
This land is dead now, and has left me forlorn

This is about the breath on your tongue
and the way you looked in my basement
when the world was asleep and my
fingers were wet;
because I can still smell you after
4 a.m. on a Friday night, thinking —
(****, this feeling burns like
a cigarette habit).
Your ******* are the epitome of thunder,
they creep into my skin and leave
me vibrating.

You are restless in between my legs
so I pretend this was easy like
the first time I told you I love you;
rub my hand through your hair as the breath
in my lungs quakes and evaporates
in between us.

It is cold and I am swooning in our
sweat and tears from earlier testimonies,
(I know you care, I saw it in
the way you arched your vertebrae)
and you whimper in your sleep —
waking your bones, your still-life perfection.
I could stay in this mess forever.