poem 156 of a poem a day for 2012

birdsong spill vine

wear the mask

tine the task

rhyme is rhythm

blood pulsed in desire

painted with wanting

haunted with silence

here the dew covers

the open window too

fills the destiny tabled feast

what do you want I ask myself

all I can mouth is full of you

languages of the stag watching

how I taste more and

grab hold of everything you are

perhaps fairy tales are made

to give limbs to lust and

not cautionary maps

but who knows

another thought
another pair of wings

could be just denial

seeking to steal the light and

then I pause

still you are there

everywhere I let go of design and

all I want is to eat

every part of this dream

though the birds keep singing

they know the Moon is waning and

bellying up legs up

pulling the Sun in

an open window knows

I am finding wares to peddle

in the open street

in the cars

in the coffins

that the traffic lights whisper to

when I go by fingering

a black velvet sky

peeling further inside me

I know I am all about lust

I know I tremble with it

I know I want to please

I want to ease into pulled skin

into handfuls of you

make me swear on the tombstones

catching the headlights

like a thousand hands searching

for where I got in

where I am only a man

a poet who likes clever and

is willing to sever the canopy of self

from his shadows beneath the trees

everything knows

we empty ourselves

with desire and why

though eyes comb the dark

I crawl with them closed and

tongue the silence for more

for everything

that roots here

in hidden smiles

in lodestones at the corner

of permanent and dissolve

wading the dark rums

of the wax sealed bottled life

we have been opening for days and

have nearly finished and

I only smile in sharp knives

when we break through 

perhaps

when nothing matters

except that open window

I will know

it's cold as you breathe

against my skin and

I slow finger trace

each memory to find you

there waiting inside a moment

I stop and stare at 

with my tongue

leading the way

for my nose remembers

it was you all along

that found

where I surrendered

to the spill vine 

of your birdsong

EJR ©