this strung lights of a life was best .................................................. on an old fashioned view master ......................................................

photo by Edward Rinaldi

there were dozens 
of little paper wheels
gather petal pictures 
with jagged slots 
for catching 
and turning 
anything you wanted 
into 3 am somewhere 

I left the window open 
set my alarm for 245 
just in case I fell asleep 
while writing these poems 
I built a small fire 
for the patio place 
threw in some pine cones 
and sage leaves 
scratched my skin 
with white birch bark 
rolled and twined 
bitten with you 
and your dug into hue 

I sang myself into
empty valence shells 
each of them, a hell 
I painted 
on the insides 
of my eyelids 
to remind me 
to torture myself 
with a bare 
and raw ideology
of when I  went 
looking for you 
and knew you 
weren't there 

when do we pure 
ourselves into 
the slide 
of time 
we call aging 
I mean at what point 
in the climb-towering 
of our awareness 
or consciousness 
do we begin 
to rot and fall 

pistil, stamen 
nomenclature 
we named ethyl esters 
after the muses 
and imbibed 
eating hearts out 
with an every so often 
taken acid trip 
carboxyl grouping 
the mentoring 
of old galvanized trash cans 
we used to burn paper in ...

when we were kids 
we watched the embers 
crawl the thick evenings of May 
calling the forms 
limbic pentameter 
and all the colors 
past normal we said
were re-configured molecular-ly 
to a sub atomically driven scent 

we went off 
remembering when 
from here on after 
3am stargazer 
lilies would 
be sent 

a room awash in them 
filamental, that soul 
we are conscious of 
is a rental life 
regardless 
of ownership 
we are potential 
poet petulant potent 
a flower to ripe
torn 
thorns 
tattered 
leaves 

embroidered 
flesh
each one 
of us 
a nose 
standing  
still in
someone's wake 

to the islands 
and through 
oracle palm 
& broken nail 
we threw pottery 
against rocks 
that stuck out 
like mad fingers 
reaching for 
the parts of us 
in shards or dressed  
to bless in tribute 
the Aegean sea 
as it swept away 
our legs 
and arms 

in every dream 
it would seem 
I sought her 
fought with an
idea of her 
gilded lily 
or scone, was she 
bone thrifty 
thirsty on all fours 
blood to rusted iron 
well sprung salt pours
supposedly she was 
the daughter 
of Eve 
& Lilith 
and looked 
nothing at all 
like Adam, because 
I think God got it right 
this time when He
left alone 
all the unwritten 
voyeur tomes 

Sunday school 
would never be 
the same, if 
two Mothers 
went sharing more 
than nurturing 
and new baby names
with each other 

this was too darn hot 
not to leave alone  
He thought 

not every womb 
need a Father 
to tend it 
so He spent 
some days 
of the week
copping seeds 
and fertile magic 
began sowing 
what humans 
will reach for 
inside one another 

a garden 
with all the  
answers grown 
in stains

EJR ©