Tuesday, March 1, 2016

starting verses

my poems are getting shorter. everything is more measured now.


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this is the moment promises are made lightly and i hide from view.


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some words were exchanged and emotions hard bartered for scraps of meaning.


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i asked you to come home and spend whatever time was required to make your way clear.


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lay down your burden at your enemy’s feet and find yourself alight.


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you are mostly empty space and light traversing the gap between hearts.


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then come take my hand and eat the words i lift to your lips with longing.


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the only thing known to shift story from whispers to a memory.


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this and this and this longing and desire for joy - a settled embrace.


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walking the slow path, i stop to smell a flower – a reminder of you.


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the way to carve space is to assign it new names and set it loosely.


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i only wanted this – this thing i now desire – this unending joy.


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your mouth, delicate, as it tastes this sweet nothing rotten at its core.


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the way a shell breaks and light enters like a thief, each desperate thought.


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and then the flag raised and trumpets sounding the depths as we brace ourselves.


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my feet stand ready at a moment’s notice, fast – i will own this ground.


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the earth will own me, will claim my songs as ransom, a verse to all change.


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my face set like flint against or towards mountains and valleys and seas.


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until our bodies press next to time and flesh weakens, spirit and blood rise.


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again the promise to have and to hold and to never walk away.


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again the path, again the light and sound of drumming, echoing the bones.


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and thus I am known, and perhaps rejected, and perhaps too, embraced.

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