~
Striations of sobriety
defy my myth
when they split li(n)es
my weathered palm’s
tirade of tides
cotton-mouths
down to spent gin
grinning while siphoning
from fame
its exhausting whim
tempestuous tracks
trafficking in vain
when, like dying neon
riding a farewell wave
halfway through
the underworld’s
abandoned tubes
they scar and sp(l)it
superlatives too infinite
for truth to contend with
scattered like
whiplashed spines
~
they define the parameters
and the perimeter
of my island existence
marooned shores
echoing with sighs
whitewashing bones
no bed will welcome
to writhe in its linen
unwed and unforgiven
a naked landscape’s
ignored canvas
a pittance
to pay for this
insular g(r)ift’s
glacial shift in opinion
bottle-necked revelations
drunken and profiting
strangling my silence
withering its vintage
by referencing
what deep from within
pores through to surface
~
reality scratching
at my heart
with its pale
splintered fingers
pointing out
evidence, contending
with legend to apprehend
my vagrant eyes
kaleidoscoping what
shards of a soul
hide inside
this coal that within
a web of choked veins
resides, walled behind
a chimney throat
weeping hot ash
obscuring strides
urban hermits sine
sandaled feet
wading freely
in the secrets of
a mosaic mind
~
scorched leaves
an oracle reads
without remorse
a whispered name
sweeping from the autumn
of my solitude
what for too long
has fed its flame
starving wounds
calling forth what Marks
portend their cure
one an intercessor
the other my love’s
interpreter, translating with a kiss
what relic his
mouth reverences
each lick a crack
in the chalice
tongues so devious
as this with such
fatal language
somehow manage
~
to lure and lavish
those whose taste
for pathos makes
not martyrs of
my suitors but
perfect matches
inscribing on this
vessel how silence
itself is a sort of
drunkenness when
together we glimpse
within and instead
of the end or
emptiness we sip
from one glance
some vintage with
its tenderness
so abundant
it replenishes what words
rob of literary men:
something truly worth
expressing.