rose metaphor

dreams, waking dreams

so long i've dreamed
outbound:
cannisters of sound
running down
running down,
wet notes strung
straight up
from ground...

my parts
through-controlled
into singular
artifact.
die-cast,
unipurposed:
the un-owned
note.


wanting
you
makes me shake.
steadiless
tumbles
into disparation:
head versus
thighs and
hands everywhere
and that stupid
laugh of mine,

like the loosest rose head
de-tensile
in hot
wind:

opened
past
resistance.

creep me out the door

summer

go
slow--
stay
still.

still like
the hand on
the window
sill.

pine pollen
settle
through the open
pane--

the hand is
moved;
its outline
remain.

a world of it

maybe

2.

crossroads doesn't mean always what you think.

paint lace on the negligee and the lady's still a lady:

hold ear to that statue and hear

the whispering ocean,

the wax overlay of it

melt, slight, against you.

hold up beauty:

hold up those lips

as if to rain--

re-freshen

like petals under gathering dew.

3.

beauty a tragic

circularity.

that is why i dream possess of

you

ugly or lovely,

sweet bird--

to never lay 

your 

singing head down

in dirt.

hold you up,

back

beyond 

these meat

hooks of mine.

1.

what might have been:

a chocolate rabbit,

solid straight through.

don't leave your candy bean

to dissolve my love

in this rain--

my tongue,

my hollow mouth

will hold you--

my lips will

deny themselves

your name.

press 

lids closed.

taste

that 

longing flavor.

only for defense, like a power ranger

rapt defense

1.

eve's apples--

green and smooth 

as deep glass

in the hand.

that wrongful

bite--

the slight, slow motion

of the 

wondering head

in taking away

the flesh

between teeth.

forever parting

with itself

like thick salty space.

2.

smell of dryer sheets,

cigarettes,

stones, 

those in shade 

and sun:

rapunzel alone

with her braid.

seduce me,

solitude--wrap me

in your 

tart juice.

the deep breathe

undine

1.

sweet heart-beat--

skittish eyes 

like smooth stone skipping 

across still pond--

those shallow

dips in

to liq

uid

the final

plumb:

sink,

darling

rock.

still barely 

waver--

pulling eddies gentle

like ever-settling hair

underwater:

your mouth, undine, 

murmurs,

patter

nless

2.

underwater

sweet still heat:

moist light 

stayed to drop.

poised in motion--

still while 

thousand cells

impress:

sensation,

that 

lambent

mistress

3.

still sweetness,

the leech of

petty resistance.

drowsy in

your arms--

white-clad

like angels.

go 

under

ether:

your eyes

so sweet

reverse skip, 

less and less

deep.

shell teeth,

sweet lower lip,

in immaculate

red, 

eddying.

the purpose

of this

stillness,

the self-

curl,

ever in

ward

ever

in

war

d

///

...

///

exposito!

i'm doing something that falls within maybe the general idea of ekphrasis--trying to write a poem while a particular song's on repeat.  the song for the "clenchtooth/roses" and "i am a sonneteer/song" posts was that "by your side" song from the winged migration soundtrack (i don't know what it's called; my friend lent me a copy); the song for "the candy man can/vacuum" was "candy man" by cibo matto.  just thought i might as well explain a little what the process was, because it seems like i'm not writing what i know, but what the song makes me know--that is, maybe the same object as i would see otherwise, but viewed through wildly various panes of stained glass.  so it's a little like writing as a character, except it's not.  i've lost any grasp on truth i might have claimed at one point...or maybe, like shakespeare's hands (though of course not within the same compass, much less league), the object just takes flight.  i can't be writing about nothing...but i can't provide ontological proof of what i am writing.  not that it particularly matters.  anyway, from now on if i write something in this mode, i'll put the name of the song and the artist in the keyword box.  and now you know!

within these groves

1. retreat into rhyme

push trench:

entrench similar but further forward--

hold off engagement of flesh on flesh, piece on piece--hold off for red velvet and rare black silk, extract

the heave of a breast or two.

late night excavation of black lace

eruption like ready volcano:

draw that curtain, show that picture; peaks and valleys ripple on ripple like flame-lined ridge.

2. jigoku hen

more, o stars, more, more--

mouths split past their shapes.  bleach blackest velvet:

white down glare and every melting thing sticky against itself,

the collapse into liquid, flesh rolling down relevatory saccharine gravity

bone to bone, joint to joint--

i 

smell 

your fur.

i smell it

in my 

nose.

3, 4, 5. the hunt/the slant rhyme

multipart seductions of transmissions, substitutions, black leather jesses:

a desperate hart weighted for a desperate arrow: run back to me, love--

st. sebastian: poached.

(run back to these arms, 

that these linked fingers may run 

through your hair 

and down your face

where the blood races, rivers, sweet wet so close to surface.

run back to sweet wet rhyme, my love--

be like mine, my love, my love, my love.)

the candy man can

vacuum::

I.

sideways on the floor

like snake, snaking

move slow as thick 

water

across

cooling sand.

yet that 

friction, frictive

slide of grain 

against

wetted grain--

thus at the base

gather

tiny sparks of 

heat.

II.

i make it

up past 

your leg.

sweat drops fast,

abandoned,

but tongue

tight 

to its motion:

lapped

circle, coil

like flourescent 

light.  lighting

layer over

smooth wet

layer.

--

i compose you in

colors 

under cover of 

darkness:

reflection of a 

blue sign

on wet sand--

caramel

dye-saturated,

plucking

memoried pinks,

smoothing

magnolia petal

hard.

i reserve red

but red only.

do nothing to me,

sweetheart.

lie back.

let me tell you

your story.

3.

i'll watch the dew fall,

roll 

down your

skin.

watch the rising

sun

turn your back 

to gold and 

black.

i am a sonneteer

song

hold your mouth to mine, my love,

in the deep midwinter.

the roses bloom within your face

in the deep midwinter.

under the cold iron sky

in the deep midwinter.

this love will run from yours to mine

in the deep midwinter.

over stones the stream will go

in the deep midwinter.

clear the path for leaves to drop

in the deep midwinter.

cold is the water and cold are the stones

in the deep midwinter.

cold your mouth on mine, my love,

in the deep midwinter.

clenchtooth

roses

not a true

not a true

thorns across a skin.

petals under thumb.

discomfort like grass against a bare side--

under the whip--

multitextural like diamond

to velvet to leather to petals, 

petals outpouring,

mouthlipped.

hold me in, dear god.

skin split provides a welling upward of 

red--forearm eviscerate,

your eyes.  flung against 

the sky. your hands,

magnoliate,

eurydice, persephone,

the blank-unblank repository.

2., 3.

tears unlike gore for

blood feels less of upwelling

linear.

water a choke and a process,

thick shoddy as oil,

mixless.

cry of 

cry of lone

cry of lone thing.

stumble out like

leak of the eye.

not that gentle streak

streak of blood,

trailing against the wake 

of the scrape.

turn back the clocks--

reverse tick.

4., 5.

fall back in time,

as if within surf,

naidlike, withdraw that hair,

take back that mouth.

shut down those eyes.

let me 

unwrite you,

let me

own 

this word--

5a.

split,

like that lip,

corded,

like those hands,

put away,

like that hair,

enflagrate--

like those eyes,

those eyes--