Symbol Evolution

The messages came

In dreams of purple wounds and missing cars

Sudden knowing, letting go

Late-night Spiritual Pleadings

       With more answers than I asked for...

Better than these

       Your head on my chest        My arms around you

Beaming faces

Effortless

You read your own signs

Invisible to me

Do I have to turn away?

You feel like a long-lost friend

And I’d play any game to keep you laughing

Original Symbols

Did you know I saw the signs in you

Of you

Different than those symbols frantically grasped at

Now I can no longer remember

And I must reject them all

For you

Maybe the signs led back to me all along

Must I really say no?

I’d play any game at all

If it kept you smiling

At me, with me

And only because

You felt like an old friend

Long-parted, long longed-for

And never more secure

The messages came to me

In dreams of missing cars and purple wounds

Repaved roads and magic numbers

Sudden knowings, letting go

Late-night desperate Prayer

Giving answer to more than was asked…

Mournful Cry

The last bite
Tastes of death
I wish I had a beautiful love poem
For you
For the end of days
But all is lost
Except I promise
To be a friend always
And forever let you down
May we never stop loving
So we may learn forgiveness
Before the wheel stops turning

Another Eulogy

The bird flies before you
A trail of burning bushes
Burning eyes clenched in your fists

It's too damn easy to love
Especially to those who can't give it
Can't even take it
Though anyone can be worthy
If they have some combination of all
That you crave so strongly
Longing to be given
And possessed
Free and sure

It's too damn easy to sit down
Keeping your hands busy
Waiting for someone else to feed you
      And take you
      And make you
      And let you love them with all
The little that you have-
But they never want you-
Or your gifts
In return for nothing you ever ask for...
Hope and misery
Fear, eternal fear
And so many deaths
Surround the present
Killing yourself with bad habits
Born from worse memories and forebodings

There must be a place where the well springs
And there will be no more smoke
From dead dreams that keep me warm at night

This Time

Every time I fall in love

I pray to remember

My dearly-departed’s

Face and eyes and ears and neck

The way his chest felt against my cheek

How his kisses melted me

And I flush to recall

Nothing sweeter

Than our hands held together

Walking in the woods

Flashes

It’s hard to think

With memories of you

Wrapped around my neck

Choking me in clearly perfumed images

Visions of your glances

Like so many others

Lightning in my mind

I can’t sleep at night

Again, always

Love will forever run me ragged

For so little

Specimen

Some scientist should box me up
Neatly pinned
My parts flayed open
Labels displaying
All my marvels
And every flaw
A miraculous tragedy of nature

Dissected dreams bottled in spirits
All sins displayed
Under the bright glare
Of God's massive eye
They'll use my parts
Every sinew and hair
And boil my soul
Til all that remains are soft bones