The Poetry Marathon

hot coffee, sweet

soft sheets, warm,

his arms, a voice,

kiss, coffee, paper rustling

sun, rain drumming on tin

silence

Hot spring-nearly-summer golden hours,

the slow heat under your skin, soft,

child-like time spent as sweat skims down

your back, your arms damp with it and yet,

slow wind stirs and we rest. Eyes up,

trees creak and whisper, long white birch arms

drape, ruffled with leaves, and if you still yourself

to childhood dreaming, you can see white dryads

and nymphs, lazing in summer heat,

their long white limbs burning with warmth

as the slow wind stirs up ancient memory

with a long, unyielding heat.

It’s been a decade since I’ve last heard the mystery of faith.

How I knew the kindness of true religion, words of wisdom

passed down from a man that knew God as a father, a friend,

whose voice was stronger still even when cancer tried to cut it short.

Father, Padre, forgive me of my sins, for which you may see,

and if there were ever angels, you graced the earth as one of them,

your wings the parish, all-encompassing. The definition of compassionate,

you loved us all. There is nothing I wouldn’t give

for one more slow Sunday, suspended by your liturgy,

but bless me now with something holier, an old memory,

haunted with the ghost of incense, and the words

to lift my soul to believe once more.

To Father Larry, a man of Spirit

Home lies far away, in a land I saw once,

tired, dizzy, no sleep on a plane alone,

first Continental visit, mind whirling,

heart pounding, and yet when I stepped down

and looked, there was a beginning,

and fear was there, yes, but hope.

and I stepped down, coming home

to a place I’d never been before.

A recipe for a lover.

1. A pinch of disbelief
2. A cup of desire
3. Some of hope
4. A dash of sweet, a note of sour
5.  Low heat for hours,

Touch often, simmer low, high heat.

Life is sweetest when shared, cook often

and give the spice of life.

To be so tall and strong, woman, you must have steel

and grace enough to know your lovers

were not tightly laced, concealed

and the corset that bound you wasn’t a limit, but a cage

to stop them from seeing you, unstoppable.

Tigress, I wonder.

When you smiled, was it something I said,

or baring your fangs to the wolves at your door, reminder

that they should remember to bend yielding throats

before you run out of patience, and get the key

and unlock your self-imposed cage.

For Angela

I promise nothing

That you won’t kneel

And that you won’t beg

That there will not be pain

But at the end of the day

There’s you and me, side by side.

We can watch the world burn,

Or we can be strong together.

Share the pain, shoulder it all.

No place will ever be sacred,

No haven except in our arms.

No surrender, no end.

But fight together as we do.

no promises, no demands.

Love is a battlefield.

You bury yourself in layers as you grow,

And when others picked you apart

You buried yourself deeper and deeper.

Until the you they see is not bedrock,

Just another shelf of slim self worth,

Supported by stress cracks and boiling feelings

That threaten to burn you alive when you’re alone.

Remember even faults must shake, volcanos

Recover after being unmade by violent upheaval

And stand taller, recover themselves to calm.

Let yourself go. Unmake and break, bend, release,

Remember what makes you, we’re all made of fire

And beneath the thin shell of fear glow bright,

Brilliant like the cores of dead stars.

Remember to burn passion, own what makes you.

The city roars far below with a savage metal rhythm,

And on the sidewalk it’s casual cannibalism

As men devour and bury each other to survive.

But here, home, vines twine in cages and pots

And dream maybe, in a vegetable way,

Of places beyond my metal cage home,

To where the fog isn’t smog,

And the animal cruelty and claws

Are without the human bite.

I slip through the undergrowth,

Ears pricked, tensed.

The world goes silent around me.

I can smell the aftershave,

Hear the deep voice locked

In muscled throat, he struts.

I wait.

Whiskers tremble, pupils widen

As day melts to night.

He slowly slips to sleep…

Claws take deep to dirt and flesh,

One scream splits the night.

As he dared to lay in bed,

The jungle took half his stock.