The Secret of the Stars

There is only self
In these cosmos
There is only death in the sky

Small Christmas light twinkles
Break through

Weakness becomes me
I am soft
And dormant

There is only you
In my eyes
The secrets of stars
Shine there

You are sweet
And
Beguiling

We twist around each other
Comet’s tails spreading across
The emptiness

We are dismissed by the glimmer
And surrendered
Together

If this is only a dream
Who is the dreamer?

Smoke

This is where the stars shine

Somehow I am always awake at night

I am a train in the distance
Shouting my monosyllabic cry into the shade

Somewhere I smell fire

They told me someday I would come home

I am the forest turned to ash
I am the scorched earth drowning in the rain

For all the ways this place remains the same
I will change

For the death that comes in little sips
For resigning and mirth

I am here
Untethered
Allowing this place to be new

Snared

In the night
That is room temperature warm
And sticky
In it’s closeness

I am trapped by dreaming
I am diseased with thoughts

Thinking of the dusk
When we left for the coast

That never happened

I am an echo in a seashell

You are sleeping somewhere safe
I am awake

Still snared

By the room temperature warmth
And your proximity to me

Closer in the phantasms of slumber

Love in the Time of COVID

Every time I hear some one cough
I write their obituary

I hear the talk
It’s enough

Vaccines and alarmists
“It’s just the flu”

And I know
I know
Exactly what it’s like
To breath with them
Hoping and not hoping
That they take another breath

Everywhere I look
It’s diamonds of memories
And anger
Clear and colder

Love in the time of COVID
Is capital letters
And bargaining
With silent Gods

Amber

I sit beneath the clouds
And the warped
Mirage-inducing sky
Violently blue
Shockingly bright

I think of bunnies and honeybees

My chaotic crow’s heart searches
For something shiny
In this landscape
And sleeps with the stars on it’s wings

My eyes are black and placid

There is glory here
There are foot falls that echo
Across time

There is a dangerous undercurrent
Dark and winding

I know to stay away

Yet occasionally I open my mouth
And I can hear
The beat
Of the wolf pack
And I howl in solidarity
Sometimes
I howl in despair

But mostly I call
Just to remind
That I am alive
That I love them

I look into their amber eyes

And they know would kill me if they could

I think of honeybees and bunnies

Today I am not the prey