Fantastic Fire Poems #7 & #8

7.
When dreams are waking
and my heart is aching
and my hands are shaking
and you're mine for the taking
We fall together
like worlds quaking
like diamonds shining
like water divining
like kings warring
like oceans roaring
We roll like waves
and rock like caves
then heart to heart
and hand in hand
We fall like snow
and settle like sand

8.
Goddess above me
you rise so sweetly
greeting the dawn
on the day of my rescue
your gracious hand
reaches for mine
you are lifting me up
higher than i dared to dream
one kiss and i soar
above you
mortal no more

Fantastic Fire Poems #5 & #6

5.
you've left again
work calls you away
much too often
i long to have you here
to share in the beauty
of life and the
slow ache
beauty brings
but you're already familiar
with these things

6.
early morning moon
fog creeps in
frogs are trilling
in the cold
that old longing arrives
my arms are empty
without you here
come home soon, Love

Alice, Revisited

I'm cracked.
I'm through the looking glass
and never looking back.
just drink my potion,
shrink down to nothing,
invisible as I already am
to the Queen of Hearts,
with my Cheshire grin,
my Mad Hatter riddles,
my White Rabbit dreams...
But there is no date,
so pocket that watch,
and stay for tea!

Sisters

Over the years, my sister and I have spent many nights sharing memories and reminiscing over shared childhood experiences. I have come to think of these times as a sort of therapy session, as we not only laugh about the good times, but we cry and seek comfort for the bad times.
I've been feeling lately as though my sister is a million miles away, and I miss her like crazy! So here's a poem I wrote after one of these late night trips down memory lane...

Your pain is my pain
I carry it every day
Your joy is my joy
May it always be that way
I love it when you say
Come, sister, let's sit and talk
of nightmares unspeakable
of dreams unflappable
of givers and
of takers
of childhood mischief makers
of wisdom before hidden and
of hope,
surprising, unbidden
But most especially the love we feel...
I've felt it always,
I feel it still!

Fantastic Fire Poems #3 & #4

3.
walking down the street
we're happy as clams
gazing in each other's eyes
as we warmly clasp hands
others look on
in wonder
in hatred
in revulsion
in envy
in lust
staring like spies
from behind their newspapers
but all i can see are your eyes

4.
mystic goddess
you sing me to sleep
with your heartbeat
you compose my soul
with a single touch
you praise my vision
and kiss my eyes
you seek my honesty
then tell me sweet lies
crossing your lips
they sound like sighs
and we melt together
into night

Suicidal Dream (AKA Political Nightmare)

A few years ago, I saw video of a rescue off the Oregon coast. Always a dramatic scene, but this one was unusual... The guy stranded on the rocks appeared to not want a rescue, and tried to fight off the Coast Guard rescuers. Of course, they managed to do their jobs and save him. I have no idea whether he's happy about that or not...
This was around the same time that the nation was having a debate about how much sway the government should have in people's personal lives and decisions. We were deep in the muck of the Bush administration, and this incident came right on the heels of the Terri Schiavo case, so politics and personal freedoms were very much in confusion.
Anyway, that night it was difficult to get to sleep, and when I did, I had vivid dreams of walking into the ocean and not coming out. I woke sometime in the night to scribble some unintelligible stream-of-consciousness nonsense, that I have now distilled into a somewhat more understandable version of it's former self. I have tried to maintain the stream-of-consciousness style, while attempting to make it easier to read. I hope I found the right balance...

Suicidal Dream (AKA Political Nightmare)

Lying awake till 1 am, listening to Jewel and sobbing my esophagus inside out, trying to figure, when came this doubt? and when and how will i break out? panicked, i shout, but no one comes running to save me, so i wade into the ocean and let my weighted clothes carry me out to sea, and just as i fill my lungs to sing, this poor excuse for a rescue shows up to ruin the whole damned thing...
And i'm pleading with them to just leave me, let me find god, let me find peace, let me find mother nature and give her the kiss of life and a slap on the ass, someone's gotta do it, someone's gotta revive her soon or she'll keel over dead, and i can't live in a world with no seahorses or sand dollars, and the thought makes me fight like a steelhead on a string, but they've got me by the throat, they've got me in the boat...
Once again, the government has saved me from myself.

Fantastic Fire, Poems #1 & #2

1.
Sly fox with
a virginal smile
a tear in the eye
honey in the hips
a cry on the lips
ecstasy in her sigh
a small death to die
we take one last gasp
and we're out like a light.

2.
Morning: she arises
all flowing hair
sleepy eyes
silly smiles
and sizzling kisses
smooth sun-baked skin
inviting

she leaves me

i move into the warmth
of her void
caressing her pillow
breathing her scent
and i'm ready for the day.

Untitled slam

Watch this blog for an upcoming poetry series entitled 'Fantastic Fire: Notes to a Future Love'. This is a small but growing project that I started long ago, and have started adding to again recently. A series of love poems, to no one in particular, to an imagined future love, wherever she might be. Fantastic Fire will be featured here in the near future. Until then, an untitled poem...

I awake, tears streaming
but I can't stop my dreaming
though I'm wide awake & screaming
at the top of my lungs
and a million tongues
are singing my praises
and beating my brains in
and telling me I can't go back
and everything I lack
is wrapped up in my sin
and I'm clawing to get in
but this place belongs only
to the beautiful and the sane
those who feel no pain
and though I'm drowning in the rain
they won't let me in
and the sound of the door slamming in my face
just keeps pace
with the beating of my heart in my broken chest
and lest I forget what lies within my breast
I wear my heart on my sleeve
like a bulletproof vest...
If I bare it all, they can't beat it out of me.

The Space Between

I was watching a movie today. 'Before Sunrise', with Ethan Hawke. It's a rather existential piece... Boy meets girl on a train, boy convinces girl to spend an evening with him in Vienna before they part ways in the morning, perhaps to never see each other again. It is all very 'Live for the moment for there may never be another.' I related on many levels, though I have yet to be swept off my feet in Vienna!
One scene (a scene that meant very little in the film) stuck with me and really made me think. Boy and girl are sitting in an alleyway somewhere, discussing life and religion. The girl says, "I've always thought that if god exists, he wouldn't be in us, but in this small space, between us."
I thought this was a very beautiful idea. That the divine lives, not within us, but within the connection between us... The fiber of being lives in the empty spaces. That electrical current, that spark, that we feel when we form a connection with another human being, I think that is the god particle, passing from one to the other and back again...

Your breath on my neck
as you whisper in my ear
i feel your sadness
i breathe your cheer
i pray to you
my goddess here

Your breath on my lips
as you face my love
i seek your solace
i hear your sighs
i say my goodbyes
my goddess on high

Funny...

Funny how one small moment can spark so much! A recent conversation sparked a friend of mine to write a poem. A line from that poem caused me to remember a poem I had written years ago... That memory sent me on a wild goose chase, frantically searching through old journals to find said poem! And then, when I finally found it, the line I thought I remembered writing was not even the line I actually wrote!
However, all this fervor over poetry, all the re-reading of journals, all the late-night inspiration, all the searching for the perfect line... It brought me back to life! It sparked in me that love of creation... The love of watching a poem sprout and grow and blossom into something before your eyes, when you never even realized you had been carrying the seed of it in your mind for years!
I have not felt this way for a long while. To feel that excitement renewed, to regain interest in the one thing that's sustained me all my life, is a blessing beyond measure!
Since the line in my old poem was not, after all, what I remembered it to be, and since I like to think I've honed my craft a bit since that day in my 19th year, I will here share a revised version of the poem...

To One in Space
(For Dawn)

Speaking to herself
in riddles,
like Rilke...
Alone she sits,
a cat on a pedestal
all sleek-muscle
and non-chalant,
basking in hot light,
drowning in the tsunami
of my sea.
She reads aloud to me of
secrets of the heart.
Her voice reaches out-
quicksilver high,
grasping at
my mind, my heart,
my soul, newly alive!

Ah, I think that
I love...