I Saw the Sky

I saw the sky,
So unnaturally lit
Swallowed stars like coldly burning coals in bulging bellies,
Shrunken eyes in sunken sockets,
Dark bruises like the broad swipe of a painter's brush.
I cannot escape you, even in my head; and the perturbing part is I don't know you yet.

I saw the sky,
So unnaturally bright
That wicked shade of blue has no business being now.
Scratching the quicksilver itch with fingers of red liquid Mercury,
Sliding underneath my skin to make my body its sepulchre,
So snake-like in motion with eyes like the ocean.

Struck Me Like Snow

I focused on the lens,
stared past it.
Felt my gaze retract,
the hooks grasping at the future concealed within,
and swooning softly, I came back to my chair.

The inclination to write struck me like snow,
but his distracting declarations burst through the blizzard
and this was all I could manage before the whiteness overtook me.

Four Eighteen

Couldn't speak
Couldn't think
Trapped
Arrested in the arms of the music
Caught in the web of his words
Utterly trapped

Felt my soul slip away
the music took its place
I was torn
wanted to let go, fade away
wanted to hold on and capture this feeling with something bigger than words

with music, and love, and a look
wanted to capture this feeling with a thought

Felt my soul slip away
And my thoughts disappeared
Couldn't focus
Couldn't think
Couldn't breathe

Needed more than words
But they are all I have
So I write and I swing the net and I spring the trap,
But try as I may I cannot capture

I had never noticed how music affected me
Never knew it wasn't the same for everyone
Never knew they didn't feel it

I couldn't think
Couldn't find the words
Pulled across the universe by his voice
Lost myself to him

By the scratching of this pen
By the smell of this ink
By the color of this paper

Red on yellow
The music took the place of my missing self

Feverish,
Will it always end this way?

VIII

We thought we managed to outrun the fog,
but still it remained coiled 'round our brains,
clouding the back of our eyes
and feeding on what could have been.

VII

Poetry finds me here with frozen fingers
and wet sleeves from wiping foggy windows
and leaves me with a taste in my mouth
for running wildly in the untouched snow.

the Cove

Flashes of images:

The tanned length of a girl's leg,
knee bent, fabric cut short.

A dying sky stained pink and orange,
an eye blinks, a head turns, she laughs--
and the sun is down.

Traipsing through blocks, down streets of mismatched houses;
the sound of wheels on broken black roads.

Darkness has fallen but heavy heat still remains.
Hands brush, clothes are shed, they urge her jump in;

As they look up at her with hair plastered to their head
and grins plastered to their faces,

She takes a breath, and she jumps, and she sees the world shudder,
and then the water envelops her and she breathes pure summer.

V

A simple swipe,
A furious wipe,
"What's all the hype?"
You're so my type.