Headless

They hand me your head that day
and your blank face stared back
I imagine what was your last thought
your final word
that ultimate picture that flashes one last time
I never thought it would be this heavy
you had such a light smile
almost bright like a sunburst

Ice Cubes

The dark wooden panel

stood, a field to this nocturnal engagement
marked with restless elbows
and wet from drinks and beer bottles
too careless for coasters.

He heard me buy a drink

From the glass spilled the first faint
whip of intoxicated words
like drinking poetry all at once
it made no sense then
just a feeling of profundity
or was it self-abandonment?

He found words on his face

It unfastened something
like a window allowed my own trickling
till i wonder whether I am bastard
with drunk thoughts or these words a really mine

He said the ice cubes can't help but comment.

Armless

It is a sad thing for someone
so beautiful to have no arms
like standing naked under the sun
while the wind peels your face
in slow, whisks of paper cuts
lines tracing the frame of your eyes
like maps of some far away land

Your innocence is enchanting
and you move in a way that reminds me of
rippling ponds on moonlit nights or
spidercrawl on delicate webs
always a certain grace, a silent gesture
of reaching, almost touching

an alabaster statue on a pedestal
without hands, you exist to be worshipped
set under the prisitine halogen illumination

this celestial imperfecion bears bite marks
at the back of my hand, as you delicately crawl away
on your moonlit, rippling pond.

One Liter of Sleep

Let me buy you one liter of sleep

It's fascinating, how it funnels down

to mix like gas with water

always eager to disappear

in a solvent, as if in fear of being found

It may not come cheap,

and it lasts only for a few hours

but it keeps the blood viscous

enough to know when to stop

and when to come rushing

You say your dreams are leaking

through your ears,

I don't know how to stop it

I can just see it pool on our silk

pillows cases, and in the morning

I just turn them over and pretend

nothing happened

I have closed my eyes more often

to find myself excruciatingly awake

as if I'm burning from within.

The laundry woman sends her regards.

5:03 AM

03/21/11

Moonshine

Tonight the moon shines the brightest

and all the water in me is rushing

restlessly from shore to sea

erasing, revealing, taunting then shying away

destroying corals into beds of sand

Where I can lie on my back

to have my place in the sky.

We trace stars for two reasons

to remind us who we were

and to chart journeys on these celestial maps

but there is a certain longing

to come home,

or just the feeling of being home

to a memory perhaps

after a long time of voyaging relentlessly

to a sea that knows no music

It rages against a moon

unashamed by its terrestrial flaws

and I am drawn in comfort

washed under this lunar apparition

as all the salt water emptied itself out

to finally bring me to sleep.

2:56 AM.

3/20/11

Carving

There are nights when lights

melt, unwilling to be carved

that we just let it turn to

puddles.

Somewhere in the dark

we know dark branches

chisel wind in hopeless

portions,

but we enjoy the songs

they make in their insignificant deaths

For Apy

In that same desert, by midnight your song came in loud flapping wings. I remain fetal to the ground, waiting to hear god's heartbeat drumming on shifting sand. Your fingers cupped me into a G-clef. My piano embrace.