III

III.

Three truths.

1.

the world was not created in a week
nor is the earth six-thousand years old
irrefutable evidence shows us

dinosaurs really existed as we all know
I saw "The Land Before Time" in second grade
I had something in my eye and tears came out

everyone thought that I was crying
but in reality it was just something in my eye

and even so we think the world was created
several billions ago in firey melange
molten moments cooling and cracking to continents

but we're all fools for thinking the world
was created for us

the world is
we are in it

this creation is an illusion of misdirection

we just are

2.

never knowing why
is the only fact of life

I don't know why we live
in a feeling world
in an unexplained existence

I can't explain why
sunsets make me sad
or why I never look away

the way the night's air
awakens my skin when
the sky is clear

moments when ordinary things
seem magical

and times when I'm arrested
by such a feeling of pain
that each moment rips
deep into my very organs

a physiological horror

on a cold day my feet
will begin to feel numb

and on some days
I prefer to feel the numbness

but feel free
to show me warmth

3.

my narcissism is limited
to my affinity for loving
those suffering with my afflictions

I suffer the most
the more intimately
I experience others
afflictions

why not my own?

what emptiness breeds
this sort of despair?

I understand that my love
is my only connection
to believing that existence
is real outside myself

so bittersweet
these feelings

but you must know
I would never trade them
for anything
including peace of mind

II

II.

an hour later the alarm goes off
by then morning has already started
the creeping light slipped in

the only memory: your face
idiosyncratic gestures and glances
absconding within as I know too well

you have famous shrugs

outwardly - I know
and inwardly

but
I too learn about myself
and I don't know why
this is all new to me

red hair and reddened bandages
green eyes with red pigments
crimson as a summer's night

how was I so naive
dreaming of burning oil fields
lighting up the sand?

life goes on before my eyes
and I'm part of it
as evidenced by this turmoil

how could I be so naive
post-colonial Africa dancing
in the recesses of my heart?

I just discovered the here and now
in Irish eyes bewildered
drifting through Sahara winds

Bloodletting Insomniac

I.

nights this long create
atheist gods. I can't
remember anything without
the familiarity of time
opening small doors
into unkempt closests.

we're led to believe
some things. no one
is supposed to outlast
the proceding generations.
blood is a metaphor
meant to represent life.

sleep also becomes a metaphor
when morning's dreary threat
grants not a moment of reprieve.

sleepless dreams wonder of worlds
absent of love. where rivers
flow up mountains to die.

nights like this can't be too cold.

I'm of two minds:
yours and mine.

release me.

I can't help anyone
like this.

Picturesque

sitting alone by the first star
emerging from the fading blueness
the hum of people slip away

watching worry turn to grace
beyond somber eyes like my own
awakens shades of unnamed memories

nothing is more frightful
than the intense realization:
my life is all there is

everyone's choices seem to slip
into a collage of kaleidoscopic colors
while night emerges in the heavens

the fading light illuminates
outlines of puffy clouds
which may soon begin to rain

but I am always most taken
by the contrasts of faces
lit up by the coming of dusk

skin covered in fading skylight
eyes hidden in glowered oblivion
yet each breath echoing with importance

some might think it sad
I feel most connected to you
at your loneliest moments

but this nexus is no irony
when your life elicits mine
in a melancholic reverberation

solitude is grounded in humanity
and the most inquisitive minds
find little solace in our travails

the absurdity of love and trust

the absurdity of seeking either


entreat the desert to wash
her face with red sand
so we may come back to life


all that is known may push us
to the ridiculous task of feeling
the extremity of our condition

not with covered eyes
but open -- the beautiful horror
wrenching us firmly in existence

horrifying beauty -- I so miss
the days when I didn't have to seek
feelings that overwhelm the soul

and your picturesque silhouette
perched in exotic self-reconciliation
paints me in younger days


desert composite singing dust and dreams
pressing the motion of life
into tiny compressed pieces:

show how the creative forces of absurdity
awaken the soul when we lean
headwards into the night

guided by the first star's glimmer

Blue Morning

the blue lights come on
warming the wide streets
wintering my memories with ash:

I remember feeling cold
for the first time

but the sun does weird things
when the earth is fell
on its magnificent axis

once I watched the light
flicker through the window
diffused through starlit frost

the wall danced in mid-morning
among the sad loneliness exuded
from dusty Christmas ornaments

two months later the sun slipped
all of the winter's magic decayed
into the undying hope for spring:

I can remember when the grass
first smelled alive again

you must have been there too
somewhere beyond the horizon
watching the sun rise before Jupiter

and whatever motion your breath took
against the backs of moons
wilting in transition

must have felt heavenly
against silvery spheres

to say I loved you would be wrong
we had never met, of course
but I could feel you breathing

and now the blue lights
flicker morning awake
from the dead breathlessness --

stirred from a restless slumber
aching bodies recreate time
with small measured breaths

Looking back there are always a few things I could have said. You'll never know.

Inconsolable Reverie: Self-Reflection

each touch slips hushed
until clasps of gasps wrap
eyes into slinking blinks

I could endeavor to unhinge
this morbid sensual sensitivity
from its sweaty palms

they say "learning to love is
like hoping the next hurricane
doesn't hit ashore this time"

but let me delve into that skin
stretch these walls into home
for you my ribs can creak

just show me that this investment
won't lead to broken levies
with a gentle nod now and again

the older I get it seems
I need some certainty
in what I am doing

just that it is real
but not why - trust me -
because that I can never believe

to me, these are all pinpoints
glimering in the darkness
caressing the canvass

the night's skin is my friend
our emptiness shatters time together
across the balconies of infinity