Rough

Speak boy,
I crave your mouth to open,
pouring out your mad histories on me
with lips parting,
words thumping out of you,
this language creating your reality,
focusing your heritage,
limiting and expanding your experiences.
I pray you then, Speak.

The fall came late that year,
heat spitting,
the earth stumbles
to get back on her aching feet
just as we hear the wild women call to share space,
sit in a circle
and count astrological signs and symptoms,
phoenix and sphinx
swap stories
from the kings of Babylon
to the interstate travel on
a Friday night
when the kids and their curb appeal
leak out into the city,
cop cars sitting in the dark,
whispers of the next meth lab bust
and the baby drowned in the cold bath water.

Smirks in the nighttime,
slow motion magic,
I move towards white knights
though they were always without their armor
crying in crawlspaces
and throwing up on my bedspreads,
thus maybe they were just cold marble angels
standing next to clocks
in the hallway,
and hat stands growing impatient
for the party to end
so they could go home to their wives
who wept quietly in bed,
pretending to be asleep.

I Awoke in Magic Harlem

I awoke in Magic Harlem
and found myself,
hours later,
waking witches from their
dank slumbers,
they whine and whimper
in their sleep
as time ticks on
and almost forgets them,
though I never will.

Damn those exhausting visions,
I see the tortured astral souls retching
in bathroom stalls across the globe,
silent tears shed by the angels in the attic,
my mind their sweet sanctuary,
for a moment,
in the midst of a maddening world.

The pain is drinking me mad,
sweeping through my spine,
you are killing me.
Burning our amazon,
our prophets in tribal earth tones.
You raping me again in my sleep,
suicides racking the shelves in my head.
I will relearn my prosthetic machinery,
and play the game too well,
checkmate.

Even so,
I'm panting in love with you,
the moon meets her artistic equal
in a flashback of liquor cabinets
and a deep moaning morphine melting.
I tried to just relax and
let you come over me slowly
but this girl got to get up
and fucking move.
I dare you to fall for me,
kiss my mouth and drip art with me.
I'm tired of trying to sit still,
dead coffins and our
reincarnations as wallflowers.

My dad was lovely too,
an orchestra of spirit and
brilliant noise.
I know though that he died loving us
more than the earth itself
and all of heaven.
He seems so far away,
even in dreams he rarely lingers.
It's been 5 years, and
I still may never forgive your god
for taking the Father away from us.
I ache in anger and sorrow daily.

And yet,
my cheshire grin
hides my secrets well
from my ever watchful audience,
and I thank him greatly for the compliment,
until the mask becomes so tight
that I can't take it off anymore,
and I suffocate under
the laughing siren
while the chime on our
grandfather clock counts to ten.

Lay Me Down Deep

Shiva woke me from my sickly slumber.
I asked him to repeat himself
because I was half-dreaming
of hats and other frisky filthy things
when he first stormed into the room
and spoke.

"I call you back to awakening."
My eyes, once again,
open and succumb to the
Magic that surrounds
and runs through me.

Take me home,
lay me down in shadows,
kiss me like you
mean it,
breath and myth,
chaos and hydra,
carry me with you
to the labryth and leave me there.

I won't mind to shed a tear and
learn something "simple",
like letting go of dogma
and danger complexes,
fear is foreign folly
and must be unlearned.

Darkness overcame me,
car wrecks and flashbacks,
scavenger hunts for that
poor little girl,
who was found dead in the morning,
stuck in the river Styx,
the bow on her head,
bobbing with the tide.
8 ball in the far left pocket,
whiskey sours after long days
at the office.
Standing in the mist,
smoking an entire pack of cigarettes,
waiting for something-
anything,
to drag you to your feet.

Welcome to the 9th House of the Blues,
Your awakening
is coming for you soon,
with a sexual shudder
and a smile of relief.