I Gathered A Pomegranate

A dramatic desert sunset on the Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah/ Photo by the author

(For S )

Ripe pomegranate
You fall not easily
Into my starving hands
My waiting lips
Pressed tight against
Your husk
Your seeds staining
Your fresh gemstones

How quickly
The night falls
Light fading
The yew trees sheltering
A silky spring breeze

I waited beneath
For a single kiss
From your hunting mouth

Taste me so quickly
While the silver stars
Fall across a velvet canopy
While lapis blue night
Shatters over the distant mountains

Greedily you devour a pomegranate
Without care how the crimson
Stains your elegant mouth

Fountains offer their refreshment
Like flowers give up their pollen
And I wish to be like those
Industrious little bees
Dancing from flower to flower to flower

How industrious my wings
How sweet the virgin nectar

You turn away
Blushing so quickly
Even though the scent of me
Stings salty and open thighs

Banish dawn and receive night
The hour this bee takes flight
To gather his honey-sweet love
As the moon showers the earth
With regal splendor

Wait beneath the trees
Excited, your senses newly aroused
And I will swiftly gather
The offering of your body
With my lips

Still moon, sweetly glowing
I bask in it
As the pomegranate bursts
Too hungry was my heart
To gather the crimson jewels

Desolate now, my heart wanders
Could life possibly have sacrificed more?

I Sat Near A Stream

Fall leaves give way to Galena Creek, Reno, Nevada/ Photo by the author

I sat near a stream
To see where your love
Would take me.
The trickle of cool water
Carried me away
From the frantic heat
Of a mid day sun
Set high in the empty sky.

You flow with the clouds,
Away and beyond my grasp,
Though once I languished
In your bed
Even long after the sun
Captured the innocent sky.

Tender leaves, falling
Blue-bellied birds, calling
The pallid moon, never falling
Asleep in my waking dreams.

I sat near your coffin
Awaiting your return
To life;
Your chest to rise and fall,
The love in your voice
To call.
But the Summer sun faded
Before my very eyes,
The rising crescent moon
Smitten by midnight skies.

How short are the Winter days
You left behind,
Your hot lips a memory
I have jealously locked away.
The eager pleasure of your
Hard body,
Staying green in the field
Of my abundant memories,
Though the touch of your hands
Has faded, never again.

I sat near a stream
To see where my life would ebb,
How many breaths could I take
Beneath the water
Filling my lungs
With liquid slumber
Like a baby in my mother's womb.

Will the empty sky miss me,
The earth taste my still fair flesh?
How long will the waters flow
Without me,
Once my soul is flying high?

Return of the Sanguine Swallow

A dramatic pastel sunset over the Bonneville Salt Flats of Utah/ Photo by the author

Twilight breathes softly,
The caress of purple and rich azure blue.
Silently, I wait for you,
Beneath trees in which doves nest,
Beneath the lamp of moon's light
Dappling a path with alabaster glory.

How many times, how many lives?
The power of form and flesh alive
On my fingertips.

I will gladly wait, wait, wait
For the return of the sanguine swallow,
Whose home in lonely trees becomes
The residence of my soul.

Why wait, wait, wait
When the moon, my lover, is so
Generous, and my naked skin
Glistens with the kiss of the morning
Dew.

Dying Venus

A stunning Winter sunset on the Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah/ Photo by the author

Molten, electric light
Seizes my thighs
My mind's eye taken by
Dark firmament
Pierced through by gilded
Storm
Wanting, wanting, wanting

Venus rises high
Such sheer power
Holds tight
My breath, my skin,
The blood traveling hard
The course my veins
Dictate
Rising, rising, rising

Lapis vault grasping
Bruised crescent moon
Where stars paint the light
Absorbed by sensuous curves
Below
How I want inside, inside inside

I take the gold you offer
So generously from the clouds
Moving in, grasped by an anxious moment
Even the sky can be afraid
When the certainty of light is
Obscured in the moment
How far I am behind, behind, behind

Timid blue, shattered by the passion
Of the dying sun
How quickly he gives up his glory
How certainly his light fades

But you
My night sky, my ethereal grave
Without effort hold me fast
In your embrace
When the sun has failed me
When all my life has drained
Away, away, away

Liberation Becomes Me

Detail from "As My Father's Eye Watches Me"/ Painting in progress by the author

Death cannot capture me nor decay contain me. 
Your cage, I am unbound, and my heart is not swallowed nor ensnared by folly. 

Sunset of fire, the vault of a starry sky waits beneath the surface. 
I eat the stars. 
I eat the stars and give birth to the full moon. 

A shudder passes between my legs when moon becomes my heartbeat. 
Deb deb. Deb deb. 
That is the sound my heart makes in your hand, 
When the last drops of my blood descend into the hungry earth.

Fortune or Acclaim

A cool night falls in the desert mountains of Utah/ Photo by the author

Sun upon my face,
Moon at my back,
Stars weaving their magic about my contemplation.

How surprising to find you here, 
In a heavenly mirror without age, without death.

I would rather waste away my day in the sun, 
And my nights in the fire of your bed, 
Than have fortune or acclaim in the world of little men.

Stars, my lovers, 
Sea and moon, my ecstasy,
And my climax my end.

I caress you in my waking dreams, 
Where death is kept at bay by the sun upon my face.