Hot Biscuits

Scratch baker girl in a dusty apron.
Shortening and flour, momma, Cut me in
and bathe me in sweet milk
till I squeeze sticky through your fingers.
Brown me top and bottom,
butter and jam
me in your mouth.

Current and Tide

Current and tide obey an unseen force
we cannot challenge.
No less power pulls me to you than
drags oceans across land.
The smell of your hair,
sweet and pillow matted,
fills my lungs,
moon summoned tide halts its retreat
to gather and roll upon the shore,
perfect template,
bent and shaped to fit pool and inlet,
relentless scour to twist and shape
the ephemeral sand,
so solid underfoot yields,
helpless to the wave.
Useless eyes close to
concede until tide recede.
Blinded in the riptide,
driven by hunger and smell,
I kiss the changing shore
of your spine to find
the sweet cleft that
hides the wellspring of all my desire.
The soft globes pry apart
to yield your tender portal.
My prehensile tongue,
crazed by slow cooked musk,
residue of the nights sleep,
digs and paws for more,
as the smell of all life
fills my lungs and floats
my brain beyond my skull.

Crave

I crave your attention
like a blanket on a cold night.
I want to pull you
up over my ears and breathe in you.
It is an ache
I cannot soothe with medicine.
Only the balm
of your smooth arms
around my neck
and your slender fingers
in my hair will relieve my pain
and let me close my eyes to sleep
in warm comfort.
Everything lacks
if you are not in it.
Hunger has me searching
for what cannot be eaten,
and I thirst for
what cannot be drunk.
Come lie with me
in the dark.
Let me inhale
your breath and
taste your sweat.
Feed me the uneatable.
Drench me in
the undrinkable.
My mouth is dry
and nothing will wet
my tongue except yours.

Cheshire Moon

The Cheshire moon sat just above the trees,
a perfect sliver of crescent,
points turned up to heaven,
so very much like your smile,
I could see nothing else in the night sky.
My hands snatched the corners of
night's blanket and pulled you down for a kiss,
scattering sequin stars
like fireflies around us.
Moonless night will miss you,
and send marching constellations
to force your return,
Close your eyes, press your face to my neck.
Let the night be so black
stars can’t see their own way.

Candles

In the darkness you sit and cry
For dawn’s arrow to pierce the sky,
but never strike the flint on steel
to flame the tinder to reveal
a man hidden in midnight blue,
and his hands which reach out for you.
There is true word in all my verse
for a blessing to end the curse
As well in the dark I may sit,
but I know how your candle's lit.
A candle bright is burning fast,
the night is long but will it last?
The answer sought always depends
on candles burning from both ends.

Beautiful Boy

BoyBeautifulBoy
Infant who climbed over my shoulders
Boy who ran over the roof like a goat
and through trees like a squirrel
You fell in my pond and didn't touch
bottom until the other side.
BoyBeautifulBoy
Carried the world on
a ten year old back
Never stopped
Never looked back
Made of concrete and steel
BoyBeautifulBoy
You brought pretty girls
Like a proud cat
leaving a mouse on the step
Worked like a Trojan
and never kept a dollar
BoyBeautifulBoy
If I was your island
in your sea of grief
You were my gem
found shining on the beach
and now you are a ship
sinking beneath the horizon
Dressed in green
with a black beret
BoyBeautifulBoy
I hear the pipes, Dannyboy
They call you
and I want to
stop them with dirt
and beat the man
who uses you so poorly
BoyBeautifulBoy
Let me hold you
before you leave.
Climb over my shoulders
and swim my pond.
It is the strong one's
turn to weep.

Borderland

Borderland is a stripe of soot and gray
where souls loose traction
fighting the long slide's last twist.
Terminal of the train to self destruction
and all points beyond.
The last ledge before the drop off
into the black forever night
where nothing escapes
but hollow wind and the sound
of cracking bone.
Transient town of half hope
where pain is a dull roar
in the ears drowning out the alarms.
The streets crowded with
the lost and misguided
brought here by chanced misfortune
and their born weakness,
where I see you today,
lost among the lost soul draggers.
Why follow me here
only to be pulled into the black
and destroyed with me.
This demented rescue
will destroy us both
like a fire on both sides of a mountain
racing to the peak.
Your ignorance will kill you.
A dip in the rinse water
of my corruption
would age you ten years.
I may fail
or I may return to the light.
It is not for you to know.
If I go over the edge
you will tumble behind me
If I return to the light
I cannot bring you with me.
While time allows,
leave, now.