In the morning I trace the lines
of blanket wrinkles recounting
the sleepless hours
and disappointment blossoms in
the gaps of their disconnectedness
marking the absence of
meaningful constellations
and the emergence of a void
that swallowed potential ideas
Stars dotted along the spines
of sleeping giants made of sky:
the cosmic dreamers, nebulous,
carrying the burden of a million fires.
Words are unbroken
but the chain is locked up
in the attic of misunderstood distance
once polished glass now milky, blind
windows to the soul
behind layers of dust
treasures unburied, still unfound
letters dissolving, unread
the chain of words turning into a snake
quietly slithering away
disappearing under disused furniture
A dream of poets in space,
a song
of painting the universe:
an excursion gone wrong,
a fatal crash flashing across
the story halfway through
and poets learned to navigate
coordinates in strange new terms,
the singers croon to cable sparks,
painters smeared in machine grease
appear from the ship’s bowels
giving thumb-ups to the ragtag crew:
disillusioned but stubborn artists,
officers with broken bones;
the ship half gone,
writing a story twice as intense
Sacrificing afternoons
on the altar of books:
stacked to midnight heights
and blotting out stars,
pages catching the sparks
and through the burn holes
there’s a glimpse of dawn.
I want to climb into the trees that are your palms, a cat slinking from wrist to fingertips, cradling words of summer into the sun-baked wood of hands holding books like torches in sacred crypts, delighting the long shadows with whispered tales of warm wind rustling through the hair-fine leaves dusted in afternoon gold.
All the words in the world and still
there are trees
littering the creases
of parchment elbows
resting on tired old tables
dreaming of old libraries
in ancient worlds gone.
Embraced by thunder: your hair
is lightning
and the pressure squeezes the sorrow
out of your ears.
starfishskies 