Summer’s Salts

There was nothing but summer there,
daydreams and miracles in ragged hills strewn like teddy bears 

with seams ripped open wide, thunderhead cotton exploding out
thistle in the sky, songs in our mouths.

Every inch of river new as I
carving curves in banks like exercise

        

The sun hid behind the moon
bashful it’s radiance could not compete

with eclipse-red lips, sundresses

breeze brought kisses and big sunglasses…

 

And hitting high in the afternoon, there

were we, strings, vibrating

and still,

hot

air

 

nothing could touch what was

so full; 

humidity so thick

and bosoms

uncooled

and souls, how we beamed

in the half light of the interrupted sun

we came undone and back again

and saw ellipses in holes by pins

 

the friends,

they know 

how slow summer feels,

with drips beading and falling from behind knees

and bits of cotton that drifts from tree to tree

and me, I was completely taken, and given back

so I could do it all again with similar results:

riding green sloping hills on river’s edge

and sweating summer’s salts.

 

 

What makes people tick?

We’re all unique in pulse, pattern
syncopated ticks
in cacophony,
discord,

wild metronomes

pushing blood around

to the sound

of thumps in the night

sighs

to slow the rhythm

we can’t manage,

clocks to give us unreachable regularity

at such a steady pace

that impairs our confident and independent stride.

   

Tame tempos that suit your temperament:

largo, presto, adagio, allegro.

You’ll grow in cadence,

with licks of ocean tides,

join the crickets,

find the choir bellowing

tones in your bpm,

dance with winds

that make barn doors rattle and clap,

laugh until you’re out of sync,

ride the brink of gasps

fluttering and trembling

your throbbing core.

 

That cardiac pause looms,

eternities of pendulums

hanging still like retired drumsticks,

eminent windless dark…

Time does not stop at death.

It endures without a beat

to move with,

a paralysis of pulses,

no sound

to measure

breaths drawn.

 

So at dawn, arise!

March to your drum,

inflect and step 

into your OWN time.

 

 

 

 

 

vibrations

vibrations

in perfect sync

with the quiver

of my cells

every pluck

my heart swells

guitars, harps,

ukes, violins

banjos, cellos,

mandolins

they all sing

with their entrancing strings

matching the pulse in me

trembling

harmony

Reverb

when you touch those strings
for hours after it reverberates,

adrenaline shaking me delirious

like holy spirit epileptic manifestations

in the aisles of your rhythmic temple

romantically cleansed in the murkiest of baptisms

                         

you sing,
and it carves me hollow,

scraped clean, empty,
guts and seeds, stripped bare to the rind and lit up smiling

   

every note

standing hairs on end till I’m a forest

lost in the bewildering wilderness you croon

these heart wrenching choral confessions

that unfurl in wooden ribbons

from your oaken diaphragm roots,

rising up and out, scratching and grabbing air

growing into every open ear,

holding attention boa tight

your gnarling lyric branches

weaving through every orifice

choking the sun with sweet darkness

 

 just keep me captive

tethered and chained to your next word,

my lungs asphyxiating

in the black ink lagoon

you’ve spelled your lines and measures with

I’ve got it bad, this malady of your ballads

I want to manifest all your everythings

tie myself in strings

and set myself between your knees

the devil will believe me

             

I want to zip the flesh down from my neck

peel back my ribs and beg for another hit

your bow, in viscera slicing strokes

each horse hair cut, gut weeping enchantments

you play and we offer blood

I’m not sure who’s sacrificing

but I’ll give anything for more

there is no coming back to real life after this

this narcotic need to feed on

more scores

 

Dazzle Drive

Headlights dance on the diamond shoulders

a sparkling jewel encrusted belt parallel the interstate

an epitaph of accidents

of rear-ends who have seen too much action and torn rubber

of lives shook empty of their glitter

How this tragic twinkle makes a dazzling spectacle

perfect in unison with the concertos in my car

Meet-her and Rhyt-him

That song in my head

was your whisper in my ear

that started a quickening beat

in my chest

foot on the bass pedal

thump thump thump

tap the hi-hat

wait for the pause

then a swell,

overwhelming,

of strumming guitar

an ambient eddy of liquid velvet

suspending me sideways

rustling my strings

into sublime vibrato,

my keys,

pulsed into rhythmic refrain

pound the chorus of angelic proclaims

the stick, drumming the taut-skinned head

with rapid licks

and pounds like bricks

your fingers on that neck dancing wild,

every extremity, defiled

with harmonic tingles

carrying every tender decibel deep inside

Dreams

I want to feel the effervescent foam of a symphonic tide crawling up my toes

 

 

 

 

I want to be a fluffy tuft of dandelion, carried to the heights of foreign landmarks

I want my ears on a string that I can cast into a quiet room and let them bob on the silence until tranquility takes hold and pulls them under

I want to be possessed by the ghost of effortless decorum

I want to be a crescendo in history’s most astonishing symphony; the one where hearts hit the ceiling and the well within the listener is spilling over with awe

I want to be a flock of blackbirds that fly above farmland, darting uniformly in multifarious directions. I want to be the whole of the flock, scattering myself  into pieces to briefly rest in branches.

I want to live in a prodigious towering city inhabited with bright minds that are employed by Common Sense, inc.

 

I want to be bound and strung up at the gates of the city with barbed wire wrapped in baby’s breath and cherry blossoms

I want to inhale gravity and excrete it until I’m weightless.

I want to be the prognosticator of white lies and summon bees to sting the tongues of the tellers

I want to burn memories into the climes of my mind until embers fly, so that when I wake, perspiring, the scent of romantic ash fills my panting lungs.