I wrote once of leaves,
And their death as they do fall,
To plummet from such tumbling heights,
On nothing but the winds’ wistful call;

I wrote how they would glide,
From branch, to breeze, to ground,
And I dreamt of such vicious things,
That await their rustling sound;

I saw how they would wait,
With a sickly sort of glee,
Readying their tools to bite and drag,
When they knew it could not flee;

A young woman who loved me spoke Welsh to me;
perhaps she was lying in her own language, but her kisses felt like truth.
She held me as though I was the brightest pebble from the river,
hard in her hand, close to her breast; she did not let me go,
I fell by my own mass, by my own gravity, not back into the river
but onto the dry, yellow ground where all I owned was
the little half-pit I made in the dust, and that wasn't really mine.
No more Welsh, no river-ripple, just deep-dull, lost, closing,
heartbeatless, truthless, sleep.

he said black was soothing
an intensity of nothing
he believed in it
and i suppose darkness
if wanted
can make peace
with distressed souls
until they claim a higher distinction
and call it Christianity

i don't think he believes
but he said
something must exist
for him to survive

strange how people do that
believe in a god they can't see
not a heart they can feel beat

rumble
the night brevity
cast eyes along the porch
of delicious ache
you hurt
we bend
and slender the dusk
pools in our handfilled
lust

chill dreams
savage in the pain
the eager breath
and the minute hand
sweeps on delicate
scented wrists

satchel portions you weep
me through the grave hours
when stars fulfill
our eyes
and we taste the bitter sweet
of our poison

feeding on ravaged
shelter