Secondhand

I didn’t think to sell the slice of fabric

melted to the frets on the

breast plate of the instrument.

It held down the magic,

went murmuring on,

even made millions of excuses for the

dead beat notes knotting up the back of the room,

killed the mood while the moon

went winking on like an insane drummer,

drilling beats until the death of that first kiss

was drawn in the notes of the song.

The tiny thing I hated, it fit too perfectly into my house,

the little bird that broke and bent me with its breath,

singing it loved me, lovingly played me,

a game graced by the hand of a blindfolded girl.

The final fret grew thin

and gave way, so the belly-up beast departed.

I stayed – simpered and stewed

in a bed of glass and gave the game a go again.

Now damask the eyes of my opponent,

a tuxedoed cat, over-scented and strumming chords,

raking leaves to cover the graveyard of the last.

Tell me, lover, what will you do with the rhythm of the years,

the past, the tears amassed?

August Fading

I don’t want to feel any more.

Sever the nerve at the core

of its viny plain.

It deserves no more attention,

this scar that erupts,

a patina of memories,

revealing my palate for dust and dreams.

I slice through the torpid vein.

The blossom falls,

departs mother, wind,

all tomorrows upon the ceiling of the earth,

immerses itself in silence,

voices fading across the chasm left behind.

But I still feel,

soles of feet plunging waves,

the guitar pick that fell from his fingers,

charcoal curves upon my thighs,

when I whispered an arc across the satin void,

eyes searing through my lashes

and Vespers burning into my heart.

The tangle of ash and music,

it’s all a mess, a web of fabric, sighs,

laughter, love and paint streaming down

my face. Photos burning, screaming, tossing,

making love, a veil of passion shred into slivers of light.

Prisoner

Stillness from head to toe.
My dream, the pivoting of his head
a premonition,

I bite my lip.
The red river flows south
to petals guarded
by fractals of lace.

This fabric prison I writhe in.
Untouched softness,
pleading to a deafened God.

I have not seen him.
Apparition of my lover,
convicts running from each other.

The fields are fast
and rip to shreds the pallor
of my limbs,

while cherry footprints in my wake
shield the trampled life.
A dead leaf affixed to my crown,
wailing queen at the gates of a thorny heaven.

When the sobbing ceases,
teardrops crackle into drywall
crevices, a wall upon which to write.

Cursive scribbles in an ancient language,
long dead and stewing
in the cauldron of the heart.

The death of night
shoots rays of light through me,
my dream now lanced by dewdrop arrows of morning.

One Evening

This is a poem that a very special person wrote for me yeeeaaars ago. But the poem rings more true now than ever before. He originally wrote it in Spanish, so he did an amazing job of translating it to English for me as well…

It’s been a few weeks now

since it takes me every morning

trying to decode you in the

look of your eyes and in your voice

that i’ve never really known

how much you have told me and

how much you haven’t and

how much is only what comes to my imagination.

How true is that step into your open parks

and the fresh shadows of your pavilion?

And then everything would be answered

by that evening that you’d give me.

Even if it’s only once.

Between loves and distances

and dreams with no substance

and everything that hasn’t got to be .

Erasing from the picture the clothes

that you wear on your rumor.

I could look myself in your eyes

if you loomed up all the way here to me;

If you gave yourself one evening

just one evening around here.

If I had just one evening

to abbreviate myself in the murmuring

voice of your fountains

one evening for two, one evening forever,

for the evenings that haven’t been

and for the evenings that you won’t have to go.

Only one evening of your life

only an instant of your youth

only a few hours of your hours and getaways

to the possibility of a mutual encounter

so we get to see inside of each other

a possibility that you could turn into reality.

One evening that you gave me

any evening of this month or the next

to take a long time trying to take you

once and again

applying with my lips on your lips of song

the ballad to the encounter

of the summer with the flower.

Who would have you one evening

to walk you, to run over your roads,

and the shortcuts of the fields on your skin,

lovingly traveling through valleys, mountains,

water springs and flowers,

conquering your plains an entire sunset.

Just give me any evening

and I will turn myself

into a song on your lips.

Procuring and surprising

all over the sunset

your most beautiful smile

if you let me know yourself.

Your Song

As I listened to your song I felt watery; my cheeks soon became wet and feathered with salt.
I couldn’t feel anything but the guitar strings connected to my pulse and the surge of your voice that I was certain would never truly caress my ears again.

A lifetime drifted along each note and faded into the light.
I felt the brevity of your fingers on the chords and knew that this mosaic lived on the canvas beneath my brow, never to breathe outside the veil of my lashes.
I closed my eyes so it would thrive.

Your voice floated through blackness and became a collection of bright flecks on the velvety fabric of my mind, tangible only on the precipice of sleep.
Even the stars envied your music, which tethered me to earth and contradicted my fleeting moment.

Each time my eyes parted, I closed them more tightly to keep you inside.
I feared that if I opened them I would find the end of a dream that I preferred to life.
For what is life without laughter, sunrises spent whispering between the sheets and long nights reveling in the beauty of music?