departed the wicker squall despite its towering despair came the hallowed sun rising from a newborn east begone, you frozen lapse set to rhythm—one, three, five calculated areas of dread voids following metric syntaxes our tongues, dipped in silk our hands, wrapped in fire time stilled it’s beating heart and for a moment melted in us slinked away this cruel night did, afraid of the bone-dry rattle echoing across a knife’s blade straight through open windows

fresh snowfall hushed the air your name touched me in places i never imagined they are shut tight in rooms across from a benighted dawn echoes as loud as time make the world slow its spin and a day’s cadence finds us in past storms of a persistent voyage shake these bones with fear push and pull, there’s no difference if forward be the motion burn every secret to the ground only a key remains, my gift to you unlock this door and set me free

Cherry Chipotle Mead. At 3 am. Totes perf.

Crowd Sourcing—How To Write

As an American writing a piece set in a Scandinavian-ish setting, would grammar dictate I use the native-learned “gray” or international “grey” to describe a color? Oh, and this isn’t said in dialogue.

[Note: the narrative predicates that who/whatever is telling the story is not, inherently, American, but that the writer of said piece is in fact—and neither particularly matters, except for a basic understanding of continuity and authenticity of content.]

hidden to the outside world i seek polyrhythmic voices where secrets are interred winter draws a lasting breath two by two, a solstice’s arc rippling the reflecting pool patience becomes a vice settling debts of stolen time in the currency of memories

my words are like sneak-thieves coloring masks of a pale winter all debts, settled on arctic winds this chill leaves no survivors my walk eats miles and years recorded by lonely dusty roads ghostly limbs tremble cold skies this tree refuses to be felled

i dreamed of two silver strands like rivers, they flowed infinitely taking with them east and west the past, present and future— perfect for each of their tenses all frozen in amber, preserved karma is a chamber of secrets, i opened its door upon waking

assured streetlights bright frenzied dust and chalk breathe like a fire untamed they gather and converge break into pores savagely of all the tonights vanished this march does not end mad aches and cold sweats demand repayment in blood a fellowship forged in chaos

a late season fog spreads like fingers across the skin cold waxes reluctance under a sightless moon pregnant with hope

leaves on the wind tell stories of death autumn’s cocoon opens in darkness winter is a butterfly spreading its wings

threading the eye of a needle the pupil, apt for discovery, savors its sickbed of spindles slams shut the stitch tight— blindness, blunt and steady, measured in circadian tongues concentric and vast, is a milieu of beauty unaided by light

Poll question: would it be a conflict of interest if, say, I was the manager of a residential delivery service and there was an attractive woman who was considered to be a VIP account that constantly ordered with the business, that I may or may not ask out on a date or otherwise night out on the town? Inquiring minds want to know.

the black rose still blooms at night a dozen years defined by madness and the staves that fell silent there is no music for this montage each scene, a careless choreograph of scars forming tattoos of my past they trace the steps yet to be tread touch becomes a meaningless word but for the ashes left in its fiery wake echoes of sirensongs fill my bed, make woodsmoke of capsized ships and a mouthfeel tacky with brine aged in barrels adrift on lost seas treasure chests line the ocean floor each bearing maps of forgotten cities the mornings unfold with discovery and black petals resting on my tongue

outside the narrative, beyond a script my name is alpha and omega, it seats three; life, death and dreams my mind is as gunmetal as the horizon a labyrinth of unspoken desires weaving mysteriously across a lifetime my heart becomes the city at night, seduced by an invasion of darkness a pair of headlights glow in the distance alone at the edge of self, frost settles a terroir—that time, place and season mitochondrial, where i begin and end

tonight is the birthing pang of winter settled deep into the bluest of my veins her laughter exhales the widest sieve a mouthpiece for every piece of detritus the way her sun deliberately invades me these haunted limbs make labors of love casting intersections with crooked nooses from which ghosts of our passions hang delights of a seed which take no root akimbo at 1 am, i’m ambivalent as memory

the year split like wood under an ax slivers, seduced by sharp edges a forest reduced to lonely stumps they follow the silhouette of a breath embrous to the touch, still glowing still chasing double-edged dreams where immortal time drops on tongues tasting of colors suited for bandit youth a flavor unfurling like a smoke trail open to the sky, swinging a hammer by ichorous dusk singing for blood the time has always been right now a lone stalk reaching up past the earth

I miss you guys terribly.