Not quite me

That was wrong, what I said. My words

Stumbled over themselves. Just a flicker caught in slurred

Liaison. I wish you could see my eyes turned upwards

In the light like a sunset slightly blurred.

She dances, that mirror with no pain

Breaking away from me. Just within my shying reach

Lies her land. Maple woods’ shade hides its glimmer all lain

In sandstone on the tide forgotten beach.

Remember me. It’s only dreams

Gone awry in wanting. Just fragmented songs of lore

Lost in fears of red-eyed horses. Never what it seems,

She’s a merrow running off to the shore.

You and the night

The votive candles wake in dust.

I am a grove as a cusp of hands

Folded for you, a dying well too stubborn to rust.

Cradled in waiting is, this, my burdened love descending.

A distant shrill stops my eyes’ rippling pools with fires

Bound to cryptic minds of traveled lands

As a lament aspires.

Now it’s just you and the night.

Shadows cast over the carpets crush

Traces of steps laid, contoured in ever-breaking light.

There’s a room round the corner in open façade lending

A still beckoning struck in a hermetic piano.

Ghosts grow on the oak wood thick as thrush -

A dear beansidhe soprano.

Outside, some fattened groundhogs

Sleep under the grotto, a repose

Unknown to paths swallowed by lavender and hollowed logs

Over sacred ground. A tree with a birdhouse stands bending

Down to my humbled song. With you in my reach, I’m silent.

Before you, my words wilt as a rose

For not enough time is lent.

Never let my prayers rescind,

Nor linger in the moon’s shadowed loom.

Frosted willow branches tap to an impatient wind.

Still I watch the light, trapped in mirrored windows, ascending.

Gleefully lost in the pull of a labyrinth’s throng,

I tire of rain when orchids bloom.

I dream of you at the dawn.

Beat down limerence

Your song caught me in the limestone church.

A hope it was your mirror

Pierced my sleeping scar.

Stuck in weathered tar,

I believed your worn cantor,

False tales of gold barley and birch.

The fountain steps grow cold as I sit

No longer waiting for you.

But still you can haunt

This, my dream crazed taunt

Under your spell, all in lieu

Of my desire in kindled grit.

I danced to the beat of your mirage,

Falling short of your eye line.

Breathing sand gave pause

To your clearing cause.

I rose your fretful, prized swine,

Breaking down your crippling image.

Your voice echoes no more in my breast.

I listen for silent chants.

For only here will my soul find rest,

Snared in the waking.

A knock at dusk

In a spring wind, a butterfly taps against my window with a harsh fling.

I look to the pages who cast me to the wall,

Blooming dust in their tease.

Laden breath can’t appease

The weighted stones of my feet to cross the dark hall.

No, I dare not even turn my foolish eyes to see the clip of his wing.

Responsorial in minor chord inverted

You have been waiting for my confession,

This dear mortal sin of my transgression

Against you. I’ll not keep you from your hunger satiated.

My sacrifice you’ve anticipated.

I am the reason your piano is flat and out of tune.

I prayed for silence, for my harmonious theft opportune.

I caused the violin strings to lie still.

I am the weakening in your aging voice’s strength and will.

You can blame me for the mold on the wall,

You can purge me from your heart’s withdrawal.

Let free the cracked and chained ceramic angels on your mantle.

All the rusted picture frames will crash in this, my dismantle.

I am the thick dust on your evening clothes,

For I am the closed and locked door; the death of your friendships’ oaths.

I’m your persecutor, the cross you bear.

I’m the tempest fair.

I drove the crooked scalpel into my chest.

I learned to sew the scar; it was too young a test.

I am a thief, dear mother, who robbed you of your fame, your fantasy’s fight.

I’m your restless sleep; I killed your dreams in the night.

I restrained you from mounted sermons; you would have saved the souls of masses.

But cursed are my deaf ears and my lame lips. I am your dead Lazarus.

So you trapped me in the tomb and deigned to damn me.

In the dark, my hands brushed sharpened stone knives and my eyes were breathless to see.

You crushed my lungs and blamed it on me, the possessed.

You tried to throw the devil into my obsessed

Thoughts consumed. You spun me into your dancing black abyss, and for a time

Locked in your anxious fears, I tried not to hurt you in the hell of my mime.

I’ve slain the doll of me and cut your string of words.

I have nothing left but me, and across my back the memory of swords.

In pale dawn, there is a me I do not know.

Seeds you failed to sow.

The chill of the memory of your rain,

Is only the rising warmth of my morning dew.