the tears of san andreas (impromptu for the day we give up and sleep)
We cut our dreams into the epidermis of night
When we sleep, our feet descend into the waters fathomless
A child knows that the ocean is dark and opaque when the sun sinks.
We hold no fear
And pay no wonder
Yet when our lids submerge our eyes- desires sink
and pass under the surface, without clear foresight,
downward
When I dream, I cut little pinholes into the flesh
of summer heavens.
I scramble up onto the the ridge, over the isthmus
and up toward the heavens. All fours
and giddy, the surging passage of my adrenalin
the dazzling iris of Orion
the feel of dunes under my rough and regretful palms
and still I scramble upward.
I smell the winds
blown over from the Philippines,
I hear the world whispering to me
above the throaty gasps of the storm
When I dream I suffocate:
your hair is the Pacific depth,
the lick of midnight,
the dark brine in my nostrils
fluttering against consciousness
When I dream
you are delicately tripping amongst the driftwood
you are a sweater beyond the dazzle of the flames
a bird of paradise washed up on the waterline
a pod of vanilla cracked open and lilting
And I breathe you in slowly
once, and again,
rhythmically inhaling you, your memory and promise
consuming your essence
which my daylight heart dare not
When we sleep, our feet descend into the waters fathomless
A child knows that the ocean is dark and opaque when the sun sinks.
We hold no fear
And pay no wonder
Yet when our lids submerge our eyes- desires sink
and pass under the surface, without clear foresight,
downward
When I dream, I cut little pinholes into the flesh
of summer heavens.
I scramble up onto the the ridge, over the isthmus
and up toward the heavens. All fours
and giddy, the surging passage of my adrenalin
the dazzling iris of Orion
the feel of dunes under my rough and regretful palms
and still I scramble upward.
I smell the winds
blown over from the Philippines,
I hear the world whispering to me
above the throaty gasps of the storm
When I dream I suffocate:
your hair is the Pacific depth,
the lick of midnight,
the dark brine in my nostrils
fluttering against consciousness
When I dream
you are delicately tripping amongst the driftwood
you are a sweater beyond the dazzle of the flames
a bird of paradise washed up on the waterline
a pod of vanilla cracked open and lilting
And I breathe you in slowly
once, and again,
rhythmically inhaling you, your memory and promise
consuming your essence
which my daylight heart dare not