ink flowers in a paper vase

through these pages i have thumbed
(see my history of paper cuts)
to look for flowers in vases

but all i've found are crumbs
of feasting kings or sluts
and questions in reluctant spaces

i hawk by day and owl by night
i tread the bare bark of trees
to hold the limits where

i hang upon the breeze
and nail my solemn purpose there:
find the words or lose my sight

restful on the page

words graze like carp
restful on the page

the shadow of a hawk
hurls them into
desperate cycles
of crowding and scatter

an old hand waves
with sinuous rhythm
the rod and twine
to animate the lure

ripple and blur lulls panic to the horizon,
curiously silvering around a delicious ...

BITE!

I can idly

I can idly bide time
pirouetting knives on thumbs
or wrestling crocodiles
in ponds for crumbs

but for all these things
inside it is the bee that stings
to contract the fleshy brain:
my barnacled heart

here the wretch convulses
between paper cut and paste to
salvage gallions from impulses
and dredge my rainbows dry

against internal brine
the whale thrusts at the wall of air
to find metaphors there
to leave the carcass behind

theirs is sleep

theirs is sleep that sleep now
in the non-darkness of an african city

where the sky is bolted with promise
to a history of poor delivery

dreamers enslave flagpoles
to ceaseless wave hello

while distant rumble is not rain
but blocked drains far below

optimism of sunflowers unquenched
sprouts to gaze at passersby

and a ruby river steady flows
against pearls of the evening sky

through the trapdoor

velvet clowns line my streets
like rows of bouquets
stitched onto tarmac sheets

buildings reach like quills
to scribble on the sky
birds sprung from window sills

cotton pillows blanket the moon
the sun is lost in traffic
I shrug and escape in a balloon

"Fragile.", she whispered
and pointed to me.

"But I get to choose."

"You've seen so much," she smiled,
"it's over for now."

Her hand held my face,
"Your hand is mine, give it to me."

She kissed my palm and died.


--

Images intended to emote a response. The challenge is the right ones, the right order.

"My rainbows are worn."

"My rainbows are worn."
"Watch this.", she smiled
and with her brush
painted a thorn in my side.

"Now I've nowhere to hide!"
I ran for soap or rain
but slipped and broke to surrender.
She offered a knife for the pain.

Whatever the wound
I knew it would stay a while.
Her gift glinted in my side,
in my hand. I smiled.