Threatened

Your greatness I cannot embellish
Like most conditions that upwardly
Paint the staircase to their cave.

For I assign you no body. No armor. No pretension.
This time, vanquished is your magnetic gaze,
Perfect charm: ironic is this phase I curdle.

Electric confusion highlights
The sting of the unsigned message
Transcribed by the clouds:

“the Entire…”
& it may eclipse my attempt at nothing.
It may be an empire propositioning me.

Private sleep: impossible belief;
You were supposed to be a man
I never questioned.

Yesterday, I handcuffed the sun:
So all that is willing
Can rise from the shadows that I exiled.

Possibly, A Valediction

God gave you a muse & you’re killing her.
Her wings are drenched, exhausted.
The feathers try to try to crawl but they’re not
The imperative, conscious elements.
Understanding the burden you bare,
Through divination & your heart,
Is what I’m here for:
I cast little spells of poise & amity
In the beautiful enchantments given
First to poetry:
Here it settles like a bird,
Transient sojourn,
Cocks its head, coolly & departs into the wind
With conveyance.
This hurricane you’re rearing, be careful,
Summon the weight to the crux,
Or drown all will in sorrow.

The Tomb

The tomb I’ve been building, this fragmented studio
Where I compose, wonders of its destiny.

The voices outside are dampened like a distant stereo
Dragged out across a violent rain

& if all that is said is really to me,
What is this message that doesn’t have a human face

To come inside my place & talk like old friends do,
Warmly & over tea,

Openly & definitive.
I could never leave this project in its incoherent state;

I must enclose these walls & light a match
Or tear them down & find anew assignment.

My privacy is a huntress of its own ingenuity
But often times has long pauses

& forgets what it was doing.
Can anything be simple, can anything be free

If it struggles with its own sense of truth
& continuing ability?