If you give me a softer edge
I will believe in your touch
For in the grasp
Of a summer day
I remember all these dreams
And I can hear the buzz
Of the honey bee
Singing in my ear.
But if the edge continues to hone
I’ll find my sharpness cutting knots
Deep within my root stricken back
Holding me to gnarly strength.
I am the fire
Should I be struck
For I awake within my heart,
I am the dirt
That crumbles with
A slipping fist no longer clenched
No longer fighting back.
I don’t want you to remember me
When you see daylight searching
Over twilight’s shoulder,
I want birds to scream bloody murder
Through their washed out faces
Long callused like knots
Grown out from tree trunks.
I want you to document my every step
That lives deep in the mud
Like you would document a nightmare
Scared of even breathing
For danger it would incite the demon
You most feared.
I don’t want you to remember me
For in your memory, icy cold
Shall rest my name, sworn.
You know you were my everything
I tied two knots to secure
I had clouds in every step
And then I floated on.
You became a ghost of everything
I saw your shadows down the hall
I closed each book with tear stained sheets
And then I sang my song.
You let me handle everything
I knew it was your way
I signed my life upon the dotted line
And to you I said goodbye.
You now have yourself everything
I see your stones and leather shine
I broke away and floated on
And now you don’t have me.
There’s a knot –
Like lost balloons
Or flipped garbage –
Building.
It’s animosity.
Uncontrollable
With aggressive voices,
Emptyness
Berzerkers.
A team of it
And I’m not
Turning around
To acknowledge it.
Should you have rolled me into that pixie white gown?
I laughed with the mariners first touch of ground.
Fire is a gentle nature and this is my bed,
Candles sing songs lingering on into eve.
You are the nature and I am the dreamer,
I am the weaver and you are my story.
My delicate folding showed my illument back,
Stark in this darkness which I escaped into dreams.
Your seaman’s hoarseness upon my plumped, splayed curls,
Changing hands with a thousand dusting fairies.
You are the nature and I am the dreamer,
I am the weaver and you are my story.
And this morning dew and fog brings adieu,
Seaman cold thunderstorm, restless I blow the wind.
Boots go away knocking: your only whispers I can hear.
Untying knots and a lover’s foreign spices.
I walk my freedom with long bold steps
– Passionate about underlying rocks,
Saturated in air; fluid, full, exhilarating –
To my captures edge: sin and sorrow.
“DEFINE MY PATH!” From the tops of my lungs,
Knocking at doors of suffering madness
That tied these knots upon my bare feet.
It’s a long walk along hurt’s path,
A long breath to hold, withdraw,
With destiny, located amidst rubble.
It’s a long walk to freedom,
Blistering sores and stained reason.
Along my gall’s edge I protest,
Along gall’s edge I step,
And in this path I do not quiver,
I do not shake with torrent sadness,
For to my edge [my sin and sorrow],
I stare with will, my choice and I,
Into the void, my current’s capture,
And let flow from the tops of my lungs.
Begin with a knot
Crank it
Pull it
Yard it
Jack it
Yank it
And hold it
Now repeat
Without your whispers
And late night, late night
We wouldn’t be here
Tying this knot