sacred datura blooms only at night
wisteria floribunda vines trees intertwines
hands interlocked look
break broken as in bone
no, heart know pain
look in your eyes my eyes evening rain
lilies stay sky restless stars
can’t close my eyes close enough for skin to merge
no, meld no, melt mate soul garden
garden leaves leaves a piece break (again) heart
time is merciless angel’s trumpet
was it dark no, shadows night scented
orchids uncovered gates no, gardens (again)
hover over no, around circumnavigate
no map apart recombined time curves in
carved out bone femur rib
jessamine & cereus
nothing locked in stay
burrow under dig into soil soul
seeds nestled i will not fall over you
this reality hasits own noun sounds sighs
speak in sighs soft petals written beneath our skin
my darling
If you look at it the right way, all the world is a garden
What the wind carries
The field off Lividakion glimmers iridescent gold
eyes catching moonlight as cats hunt in the tall grass.
One jumps to the stone wall, regards me, discards me,
licks its paw. This is a ritual passage each night
from village to bungalow. There are few streetlamps,
but I know my way in the dark. I follow the scent of wild
sage and fennel washing down the hill’s southside, teased
along by isle winds, those memory bearers, mercurial
in their offerings. I round down deeper into shadow
where fruiting fig blossoms the air with its leaves
and ripening flesh, at once sweet silkcream then bitter
and herbaceous. Beneath, there is another scent
that carries me to other twilights with fireflies rising,
I breathe you— vetiver, petrichor, the moment
before it snows, rice terraces outside Ubud, the polished
wood of De Clijne Taefel. Your skinscent lingers,
quiets my feral blood, circles and rises, mixes
in the slipstream, rustles grasses, searches
me between inhale and exhale, another kind of home.
Ode to peculiar beauty: On reading Clarice Lispector
Her glamour is dangerous. Be careful with Clarice.
It’s not literature. It’s witchcraft. ~Benjamin Moser
Clarice kills her darlings, leaves
them on cold kitchen floors
for others to step over on the way
out the door, or the window, or become
statues of water, flour, & plaster—
Sometimes she leaves them in a corner
to observe what’s happening as if
from a distance— but not really, they
are thoroughly involved as the being
and doing of existence. Still, a vacuum
pulls her words backwards into black
holes, doesn’t release them until
they have compressed, jumble, and stutter,
only then are they worth listening to—
arriving as a parade of sapient buffalo
and monkeys, chickens and cockroaches,
creatures who suss out the dark work
of her syntax and DNA – we are left
a cigarette dangling from her lips, every breath
a burning away, something falls into ash.
If you want to find me, follow the scent of mandrake
the finest fruits are at our door,
new delights as well as old,
which I have saved for you, my love.
Song of Songs 7:13
How would I bring you to my door?
Which route secure, by root employ
with its peculiar form, its strange allure,
the mandrake purrs and whispers
with tenderest concern, offers itself
to me in service of love’s uncertain turns.
Do I take the rootheart’s word? Trust its virtue
to demur death and only slow the slip of time,
of mind, into oblivion, just one more kiss,
a touch of lips to mandragora’s lips, sleep eclipsing
the chasm of hours until you feel its pull?
Or suppose I risk, not sleep, but wakestriped
dreams from draughts that spin and hallowsea,
solus ipse, spur the wild mind, tangled vines,
release untamed desires. Such possibilities
arise and linger, my threshold perfumed in petals
of this flower, symbol that love endures—
every part a portent, a potion, a portal
that all seek hold in you, that grows, ever
steadfast in the wake of absence, that enters
dreams and visions, blossoms undeterred.