chicken colors

 chicken colors,

Borisanti 9

the gutter of babylon

night, a dark corner behind the dive

the whispers say  Listen..

   your colors are off

vulnerable greens, decisive reds

  How long will we wait?

a year

  A year, they said

a year to the day later,

all according to plan..

we are the smoke in each other's lungs

the instant karma in this in\carnation

we made each other up

when we had no one

folie a deux and figments

of one another's imag\in\ations

i sang to you

gave you names

grew a field of green

a river to cross

a fort deep in\side the universe

where we come together

to touch

this is our palace

seed-like in form and function

every step it takes to find this place

requires a certain kind of devotion

every mark, we make a memory

every song, we say a spell

dreams we dream in unison

secrets from another side

what one remembers is reborn

into the other's eyes

listen..

saw her pass just as she did

held her in my mind

   Exactly the way you held her that night

an ear to her chest

   mistaking my heaving for  her breath

and trying to give her

mine

the stain is still there when you drive down that road

Visions come in black, white, and red

banging your head on the wall in the shower

trying to make this one end

but it awaits your waking, grows stronger

and more repetitive

ice glues the door shut for two days

the noise won't stop

either this thing is coming

Or you're bringing it on

and if you are calling it

what's sick in your soul?

She's the only safe place to put love

that you've ever known

so you choose to believe that you only saw

what kind of person manifests such a thing,

after all?

you fly fourteen hours

to see her face

you sleep nose to nose

for three days

then she's gone

the rope is red also

stings behind your eyes until you see

this will only stop if you make it so

so make it so and let it be

you sleep on the beach

with a blind dove in a box

everything coming at you three seconds behind what feel like thoughts

it's dangerous and stupid

but this isn't where you die

because there are no rocks

so you dance like fire

to water the spirit

to grow the heart

to feed the soul

fall up the stairs

fall down the stairs

lie on the ground and swerve like a snake

open your lungs and doors and windows

and sit inside the shadow you make

lay your head in wildflowers

what's left in the great highway

when the water is black

and the air is still

statue down in the corner

and kill the lights

just Listen

when it cracks

like an inside joke

be sure footed as fuck

in stone cold kindness

(The only qualification for perfection is impossibility. This only means that one must learn to let go of all that has passed without bias, and to have faith in the eternal mark experience leaves on the psyche to propel one forward effortlessly. Even the best memory is a fog over the field equal to, if not thicker than, trauma. These holy moments are the hardest to release. It can take a lifetime just to recognize that snake in the grass.. the lurking embodiment of "Good Things" which strike once, perish, and lay festering in the way.