Theater of Sorrows

Blood Red Flower

So you
You made it through the fall of grace
Summers winter dressed in black lace
The moonless sky
The wine gone sour
Your crimson fade –
Your last hour
Were you
Contemplating philosophers
Chasing lines that became blurs?
The well ran dry
The soil turned dour
Your veins… your canvas –
A blood red flower
Drowning in your self created obscurity
Wallowing in your false poetic misery
Reflection in a crystal pool of impurity
Gulp perverse like it’s a fizzy tea…
I opined
Eyes shining backward; It wasn’t you
Sprawled on the floor with your soul askew
Retching demons
At the eleventh hour
Too late… those veins –
A blood red flower
And history through the magnifying glass
Blown up like balloons in a circus parade
Put your mess in order love!
Gather your words that taunt sweet dreams
Rhetoric, sentiments, explanations, expletives –
Nonsensical cigarette ribbons in stale air
Stitch your wounds with barbed thread and wire
Stop pulling ghosts from your wretched seams
I paused
Watched you in your garden pondering
The gears grinding in your mind wandering
Stench of illusion
The weeds devour
Merlot veins… like wicked rain…
A blood red flower

Desert Soul

I can’t grasp my breath, can’t see its shadow
Unwrapped by a thousand gasped cuts, razor sharp
That have punctured the sun
I can’t feel my fire –
Inhale its spirit into my souls desert
Permeate my chiaroscuro and my greys with scent and color inbetween –
Pigment alchemy in this carved indigenous wasteland
Where is the water?
Where is the water?
Where is my thirst?
Where is your thirst?
I’ve lost my counsel; Spinning stars tilt the sky, leave me with convulsing eyes
You say I should seek the wisdom of your elders –
Feather and sage in your hands to send me on my way
I am stravaging your red road by moonstone –
Between thorny tumbleweeds, cacti spurs, mica shards
Amid iceberg caves with screaming visions
Dreams of twisted symbols that solicit extraction; Meanings in motion, poured
Dousing dust, rusted sockets, and dead roots
Stones turned reveal cliff notes
Braided vines to scale brail canyons littered with corpse histories –
Reach the inclines leading beneath tangerine cliff overhangs
Where messengers shape what speaks within each seasons almanac
And your eyes welcome me, urging my sight toward the promise surrounding me –
Bones restrung with succulent thread –
It’s sinewy, linen web glistening with knots of perpetuity…
And thus, an unfolding; A spewing cornucopia
Birthed into this dry, wretched, sun-cracked inertia
All of this mealy precipitation baked into my veins, like cracked pottery
Having been left in the chimera too long
Ah, but, firefly particles weave dandelion seeds in the thin-veined air
Delicate reminders that burst like ice crystals on the sun –
Or sunflower petals in your mischievous eyes
Pearlescent and balmy
And my riddles are diffused, take flight on the bohemian wings of gypsy moths
I breathe again my ancient secrets
I know each curve and pattern, each trace and continuum…
Rushing through me
I am nothing
And everything
My chamomile eyes flowering

Garden

When its time to exhale
Give up my last sweet, sad breath
Let my eyes swim in the comfort of hazel
As I greet my death
When its time to travel
Time to leave the sweetest lips that ever lied
Let me keep your scent, your voice, your touch, that angel face
As I say goodbye
Don’t gather all those clouds of woe you’ve always loved
Tend the garden; Coax the seeds to grow –
I’ll be watching, my favorite memory
Let the angels trumpet, sing their symphony…
Please know that although we had our trials
Heartless moments of violent pain, and choking denial
Dancing in the living room to the music of our tears…
My favorite place was always with you here
In our dark, spongy cocoon; Fire wounds soothed beneath a pale, lavender moon
When its time for goodbye, don’t worry love, I forgive
We don’t need to explain to anyone why –
The dark, the scars, the pain was ours to live
Can you stay until my eyes fade?
Can you touch me until my skin grows cold?
Can you finally smile for all the memories?
Knowing that we will live on for eternity through poetic words that will be told
Don’t gather all those clouds of woe you’ve always loved
Tend the garden; Coax the seeds to grow –
I’ll be watching, my favorite memory
Let the angels trumpet, sing their symphony
I’ll take that with me
Keep it with what was true
While I wait patiently –
While I wait for you
There are things some just can’t understand
Absinthe dreams, morbid petals and silver vines
Even after time is ground to sand
I’ll breathe your breath while you breathe mine
Pregnant moon-womb of despair –
Silky tears drip in our hair
But I’ll blow a kiss into the sky
That will meet your sweetness there
Please forgive me
That I won’t be with you
When it comes your time to travel as the blackbirds fly
But I’ll be searching for your angel face
With a lovers smile as you reach the sky
Until then, don’t gather all those clouds of woe you’ve always loved
Tend the garden; Coax the seeds to grow –
I’ll be watching, my favorite memory
Let the angels trumpet, sing their symphony

Let the angels trumpet, sing their symphony

Angel Trumpet: Bell-shaped flower that has an intoxicating smell, but is deadly, belonging to the nightshade species, having poison in all of its parts.