happiness is a warm gun (bang bang, shoot shoot)

she's not a girl who misses much.
she's well acquainted
with the touch of the velvet hand
like a lizard on a window pane.

happiness is a warm gun.
happiness is a warm gun, mama
when i hold you in my arms
and i feel my finger on your trigger
i know nobody can do me no harm.

Habakkuk 3

though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,
yet i will rejoice in the lord,
i will be joyful in god my savior

eden

Come!
Cross over the threshold!
Enter the garden!

Play!

Leave your clothes
and fears--
whatever keeps you
from knowing your self
and God.

Feel the velvety leaves
of African violets
nudge your milky
skin.

Shed the darkness
you grasp,
Savor the succulent
fruit of goodness!
Come satisfy your
naked self
with God.

For I am Eve
and you Adam,
We are the raw
roots of the
tree of
life entwining,
reaching deeper
inward
into
Light.

Worship

worship often takes place in the
shower, when the steamy droplets sink
deep into my opened pores and wash
away my tears, and sins.

and prayer! it happens when i look
closely at my naked body, lathering it
with soap made of milk and honey,
and i am naked, and alone,
and quiet for once
before god.

On Inspiration, and Other Things

I gather you to my side like
ten thousand sparrows, your
tigerlily beak chirping loudly
of unknown motives: (unknown
to whom!) In the dawn's lap you flutter,
dance your twiggy jig, lure me with your
beady eyes; between your
carrotted beak you hold a
corpulent creature: your captive,
my inspiration.

Ashland Starbucks, November 3rd

Frosty autumn evening:
the cafe is decorated with
book readers and newspaper
browsers and old companions--
and the rumpled woman in the corner
strikes up a conversation with anyone
who'll listen:
she could've had a hysterectomy,
back when they were popular.

A Fucking Love Poem

Curious hands tangle
in tender curls, a sea
crested upon eyes that
see beauty beyond reason
and know the life that exists
beyond these mountains and
star-crossed skies.

Enveloped in warm
limbs and crazed kisses,
this moment lives
and we are masters of
a lost art-- creating stolen
time and forsaking light.

Fascination abounds, and I
accept your call for innocence
and complication masked by
the raw virtue of love.

This song shall choke me
anon, but now it resonates
against the mighty pines.

i drink your words (II)

I drink your words like champagne,
the crisp bubbles gliding
down the curves of my grin and
yellowing my opened blouse.

I drink them to get drunk,
to ease my fears and all
the reasons I hold on to you.

I drink them alone,
in the secret of the dawn,
their pale pallor glistening
the color of the sunrise.

September Sunrise

my eyelids flutter at the sun reaching
with spindly fingers (through the glass)
to remind me of you--
your journey into my room
to whisper (to pray) your love
into my unspoken dreams,
to beg me not to let go,
to hold on.

A Parenthetical Romance

In the dusty lights we
enjamb our way through
opening lines, coax our
way through commas, clumsily
obey semi-colons stops to
wet our parched tongues; your
eyes peer parentheses at me,
and we place the period at
the end of this sweaty
love poem, erasing
the dangling dash that
kept us pausing for
breaths--

Arriving at the final line, we
utter the printed words of
romance, then live between
the lines.

Ocean City After Midnight

You're thinking about the traffic
lights again, he said, and I nodded,
knowing their halfhearted
expectancy, their dwindling hope,
their loneliness.

Sonia Sanchez

*
come windless invader
i am a carnival of
stars a poem of blood.

*
i dreamt i was tangoing with
you, you held me so close
we were like the singing coming off the drums.
you made me squeeze muscles
lean back on the sound
of corpuscles sliding in blood.
i heard my thighs singing.

*
you too slippery
for me. can't hold you long or
hard. not enough nites.

*
i thought about you
the pain of not having
you cruising my bones.
no morning saliva smiles this
frantic fugue about no you.

*
1.
i am dreaming
i have spread my dreams out like wings.
i have selected today a dream
about flying and i take off
sailing on your blue smile.
for today it is enough.
2.
all this year
i have heard
my pores
opening.
3.
i have told
you my name
so there is
tomorrow.
4.
see me through
your own eyes
i am here.
5.
let us be one with
the earth expelling anger
spirit unbroken.
6.
we are
only
passing
through let
us touch.
7.
come again inside
me let us take another
turn at loving.
8.
i hear your smell
running across my threshold.
shall i hold your breath?

*
I gather up
each sound
you left behind
and stretch them
on our bed.
each night
I breathe you
and become high.