ecce caelum

behold the photon that carries hope,
a scattered shard of dawn that waves
from the sun,

on high
& so very
far away;

one of a million minute things
that coalesce into beauty;
strands of a sensory hymn
that sing

sweetly
& so very
softly.


*
the morning mourns
in its own lovely way;

the soft dew weeps
and grey clouds linger,
but sunlight sings
and butterflies flutter by.

it is time to wake up.

last rites

extreme close up: the girl called ugly. fuck, she was beautiful  once, back in the land of milk and honey. she danced in circles of her own composition, cued by a maestro unseen. she carried the radiance of heaven above. we dared to dream.her own hands have made truth of the lies. she is a bag of bones, dried daisy left to wither under the scorn of their flaming eyes. they have tried breathing water into the desert of her flesh, letting the aqueous hope flow through tired veins.

i think it too late: her lips are painted with dehydration's pale hues, splintered with a garnet lacework. a grandmother's lines edge the death of her eyes; she ages as paint dries. i did not know it was possible to eviscerate youth with a look and a touch, but cruelty's anvil has done that much and more to her slender frame.

the stranger will come in the night. i cannot deny the dies iræ waiting on my lips. the tears are dammed by the bloody rose of rage, blossoming with thorns, tearing at myocardial muscle.

she flutters away. the thorns dig deeper. there is no vale for the suicidal, there will be no bagpipes, no flags lowered. this war is not acknowledged, her death passes unmarked. they always do.

Children of the Supernova

I do not comprehend the pattern of stars
etched upon my eyelids -- will they shine
or will they fall? Lucifer was brightest
and I am no angel despite my lies, just
a child walking blind in the great Before,
the world before your pages brought Dawn.

The world does not understand Dawn.
They think of roses, prismatic stars,
not understanding the dark moment before,
the miasma a prelude to the supernova's shine,
the moment we abandoned everything just;
we fought for things that shined the brightest.

I do not suppose I was the brightest,
though I'm not stupid -- I slept through Dawn
and let the beautiful moments pass, just
unhinged, walking through blurry stars,
unable to decipher how exactly they shine.
I lived for the moments to come, the minutes before.

But never the present, before
I knew nostalgia, I knew days, brightest
of all these many years. Moments shine
through, blissful memories, but expectations dawn
with age, our 'success' kills the stars
in our skies, in our eyes, we just --

We die. We die. Perhaps it is just,
we cannot speak the words we spoke before,
lest we incite our unholy idols, stars
that never were, exhalted and brightest.
We were never satisfied with Dawn,
she is too soft. Our lights really shine.

I wonder how these tired humans shine,
so buffed and polished and pruned until just
the 'beautiful' parts remain -- until it dawns
upon their faces, the breathing man they were before.
The stage-lights might shine the brightest
but they are no substitute for the stars.

I was destined to shine -- that was before
I knew just what it meant to be brightest.
I embrace Dawn, flawed as I, but both stars.

Somehow There's Still Sunlight

for Wayne and Lori Earl

i. 

The dreams come to me in the coldest hours of the morning, when I am covered in blankets, and even with the heater blazing, the marrow in my toes is frozen. They are not lovely, they are not beautiful things, but black phantasms from tartarus that wind through my ribcage, making me cough and cry and ache. 

Today is day 1193. God help me. 

I know that I am supposed to sleep. I know that I am supposed to wake up. But my life has largely consisted of the middle way, 100 million odd seconds of haze, arranged in long procession. Oh my dear, I have taken the long, low road through death’s valley, where rock formations create strange shadows, prismatic vortices of hell’s miasma when viewed through the persistent film of tears that will simply not leave my eyes. 

That, love, is a moment, a second, a day like any other since you left, blurred beyond recognition. I do not begrudge your release, for I knew your hours dragged on, fire and ice plugged into your skin, veins hoping for sustenance, but finding only vain and empty promises.  

I do not begrudge you your release, I only wonder when my eyes will dry; when will I be able to see the world without your light?

ii.

They do not tell you that, eventually, everybody goes. Yes, they understand pain, until the pain drags on. They have loves, and they have lives, and after a while, one becomes a blossom in the forest, a pest-gnawed wildflower that will either live or die, and is of no concern. I have managed to weather the seasons by a thorn’s breadth, I have managed to keep on in this quiet stasis, excruciated, but alive.

iii.

Perhaps you don’t see the sunlight in these dark thoughts, but I promise you that it’s there. Dawn is not instantaneous, and indeed, she marches with slow regiment and staid steps. There is a certain sturdiness to dawn’s first light, a sturdiness that I still aspire to.

I fail, in most moments and on most days. My heart pumps in retrograde, and my eyes look back to the brighter days with rose lenses and a dunce’s cap. 

I have worshiped your memory with a simple stupidity, failing to see the complexities inherit in a beating heart and electric mind. I have brought you down to my level, and made you about me. I have been selfish in my pain, and needlessly cruel in my depression; to myself first, but to others too. I adjust my glasses and curse Retrospect her perfect vision.

I confess my shortfallings readily, but it is harder to rectify them. You will have to be patient with me; allow the sunlight to filter through my leather skin and iron defenses. 

I am not selfless. I am not even good, most of the time, but I remember being better, reflected in the cerulean of your eyes. And that, I think, is the message of my pain: my world was better with you.

But now I must function. I made a false star out of you, and now I must recognize true sunlight, dim in comparison, but honest.