brilliant love

If I could dream of angels,
and I could kiss the stars;
dreams be made reality,
and life become a dream;

if I could see my lover;
her darling emerald eyes.
Why, just one look would hinder
all the world's lies!

Sonnet for Alaska

There is a song that blossoms in my brain
a melody I cannot push away,
she weaves her way into my heart, the pain
that taints all thoughts of love with sharp disdain.

The song is her, she is the song that kills
each synapse with a memory that shoots
the equilibrium, my body heals
around the lacerations, blessed wounds.

I knew that girl, hamartia, skin --
at least I thought I'd memorized her form;
the smoke and dust that filled her from within. . .
can anybody truly know a storm?

The chord, it lingers, God on the sustain;
my heart, it seeks the north, her old refrain.

Ursa Minor

I tried to paint a sonnet, sketching the outline of a little bear in rigid meter and unforgiving syllables, believing that starlight could be channeled into couplets and narrow verses. But you are bright and absolute, defying the curvature of gravity; growing brighter as the years pass.

I want to see you in sunlight; to see your shadows and heartbeat in three dimensions. My pole star; angel descending from the new moon, you must be real; but come as a petite messiah, unresting, lifting my crosses; giving this serpent's heart the ability to defy gravity for a couple hours, with a starlit smile and aegis words and arms that never fail to light the road Home.

You will always shine the brighter; lodestar for weary pilgrims who walk desolate halls. I would shimmer next to you, small and insignificant in your corona, just strong enough to keep you spinning straight. I pray for the strength to carry your black holes, so you might shine brightly for the journeymen, small and insignificant, who look to you.

Yes, that would be glory enough.

elle danse dans les fleurs noires

there is a waltz
here, sustained
long after harp
and string and song
have returned
to the stardust
whence they came.

the natural things
continue, oh harmonic ballet,
death begetting life
ad infinitum et ultra;

but there are
certain dark things
that linger, a thread
snagged in death's robe.

but who is god to deny
this little girl's dance?

she dances on.

High School Halloween

This is a high school halloween
here, nightmares and fantasies be,
things that most people never see.
Downright wrong, most parents agree.

The thirty-first is a weekday,
this is a high school halloween
the playboy bunny's out to play
looking for a roll in the hay

witches, enchanting, wearing nothing
bees buzzing - boys grab their stings
this is a high school halloween
do girls' mothers see these things?

"Wear a modest outfit this year"
the school threatens with dress code's fear
nothing'll change; we'll still see rears
this is a high school halloween

For Winston and Julia

"Katherine would die, and by subtle maneuverings, Winston and Julia would succeed in getting married. Or they would commit suicide together. Or they would disappear, alter themselves[...] get jobs in a factory, and live out their lives undetected in a back street. It was all nonsense, at the both knew. In reality, there was no escape." -- George Orwell, "1984"

it’s knowing that something wrong,
and instead of trying to fix it,
you just live a life of freedom,
covertly breaking unwritten law,
but still outwardly loyal
toward the system.

it’s like carpe diem
but it’s a bit more drastic,
because each day
might truly be your last.

your mind
is an open book
to the thought police
and you’ve committed worse
than thoughtcrime.

they’re waiting for you in room 101

at the ministry of love.

Love Does Reign, On From High

Dawn, blessed,
looks over the crevasses of the world
and frowns, a metallic dirge on her lips;

the scent of hemoglobin rises,
a cloud of iron obscuring
the angels that fly
hither and thither
with goodness firmly tucked
in hand, in heart.

She wonders, yet again,
why she has loved
and lost
all of the precious things.

But Dawn is a violet,
curls of forgiveness arising
from her crushed heart.

You may not believe,
but I still see angels.

The Playful Grove

Tinúviel,
I am not.

a little less pretty,
a little more fey;
a bit less serious,
more willing to play.

We are surrounded,
completely safe;
forget all danger,
let's misbehave!

Si Je Verrais la Mer

If I were to look upon
the ocean once again,

I would
see your eyes
in the glittering water,
your smile in
the cresting waves;

the warmth of your breath
in the sun's fingers,

your voice in
the gentle wind.

If I were to see the sea
just one last time,

I would not cry.

I would not
cry.

certain dark things: i leave the dark behind.

she calls to me, the morning long desired
and i would go, to hell with all the vows
so spoken by these lips, by night inspired
and sworn by stupid desperation, now
my leave is taken, i am not forsworn,
what difference: oath or lies? my words are words.
i put my own self first, i am not torn,
i am no martyr, man; the thought's absurd.

heroic man who hates himself, i can't
pretend to be that boy who dreamed of death
i have to love myself, you understand:
my life is precious: measure out each breath.

if death will be my end (oh heav'nly lie),
there is no need for treasure in the sky.

he is a failed phoenix

Today, a pretty girl asked me

"hey, zach,
why don't you read
your poems out loud, or try
to share them in something more
then embedded CSS and tired ASCII

don't you think that
maybe people want to year your voice?"


Before her, there had never been
a single person interested in the
frequency of my voice; in ingesting
the poems that I bound about my ribs
to keep them from cracking, cold
in the sangfroid of this SoCal high school.

Oh, I had newsprint and empty praise,
but who really cared about what I had
written and why, or what thoughts passed
through my mind? Who cared about me
on a Saturday night,

or when they were being kissed
by boyfriends and girlfriends;
being loved in a special way
that I never was?

People have always praised
my humility in passing --
They shouldn't, it was just
a stupid fear of speaking,
of being, of drawing
a single photon of somebody else's sun
as a spotlight.

the only thing
the really hasn't changed
between eighteen and twenty-two.

I am quieter than I've ever been
and the poems don't come easily,
and even the empty praise is gone.

Who cares about me now?
they have college degrees
and wedding rings, and they're
too busy popping out babies to notice
the insane poet who never even had a heyday.


I hate the clarity of retrospection,
because trying to be something now
feels like I'm making
pointless noises in a language
no longer spoken.

I suppose this is nothing new;
I have always been a strange man
in this strange land. Maybe I'm stupid
for wanting to show the right colors
or say the right things, or do
whatever it is you're supposed to do
to fit in with the normal humans.

Goddamn it if I don't want to try
something; and put 'better late than never'
to proof.

But hell it if I didn't look
dumbfounded at her, i couldn't say --
I didn't say -- anything,
as usual.

I'd like to make up a happy-fake ending
to this poem, and make it sound like
I made my sun rise in the east--
if only just this once,

but no.

back to basics

back to basics.

forget the
poetry.
forget the
music.
forget the
clever.

forget everything
that separates me
from humanity.

poetry and music
cannot embrace me
as nicely as
a pair of arms.

i need to be
held and loved
so i can love.

i need to be
loved.

butterfly

vois-tu 
l'arc-en-ciel?

Walking
hand in hand,
through the cramped
streets of inner-city Prague,
through a downpour.

tes yeux sont
le soleil d'soirée

my heart rejoiced,
my spirit felt so light,
I thought I would be able
to float on the air.

t'es un papillon
mon papillon...

you walked
a step ahead of me.
framed against the horizon,
I could see
your wings.

she was summer, the mystery of those daisies in her hair.

perhaps you are
that precious dew,
the lifebringer,
precious sensation
bringing life
to what died
so long ago.

i delight in masks
the lie of purity,
the indecision resting
upon a pretty girl's crown.

she will
come tumbling
down.

can
you catch
her?

will she love you
if you do?

summer's fair

she was cotton candy.

Zephyr twisted an amber lock in his fingers, she didn't seem to mind. Walking as Galadriel at twenty-eight frames per second; Summer was a cloud when wearing her white sundress

Her fingers knew how to hold a baton, conducting a lento waltz that moved just a little slower than society's toxic lullaby.

My heart was caught.

I wanted a kiss, but she just wanted to know what color her tongue was.

right ascension

for e.e.

When all is right, I wander back to you,
my smiles becoming stoic lines again.
I wonder back to when your eyes were blue,
when possibilities were wondered through.

All these nostalgic wounds opened afresh
(I wonder back to you, wand'ring again).
I see you in the stars and in the mesh,
in space and faces, everything precious.

You are in hope, in science and romance,
in everything that'd give you life again,
in chemists' notes and all the masters' chants.
I wander in a moment, at a glance.

They say it's futile, and it is, perhaps,
for you are dead and gone, I wander maps
of spirit, stone, and pain. I don't collapse,
I wander back to you, wond'ring again.

galadriel.supernova

“i am a servant of the
secret fire; wielder
of the flame of anor.

you shall not pass.

(the dark fire
will not avail you,
flame of udun).

you shall not pass”

adapted from j.r.r.t.


i am light, fire;
the moment
that matter and antimatter
kiss
passionately.

my skin tingles
with oil and gasolene,
but he
is dead tinder,
enough to make

a beautiful conflagration.
and i cannot imagine
a cold life;

apathy's chill
is
death's kiss.
and I want
to live.

even if
each moment
is a
millstone,
i will
embrace
this
joie-de-vivre.

wait, what?

this isn't life,
or joy;

my skin is
charcoal,
the sky is black

diminished,
broken,
but not
cold.

the secret fire burns within.

pensées d'âge

now the leaves are falling faster;
i am a tired old man, hiding
in the skin of a white boy wondering
when spring will come.

it makes sense to believe
in the natural progression of time;

but i have seen the flames of summer,
flash-frozen in winter's acid rain
and left to be buried by autumn's leaves.

when will the roses bud?
when will i be young?

euclidean

trapped,
in paper paradoxes and questions,
used to teach, not wonder

tracing reflective polygons,
I wonder: how many cracks
make a heart,

and if it’d be better
to stay square.