Stained ink on worn leather

Slide down the curvature of symbol

You know how I scribble on anything here, there

 

My scrawl

A sip

Chug of your dark brew

Inhale of the deep forget         you are my opium

 

Holler     sometimes screaming

And the angels hear you

 

Whisper and they still do

Upon the Ground of Gabriel

 

                                            we float

                                            he will not let us fall

 

These are the secret words         you read

Nobody knows you keep them

                                        Come

                                        Come here

 

Come quickly if you can

It rides like citrus bound to rawhide a scent that may fade

Before you taste it

Pull pulling you

Come home

 

            the

            dark viscera of someplace

                                    fecund soil

                                    be the river

                                    unbound

 

This River twists

Contorts and confuses the city

You disappeared into the deep crevices of the Dead Pine

Then further, you retreated, coming to rest within the Cedars

I too sink back into the granite within the sea caves at negative tide

This is exile self chosen

From here I speak to you, tell you everything

 

Come when you can no longer speak
Come when the glands of spirit suffer from malnutrition

 

I too have hungered

Have fed on the cicada shells

On the letter that never arrived

A mouthful of tule fog

On the perfect nothing

Expired visa

Emptiness

The lost rhythm

Where the Salsa is not fun

Broken swan whistle     hollow

                                     Where not even echoes return

 

Tell me my Familiar

You know

How I have risen from the Red Delta

From the filth in the rivers, from the undeniable

Echo of the tight alleyways, where I leaned against cement

Unstable many times

                    too much

 

I keep laughter in my pocket

And now         your presence this side of the hour has me unhinged

 

You unbraid me

How can I even lean or buckle

Release the softness you remember so well

Yield

In all this upheaval?

I don’t dare crumble now

 

This is vertigo

And if you look

Very closely you will see me- head tilted         listening

Looking very closely at the visible invisible beings         shadow         dream

 

We are also

What we have lost

As we stumble into grace