Even if you go
there will always be an open door waiting for you
that leads into a room with roses on the table.
The person who I am when I’m with you
will be dashing from corner to corner
straightening books on the shelf
washing the dishes
or when it’s all done
sitting at the table
with pen and paper
seeing if what he feels is a poem.
I won’t be him
as I walk back into a world without you
slipping out the side door
but I’ll feel him there:
a weight in my pocket
or a catch in my breath
made of hope tied into a knot.
And every passing shadow
every rustle of leaves
will give him life
as he waits and wonders
when you
Now you’ll feel time rolling and slowing, warm dark
minutes far too heavy for hour hands’ push,
sinking down like teabags in water, wrapped round
us as we settle
into one another. The bed beneath our
backs might close around us as fingers curl, clutch,
coiling legs twined, doubled: a helix twists through
covers we haven’t
bothered moving. Now, when your sleeping breath drops
smoky, sweetened thoughts on my ears, I steal past
open lips to bury my dreams beneath your
tongue, like they’re treasure.
I had a picture book of Ancient Greek
mythology, on which I learned to read.
Ask me my favorite books today, I'll speak
of it before all else. It was the seed
of these nine sonnets, and my fool's desire
for epic hero fiction and romance.
Damn finance, law, computers—I aspired
to chivalry and trickster tales, to dance
and martial arts. But this, I wanted most:
to find a princess at the dungeon’s core
who’d laugh defiance at some villain’s host—
who didn’t want a rescue, but a sword.
One thousand Helens later, now I choose
one Atalanta. Sing to me, O Muse.
love settles on my heart
like snow on a night without wind
clustered crystals curving my sharpness
muting the crack of leaves below
here, your footprint or your angel
will feel like the first
compressing raw flakes until
they're tight as the claw in my chest
and there you'll be
long after the snow has melted
whether you go or stay
this space is yours
Ancient Chinese Lepidopterological Prayer by lula-vampiro, literature
Literature
Ancient Chinese Lepidopterological Prayer
in ancient China they thought insects formed from condensation
seems legit
that might as well be the source of prayers
formed in absence of any kind of
organized religion in my brain
lightning arcs across the gray damp
chemicals rattle and fall into rows
for an instant I hold your image
like a rainbow, then it's gone
on a grass blade somewhere
closer to you, the dew-spheres shake
roll and tumble downwards
but there's a gap where the largest and warmest sat
she's hatched now
the prayer's wings uncrumple
like balled paper in a loosened fist
and her antennae stretch from spirals
into feathers, combed and stroked
and thirty thousand rays o
I hid my true love’s face in a castle on a rock
its bailey was blunt and chapped and red
like a sunburn, mountain grass licking its base
I built an arch for each memory of her
shaped like two cupped hands
outlined in geometry but hollow
asking us in
it wasn't until I built the last room
that I realized I'd neglected to depict her
I wanted to
her image was every thought I had
but none of them showed her face
I couldn't remember
I didn't know why
years later a cleric wandered through
after I'd been lost there for years
tiling the walls with rose-dials
ivy lattices
every color and shape but hers
and he complimented me on my work, actua
You startled me in class this afternoon.
I didn't see you sneak in down my spine.
You caught me like I'd fallen a swoon
(it's weird to say, because you caused that cline);
and then, with you within me, then I knew
that I was pretty much gone, out of class,
to morning in your arms, to nights held through
as tight as a reflection to a glass,
and then you moved. So my heart moved in tune,
through every bone and country of the world,
and through your lips, to every ring and moon
of every planet in your soft arms curled.
If you'll just tag along inside my head,
I think I might as well just stay in bed.
I gnaw my heart like others bite their nails:
unhinge my ribs, then rip it from its frame
and hang it from my jaws. This time, it’s failed
to calm me—probably because your name
is written on the pericardium
in inky, sprawling cursive. I can taste
the change in what I am that you’ve become.
My last resort is prayer; so, unchaste
and frustrated, idolatrous and proud,
with Sappho’s fire burning in my joints,
I beg your arms to wrap the head I’ve bowed.
I beg you to forgive what disappoints.
I’m not afraid to tell you I’m afraid.
Here’s hoping you’re the girl for whom I’ve prayed.
maybe in the future they will find a
standardized format with which to store lives
they'll append it to you once you're dead
like a file extension, .via or something
and then you'll be able to open it
in whatever program it is that future-god-people
use to review other people's lives
or maybe it'll be mechanical, like a microfilm reader
that image is more romantic
but less probable
anyway
lives
you look at them
there's a search function so you can find the good parts
(sex, usually, or possibly organized sports)
and experience them for yourself
standardized
sterilized
so you get to be muhammad ali and knock out george foreman
but not get pa
And shall I pick the grapes of your regret
over higher orbs set just beyond my height?
Earthbound by sorrow's vines, shall I forget
the farther, brighter parliament of night
that winds a trellis wrought to bear Orion?
I'll snap them with the sickle-hanging moon;
then, pressed in verses, fruit of the divine,
I'll breathe them while you sleep to ward your room.
I'm now alone, but rhyme might dedicate
tomorrow and tonight to intertwine;
and if I wait, our minds could constellate.
We'll taste on linking lips an astral vine.
So fill your cup with skies and words and hours—
I drink alone to you: the night is yours.