Floodgates (vingettes about water and death and my father)

etchings on the bedroom
window
beckon...

Lost voices in the moistened
air
my 8 year old fingers
traced their lips
hopeful smile
to eradicate
the evil
spirits
they slept
in my closet.

The moon behind the eyes
they were open.
someone to witness
me eaten whole.
my childhood soul
stolen
like eggs from a basket
like pie from a sill.

The moon would protect me
fell in love on an astral plane
wherein his face
always looking the same
vague; dreamy
like that old film
with the spaceship
lodged in his eye.
how I longed to be there
on air

my small hands
trembling, drawing
fine lines, learning
to work the moisture
into lines,
landscapes, waterfalls
dream villages in space
where I could soar away
from my father's voice
calling from the closet
"come soon, son."
and those red eyes
in the sooty inky void
my clothes, rock and roll
t-shirts and 501s
my dreams
but beyond the seams
black hands
always waiting
always wanting
always taunting me
from the
black space
unrecognizable face
will I see you when I sleep?
will you know the man I fought so hard to be?

Paige turned
old photos
burned
in the twilight
ash and sadness
of the past
evaporating
like liquid
glass.

Darling, you don't ever have to be afraid (we could be ghosts)

I could give in
but its a trap
the jaws snap shut
clap closed
but
is beautiful anyway
anyway
and anyway
way over the day
its rainbows
and emeralds
and skies
bluer than
sapphires
with our hearts
like candy-colored
coach rides
into dreams
reflected
in the clouds
I'm from...


(smoking cigars on the back porch
chairs creaking dreams leaking
into the sky full of streaming
skies now are open
my heart is hoping
will I be everything
or be unspoken
the windows
are washing down
the coral
is twirling like
a whore
visibly lost
like a corpse
without a name
(did I mention I see you when I want to?
What on earth do you think I am standing here for now?)
you can be the hero to swoop in
at the last minute
because you have to
the cape fits
nothing sits quite
like the featherless angel
that you are.
Nothing is quite the
same shade of silver
saviour of animals
aflight on a glimmer
as the stars are
when we kiss
like the pain
that erupts when
I am missing you.

The Boy with The Books and The Boy with The Paper Orchid

Its a long corridor
and the lights are low
and the sound of the creaking
from all the floors below
signals change in the spirits
if you listen
you can hear its
hiding in the basement
and the closets in the hall
and the spaces that seem
lost to time
it seems as though
the wooden panel
reveals a toy piano
with an everlasting flower
when commanded
on the hour
it plays a song for you.

"Could I run this far without my love?
throw flowers from a distance?
you laugh and sing
and in the spring
we'll watch the color
change the trees.
you and I, just
you and I
my love."