a mass of meat, a corporeal congregation that jostled & nestled uncomfortably amidst soft wooden pews. remnants of the lives of trees taken by grandfathers, fathers & sons of the bodies that gathered. trees logged, planed & crafted while being inundated with a stream of holy utterances & sacred mutterings. requests of forgiveness, answers to calls of duty, whispers of love & tearful promises of devotion navigated through rows of tombstone teeth to nest on trembling timbres.



knees touched. shy. under coy lashes & the influence of wayward glances they quietly withdrew, in the friendly yet wholly seperate manner that they often do. beads of sweat flecked otherwise immaculate figures/frames that mirrored the idols lining the walls.



still the doors were open.



the lovers spoke & sang their song. as briney globes & worshippers alike gathered with crystalline precision, tensions fell & tickled unclad feet. a veritable sea, pooling upon the floor along with passions, fluids, moist garments, inhibitions, preconceptions & misperceptions about the nature of things, the veil that seperates wanton eyes from the haves & havenots, the holys & the profane, the greeting of lips that replaces the one we always imagined as the epitome of love & the fleeting kiss that yet now flickers & glimmers in the dim reaches of our distant memory.



men speak often of the collision of worlds. with flaming eyes, frothing mouths, swollen tongues & gnashing teeth. blank minds & whitened knuckles bare, pulled so taught the gentle tug of a breeze threatens their grip of flesh on flesh. what lies at the joyful division of these worlds is the unraveling of fortunate minds, the undoing of meek hearts & humble souls.



























ae.

i was content.

save for the absence of a familiar voice, a tell tale trail of words, strewn, scattered. causing to sway & list in their wake the tiny strands in my ears a warm wind billowing a clean sheet winnowed from the bed. wet cloud borne singing its ancient song through branches trunks soiled linens on the line. sliced by a million green blades that leave no mark upon bare feet. feet worn smooth by a thousand caresses a thousand kisses. blessed by gnarled grimy palms/fingers & cracked tear-stained lips.

so instead i clung to my pillow. a poor surrogate. tattered. all lumps & misshapes. a ragged bag of meat & bone that at one time i guess looked like you. & under cold light & the dark that hangs precariously above all of our heads felt like you if i tried hard enough long enough/is enough.

i was content.

my clumsy left hand felt its way through a maze of hardened, dry flesh & found the one thing that seemed yet alive. blood flowed no more through/from the heart instead pooled between these trunks of stone on which once i had planted roots of quartz, crystallized & stood tall. my warmth was all i knew, all i needed. was all. i was content. for who needs more? i came on my stomach. i left it there, but wiped clean my hand. i let the cracks in the cold granite of my temple imbibe/reabsorb the life that lay there til it had turned cool cold coldest & clung to me like moss. creeping even now towards any last bastion of salvation. though so salivous lascious salacious holding it closer than the holy beads on your breast. i slept restlessly. awoke to what i thought was yet a dream dreamed what i thought was yet real...





(bleh)
















ae.

gold flecked leaves that would not travel with the wind. you kissed them there, as they lay, full of wanderlust & empty of longing. i can't remember now, it's not so clear to me anymore, whether your pink & chapped lips brushed autumnal remnants, harbingers of short cold days, & gave them over to a death only slightly more dignified. like rich & sickly kings in forgotten moth-eaten robes mossy keeps & crumbling empires, you gave them over to rot, sedentary, solitary in their multitude. to rot, but not without a little glam. rememberance of days a little, if only, more resplendant. my grasp on the past is feeble.

forgive me.

maybe perhaps it was the masses of wet leaves, gathering together their last meager bits of glory, the tiny delicate whispers of life still contained in their wracked frames, that gave unto you. collectively, never forgetting greener days. they recognized in you something they themselves had. have. will always remain. looking back now i think they found you a kindred spirit, their ephmeral lives given over to yours.

forgive me. my mind is tired as my body is tired as my eyes tire of searching for meaning in the mundane.

but i can't help thinking as i rot in my throne that the kingdom you gave me was never my own.





















ae.

(experimental stream of consciousness)







we only own the night lets pretend its never ending never bending to our will yet still it seems appears by all means to be but let us see for we shall and we should not for yours but our own good nights and mornings bring sun and lighting our shame we never knew a song a hymn softly hummed in time syncopated though it was with the rhythm of the stars crying over our heads we danced in the lawn and hid in the trees dug pits for our dirty bones and covered them with leaves to be found to be lost maybe perchance to give way to others we know you are out there though we shant see it with you our love stays grows rewinds and expands upon ancient exhausted futile philosophies writ on stone tablets cuneiform hieroglyph and each grain of dust indefatigable in its relentless pursuit to destroy to wipe clean the slate of our being endless though it may seem to be crucial it may appear as a need it may seem to be right lest we forget we only own the night.



















ae.

"i sold what i had to the demons at my back
in return,
they traded for my heart all those things that i lacked"

my baby told me once when crying so full of shame.
saying not evermore, at no finite point in time
could to her trembling universe be laid claim.

a head full of stone
a heart full of lead

lust.
desire.
sloth.

dread.

all those vices we must.
please, oh how can we? can we take this all,
all too serious too fucking swimmy in our brains.
wouldn't i rather gambol after a soft man across listing grass sea plains

drift amongst flotsam. flowers fragrant coloured serene.
distant. disguised from ancient beasts.
so it seemed.

but this happened in my other life. seen through others eyes.
i would. i should've. i couldn't had i tried.
to overcome. to oversee. to make slaves of my bidding.
these demons.
yet even now i find myself,
i find myself sitting.





























ae.

the spaces in between the smallest of our constituents can only be referred to by indirect means & insecure methods. by men in clean white coats & pale, sun-starved skin, blasphemous practitioners of black magick & ancient apocryphal amalgams. circle logic and Babel. towering nonsense & staggering genius.

my tongue swelled & in my mouth tasted of bile & yesterdays idle thoughts. words that hadn't gone down when i chose to swallow them mingled with the meager lunch you & i had shared earlier that day. all grease & bitter. all ill at ease & stutter. i slid the rigid mass of muscle along the backs of imperfect, yellowing teeth that formed what i liked to believe a genuine smile. a crooked if boyish & naive smile. my tongue swelled like the surging tides & likewise shrank back at the thought the understanding, the knowledge, novel & curious, of its reckless nature. self serving means to selfless ends. the waves subsided, my tongue retreated to the recesses of my brittle throat down, down to lick the wounds that itself had opened. my tongue retreated & the waves became as if unbourne, crawling back drawing into cold briney depths of a long barren womb.

earthbound & setting sun crowned you stood before me. nimbus aflame you existed unafraid but ashamed, you would have died for the stars. i wanted to die in your arms i wanted to be cleansed by the hot tears of despair that in my dry eyes i envisioned you would shed for me. you would have died for the stars while in their perpetual madness, utter & terrible, these very same these thousand million cold suns ground your bones to dust.



but i couldnt find my words. they eluded me or maybe perhaps it is i who carelessly lost them. the shapes of their letters, my expert punctuation & exacting delivery & cadence would be no match for the indefatigable march of numbers. the graceful unfolding of the The. i shook & i shivered at the grand design of things that i saw scrawled in the wet sand at my feet, the adventuresome lock of hair that fell out of or perchance into place on your forehead. the low throaty babble of the great architect rumbled in the surf & pierced the air in the cry of the birds circling my head. more apparent was the neat equation, the exquisite demonstration that fit between the parenthesis that cut so harshly, directed the light so cleanly on either side of your smile. the distances between the galaxies the vast limitless tracts we had already wetted with our lust dried with our greedy love bathed with our tears honest & profound & covered our tracks with this infinite longing.

the sun kept the fire at your heel. with it, you awoke & were driven here, to the sea. when it burned above you yearned to be buried deep within me, to sink into my cool & welcome oasis. and when dusk fell, so too did your tender feet into synchopated rhythm as the relentless heat at your back & the directionless memory of me caused a curious, wandering dance. calculated misstep led you here. but i told myself it was written in the spaces between as the sun, for whom you would perish, set, & you began, as you always do, to walk back to me...

































ae.

dropped the pebble of my heart
into the wellspring of your mind
causing to shudder and to tremble
the surface in quest to find

neath a sheet so thin
a veil so sheer

the quiet recessed depths
seem so far and yet so near

feathers of the ravens wing
are gathered and are kept
so the pebble of my heart was took
and in your waters slept




















ae.