the tears cried
with your departure
fill the river that carries you home
your journey will be swift

hummingbird
rising morning star
wings honoured with scars
angel of the Black Madonna
and the White Buffalo Calf
but also my sister
where our feet touched the earth
holy singing woman
dancing woman
firefly in the dark
toss your head back when you laughed
sister
hugged you wholly
sister
painting dreams
sister
picking sage
sister
shining rock
sister
raging for life and beauty and harmony
sister
mother
sister
sister of the river and all things wild
I will send my breath to you
each time I face the east

my friend you know
soldiers discriminate
on where they’ll feel regret
but I regret I’ve always gone too far
and never far enough
so I look at your picture from time to time
when I’m not one for sentiment
and wish that I had just been still
to know you
when you were mine to know
and that I could have been this me
that I am now
but then I never would have known
how far it was
that someone else could go
for me
if I had been this me
and sometimes when we don’t go
quite far enough
that’s the furthest we can go
and the greatest thing that we can give
and I wouldn’t have known
that I could go that far
if I didn’t do that for you
when I didn’t go far enough

you were never mine to miss
but I miss you
like tobacco and wine
and everything that reminds me
of the infinite space
between earth and sky
and we find each other
every time
even if the silence doesn’t break
this time
but breaks me just a little
with what I cannot have
but leaves me raging hard for joy
like Morse Code or semaphore
made of a life
to tell you
you are loved

Shnurov is hoarding cat food
and last night I dreamed
a vampire
and how the library
at Alexandria really burned
did you see it too
imagine that kinda guilt
but everyone is dreaming wildly
so why should I be any different
when I am like this
all the time
and I’m getting claustrophobic
I think it’s a conspiracy of pet hair
that’s trying to choke me out
and I should have requested
a Dyson
the last time I had anyone to ask
for birthday gifts
but at least I have a dog
and not a cat
and it knows to shit outside

Domovoi is raging
but I’ve got a mind like a taranta
and all this chaos
is birthing something
in ever escalating spirals
until it winds itself to ashes
and then ignites again
but a girl can’t have a stable house
when she lives on
chicken legs
and yet there’s so much fire
to keep an old god warm

we always think that we’ll have time
until we have nothing but time
to wait for the next time

remember the last time
one more time

this time
in time
out of time
no time

one time

another time
and I have only now

I don’t know much about love
but I want to read you stories
about moonlight and bullets
and rainfalls that comfort
and sunshine that stings

and take long walks
with each of the thoughts
inside your head

and build alters and monuments
and idols
for each of the journeys your heart
has made

transform this flesh
into a sacred place
where all the people
you are
will be
have ever been
can meet to tell their tales
of cowardice and bravery
about the teeth of wolves
and the skin of lambs

expand this cage of ribs
so exponentially
you can be all the contradictions
that you were ever born to be

I’ll give new name to those you christened shame

In a time of crisis, the peoples of the world must rush to get to know each other. José Martí

I wanted to write you
an apocalyptic poem
or maybe only read you
echoes of resurrection from Martí

to awaken your ancient soul
and toss it flowers
in the sea
with incantations to remind you
you are the embodiment
of all the times that you have drowned
just to prove there is no death

but I’m backed
against the mountains
with only this dried and diverted river
at my feet

these feet that pray such sterile prayers
as to dance to give the reason
to the music of your heart
while the silence sits
between all men

but you are far away
where the empire falls
onto its knees

and there is nothing left
between us
not the miles nor the constructions
nor any barriers we have conjured
to keep us in our place

and tonight when I will sing you
how men are like the stars
and amor cuerdo no es amor
these snowdrops will ignite
from the sea
of your subconscious dreams

I heard there is no pain
on the other side of the moon
I heard it from a star
and I heard that it’s OK
to fake your graces
and forgiveness too
if you’re running short on time
because the universe tallies
only in intentions
and every heart will settle up
as soon as it learns how
so for now this is separate ways
and we’ll know better when we meet again
but life is hard and hurts a lot
and we do what we have to to survive
until we don’t
but I have heard there isn’t pain
out there on the other side
so I hope I catch you in that place
where our wounds can fill with light

my voice was stolen by a bird
who flew it halfway
round the world
and left me lost so now I’m here
but mostly really gone
without the words
to hide the lbs
without the words
to hide the years
and wear the mask
of who I am
when I was her
who you once knew

but then today while sharing cake
with the greatest Jedi I have known
he said that it was not
the imperfections
of my own
but rather with his flaws
that mired us in the dark
though I will still assert
the faultiness was mine
because we all crave a master
to punish us for who we are
and you just might be seeking
to have your penance too
for who it is
that you have been
and not to take acceptance
for exactly where you go

but who is here among us
who is looking to be loved
and still be left as free
if we are getting real
and speaking with our truth
but actually I have wanted
to bring your body here
except that now I’m gone
and you are halfway round the world
where maybe you can hear
a birdie in your ear
somewhere that isn’t here
but a thousand miles out there
and know it is my song
to hold you where you are
while I’ll be staying gone
with something of me near

the egg is still ticking
a secret in my hand
because this has been the always
we tore into reality
when we were birthed together here
covered in dream and colour
and I am homesick now
for the caves
we carved inside this world
to engineer universes
made of imagination and of light
and I wait like a widow
who expects no lover
to return
while you best like
how quickly ripe the fruit
of synthetic synergy
and all of it a desperation
to find those fluid worlds
where thought and creation
could stretch but not divide
like the days when we were hungry
but always fed
unlike this time
when we are fed
but our hungers go unfilled
and I look nothing like
the half the key that you forgot
you’d need to take us home
and I forget sometimes
that you are here at all
but it has always been
and so it will be still
when imagination can remember
the way we cocreate
infinitude in realms
we hide inside our hands

strangle the names
by which you’re known
choke them in the windpipe
before they write themselves as stone
put the flames out in the eyes
that see you in the mirror
you are not what you perceive
or even what you’re told
but more than can be grasped
by the limits of the mind
there is no body to confine you
no shadow to slant away
and then fall short
of what you’ve tried to be
butcher the yous you know too well
and dress them out
stalk the ones you’ve tried to tame
but could not reach
if you cannot die each night
you’ll die one day before your time

I have put those stories
in little houses in my head
and then like Olga
I burned them to the ground
and my ability to ignite
those wings to infectious flames
is what will canonize my name
those massacres I made
on the villages of me
and one day the you
that belongs inside my head
will place a pigeon in my hand
and I will set it free
and you won’t live here any more

days that look like nights
and the snow blots out
the wink of sun
and everything is given
to the glass-eyed moon
unanimated through the naked trees
and I love it vacant
don’t you know
so my next lover
will have no soul
no primal wounds to cut my lips
but he’ll be pretty
so pretty it will fucking hurt
like staring at a star
when it’s already dead
and I’ll forget
every chance I gave you
to remember who I am
until I forget it too
and he won’t care to notice
I’m also dead-eyed as the moon
but incisive as a broken life

I burned my fingers on the moon
when I plucked it from the sky
not because I love you
it’s only what I do
and you could mistake
the blacksmith for the devil
for the blackened hand
and some nights to wrestle demons
for matters of the heart
and others to make the mischief
is the greatest one can do
and I am absent from your courtiers
away and playing fool
the devil or the forger
who danced away the moon
a little to amuse you
a little for the light

I become the bride
of Zcerneboch
this night
and cannot belong to you
the keeper of the light
but we are still the same
and while you are raging for the life and joy
I embrace this ancient dying
which is not the same as death
but just as overdue
under winter constellations
that already are reserved
for the wedding feasts of crones
when women learn the pleasures
of not owing up their beauty
but owning their darkest parts
and all of it untouched
but dirty still
with no one who will wash
our feet
to bless our resurrection
but we will be reborn in other maidens
after their petals turn
and I will not be yours
until you great Biloboh
have learned to keep the promises
you had made once
to your younger self
that you had no need to make
because while I die
and you dance on
everything is moving closer to itself
in the diametric dream
so drink and dance and sing
for this betrothal I have entered with the dark
all things are only seasons
while branches hunger for the earth
as much as roots must drink the light
so some nights I play the subterrane
while you’re illumination
and then sometimes
we change the part
and you are my Zcerneboch
and I am mad and dancing

I was always meant to fall in love
with self-discovery
and whatever facilitated
my way to that
but so often I mistook criticism
and manipulation
and attempted amputation
for the catalyst I had sought
so that in that way
the love that never was
is the only one that is
for revealing the secret heart
I birthed
for loving my own heart
and isn’t that exactly
what the masters
of the ancient world
wished that we would know of love
when they named the card of us

the rising sun nudges my shoulder
then bounces back to greet me
through the rear view mirror
and you are in my bones
but you were never here
like no one ever is
and I am the friend only
of the miles and dreams
and all the inbetweens
when sometimes kindness is a stranger
because compassion hasn’t learned
how best to be familiar
and it all gets fucking hard
but the earth doesn’t ask you
to read instruction manuals
about yourself
but places her offerings in your mouth
until she opens hers
and swallows you with her kiss
back home
and what could I have ever been
but not-what-I-was-supposed-to-be
like when you lose something
and it comes back but not the same
and only half the way
to where it’s going to be
so potentials and pasts get held
as the means of measure
nothing in the act of evolution
could ever stand up to
and I had to choose
so I chose me
and that’s a solitary fate
but when the sun rises
I am not alone
and the love that could never do
just is
and blinds me to where I’m going
when it catches me with its reflection
glinting from the rear view mirror

I will not lead you to this place
nor draw you maps nor leave you signs
there are no invitations
waiting at your door
but if you ever find your way to here
take out your hair
and bring humility
arrive on horses
that nearly cost your life
come to discover
and not to preach
show your wisdom by how you know
to remove your shoes before you enter
because too many have muddied
the sacredness of me

and this is how I've learned to keep
the alter of my heart alive

does anyone ever mean
to break the innocence
of another's seeing
or is it we are just
blinded ourselves
wounded and flailing
in the dark
and clawing for
whatever stands most near

an eye for an eye
beginning as a pay it forward
cry for help
we're helpless to prevent
before the exchanges of retribution
blur the lines
of all the shine
that caught our eye
and made us look
into the depths of soul

all of us with ice shards
and shrapnel
and the war in our perceptions
more than in our world

how does the fight
of the blind
blinding the blind
come to its end
when the clocks keep turning
new days
but no one sees the sunrise
anymore

are there enough
tears to cry
to drown the monsters
from their places of intrusion
where they cast shadows
in our sight

or do we close our eyes
until we see nothing
and nothing left
is seeing us

or is it a focus on the light
and a standing still
until the will to find it
shows us truths
we long forgot

or just a surrender
of the need to see at all
sacrificed
for the willingness to feel
until embrace comes
of the clumsy who collide
and asks that we remember
what it is
to dance

I'm scared I'm losing
my ability to believe
that anything will ever be
just what it says it is

so bring me a trickster
who hides their shame
out there on display
visible
and in plain sight
the way Pierrots have worn
a painted frown
as armour for
their weakened hearts

give me caricatures composed
of dirty secrets
before I lose my faith
because everyone has
some kind of sword
behind their back
wether they want to play
that way or not
and if I have to dance
then why not for the ones
who make the game
of swallowing the swords
and flames

not the posing
and the pretty face
filled all in with wax
give me stumbling scars
and confessional tattoos
like stories
and like gospels
embedded in the skin
because what's in the bone
will someday
out the flesh

and truths of grotesque
exaggeration
and the fattest ladies
of the shameless shames
are the only angels left
with the power
for the miracles
worth the breath
of prayer

even the sun comes down
sideways

it's a shifty virgin world

within a universe so pure
it's holding
nothing back
and has no shame
for what it needs
and what it has to give

so what if the truth
never was perfection
only reflection
for the unaligned
reaching like those
nectared mouths
trying to evolve
enough
to taste the light

and sinking is the aftermath
of the climaxes of flight

and impotence
where the cripple learns
that living takes half the measure
of its steps
in dream

God isn't dead
but maybe love has died

wilted and abstaining
to find its ideality
crossing itself to stop
the opening to the rain
where the bruising of the petals
nourishes the roots

and the world dries up
for the burden of its shame
while the universe
is raging on
no matter how crooked the sun
or straight
the rain

where the copulation
of Chaos and Unkown
is where love's conceived
again

I want to invent a word
for you
like one of those
ancient words
that only dialectic speakers
can understand
through the secret decoding
of stories pumped into their veins
along with mothers' milk

the type of word
that encapsulates histories
and futures
and one-of-a-kind archetypes
subliminally in its syllables

hieroglyphics formed
from each letter
coagulated into
the summary of you

a manic word
with room for contradiction
and open to interpretation
bursting like a universe
with its infinite definition

but the most sacred
of the mysteries
are the ones we never name

and it only takes a second
of a silence
to find the dream of you
where the absence of a word
is our best communication

you're like something
from MacGowan's mouth
the unexpected beauty
slipping out
from between the gaps
of this broken-toothed world

and I said I wasn't going to
write love poems anymore
but then you're always
in my dreams
and I forget to stop

so I thought I'd write you
something ugly
like the dirty streets below
the transcendence
of our imaginations

those rooms we sometimes
lock for days
cages
filled with the unfurling wings
of pages scattered on the floor
and sheets recoiling as the tides
from the corners of the bed

somewhere inside our heads

before we dress
and I step out in stockings
snagged and already torn
and you with tobacco
on your breath

you call that tear
along my leg
a window to my soul
and I say you must be
the hero of Bukowski's dreams
because we take our greys
as opportunities
to see the colours standing stark

the way we both prefer the night
for the way the stars can shine
though we've grown accustomed
to settling
for the city lights

and everyone we pass
is looking to be loved
even us who stand so well
alone

but I don't want to be your beautiful
I'd rather be the ugly
you revere
the way you are the song
the heavy hand
of dawn
can never disappear

we surf each other
like Netflix shows
leaving ratings for the ones
we like the best
and comments
when we're dissatisfied

our loved ones
commodified
to entertainment
so attention comes
at our convenience
waiting for when we want it
on demand

everyone searching
for that undying love
to sit and chill
turn it off
and on
when connection and life
are too messy to fit
the plot
we're in the mood to find

doesn't anybody want
to just really be alive

I used to cross my fingers
waiting for something
to grow
but my hands were crippled
until I stretched them
deep into the earth

I used to fold my hands
and pray for music
to come into my world
until I set them free
to dance across a drum

I used to hold my breath
hoping for miracles
to lift me up
until I drew the force of life
into my lungs
and felt the bewilderment
and the wonder
of what it is to live

I feel my wings
when I can breathe
full breath
transcendent of the me
and in the end
my cages were never
broken
by the bars I learned
to bend
but through the voice
that rose up from my heart
to find escape
and the ones
who heard me sing

For All That Fell We Rise - Ramo Biber

tonight we climb
the mountain again

some of what we were before
gone and levelled
but this night
the peak is ours
once more
calling us to live

the lights that still shine
from what survived
are asking us to dance
for the times we have endured

we were young then
the last time we reached the peak
not knowing the dangers
coming for the virtue
of the summits of our youth

we are old now
but it is ours to claim
and for this view
not of what is gone
but for what remains
we climb the mountain
to celebrate
and touch the stars

tonight the world is ours

sometimes surviving
just enough
to rise again
is how we win

I saw the dream
recreated before my eyes
so I knew it wasn't
mine alone
but the rest was skeins
that took two hands to weave
and I had only one
and there was no point
in saying anything
at all
so I just cried

tears are stillborn dreams
seeds if you plant them
well
but I don't know
what pigments they'll produce

right now
I'm only at
remember just to breathe
not everything is what it seems
not everyone can see
what is there for being seen

but there are serpents still
with wings
who drink the tears
of dreams we lost
hidden in illusion's trail
teaching to the seeing eyes
new patterns to be weaved

if life is really possible
for me to live again
I'm gonna rent a motorcycle
that once belonged to Che
and find a resurrection cave
somewhere south
of south of here
and never ask a thing
no more
except for that my heart
and brain
never lie again
the way they've done before
in a game
of the wrong made right
and right made wrong
when the paradigms of fantasy
substituted
for what lacked imagination
and the voice of reason
drowned out the whispers
of the soul
that needed somewhere
out there on the road
inside the dark
to sit alone
and hear them for awhile
and if this
or any other road
leads another traveller here
to the intersection
of where anything can be
maybe
we can listen
until we find the dance
and love won't be the slave of theory
but life the courtesan of chance

Plan B

let's buy a motorcycle
and take plan b
disappear somewhere
and find another free
where we're the heroes
of nothing
but the triumph of how deep
the contaminated have
the possibility
to love
dancing salsa in the backyard
with the guyos
beneath the music of the moon
our laughter
like the geckos
and creatures of the night
and in the morning
we'll drink panela
with mangoes and cuca
and give ourselves
to dirty sacred rites
that leave us pregnant
with ancient songs for now
we birth in rivers
beneath the Huila sun
to sacrifice ourselves
for once
for us
and the nourishment
we've forgotten how to take
not forever
just until we are seduced
by the prospect
of the mistress
of plan B
the something else
we want to be
and then we'll drive that motorcycle
to some other kind of free

we're so old
we left our bones
across more borders
than we can count
our hearts displaced
and always reaching
back to homes
we have forgotten
carrying the realized dreams
of who we are
back to surrendered bodies
of who we were
for just a time
pressing our hands
to touch the ground
and remember the heart
that beats inside
the spiritual skin we wear
beaded with the lives
of every strength we've found
in all the letting go
to regenerate
as something dreamed anew
and you are as much
fortified through the bones
you scattered through these lives
like seeds
as you are a garden
who holds a flower
of a scattered seed
of me

To the members of the Union of Professional Muses:

To the members of the Union of Professional Muses:

those of you
immortalized
by American icons
who sometimes believe
in the middle of the lonely night
that love is a commodity
of creativity

who know that everyone aces
the theory
but fails the practical
of you

who stare at ceilings
wondering if normalcy
is the currency
of connection
and that to have that too
you must surrender
the wild horses of your truth
to being tamed

who have spent years
or lifetimes
waiting on loves
with checklists
you cannot fill

who have stood at crossroads
choosing between
the path to dance with spirits
or the road of human hearts
thinking there has to be
a choice

the ironic romantics
who harbour cynicism
for the possibilities
of acceptance

those who remain rejected
in a world that seduces
greatness
but marries mediocrity

who bleed words
from open veins
they mean in literal ways
but are celebrated
as fancies in return
with hollow sentiments
to amuse the fantasies
of the insincere

those who fell to earth
to cross deserts
and oceans
but cannot find their way
to being human
or entirely of
this world

those who turned away
nostalgia
and do not count
the wealth of futures
but think that living
is only in the now
you work out
on the way

those who
continue to love
no longer for the belief
in being loved
but only by the faith
of their tuck and roll

oh no
you're not alone

sometimes
it is easier to hide
in the idealized nostalgia
of the past

or to wait
with judgement
somewhere ahead
in unrealistic futures

my heart is a clock
it beats
Now-now Now-now
I am here with it
synched with it

I let the other rhythms fade
I have arrived at the present
whatever is meant
is here with me now

notes from a dream

your fingers entwined
in mine
it was the deepest
alchemy
I could dream
when you handed me
the hoop
not to repair
what we have never broken
but rather to stitch
with the embroidery
of our love
and all the colours
that we have been

you asked if I could leave behind
the life I've made
to sew these dreams with you
when a life is nothing
you leave behind
but what you carry
in your heart
so that it was more living
than I had ever done
when I chose the loving you
with nothing lost or surrendered
because you gave me the gift
of the needle, the thread
and the hoop

there is mercy
between these hips
forgiveness
concealed
on the tender inside
of these thighs
redemption in the breath
celebration
as a drop of sweat
rolling across the throat
foundations
that strengthen
with the tremors
beneath the skin

dreamers waiver
before the gates
man now flown by kite
philosophies and fantasies
in pursuit of perfected paradise

there is only here and now
deliverance to the other side
through what is found
in the holiness of the flesh
and the eternal dream
of mortals with desires
in dirty sacred rites
beneath the sky
and on the ground

once upon a time
Lucifer
couldn't make up
his mind
if he wanted some of me
my sin and my liberty
so I stabbed the poser in the heart
with the nine inch crimson heel
of my spike stiletto shoe
haha
motherfuckers
jokes on you
there's no one living
you can blame
for your own depravity
but then there's ones like me
hedonistic as Hell
so sinful
we don't let the church proclaim
what pleasures
make our anarchy
cause there's a whole lot
of free
the Vatican trademarked
just to see
how much emancipated
they could claim
when you try too hard
it's fuckin lame
so I got a game
I like to play
it's come and find me
in the fire
and if you don't want to burn
you better show up naked
and dressed
to earn
exactly whatever
you want to be

my heart
was set a drift
in the seas of all the nows
travelling through all
the ever beens
on the currents
of all the yet to comes
when the moon and the ocean
conspired
to carry this message
in a bottle
with some part of your soul
sent from the shore
of the universe of you
to travel inside of me
so I could return it
when you might need
to remember that part
of who you are
and the poetry you sealed
inside the depths
of me

it's OK to be scared
that they don't love me
it's OK to be scared
they never did
it's OK to be even more scared
they did once
but I did something
to change their heart
it's OK to be scared
of all these things
again and again and again
as long as I never lose
the courage to love
wether someone did or didn't
or does