trained bird

The tracks are showing through your skin
Ripped back by years of wear
Callouses grown and faded
The line moves forever forward
Whether you choose to follow or not
They will reach their destination
With or without you

You lay your pennies down
To slip like bullets through the air and clink into the gravel
Scabby fingers burned by the heat in their eagerness to feel the smoothness of honesty’s monument
Elliptical Polished Hungry

Do you follow foolish tripping along a path travelled
By a memory that would threaten to transform you to a distorted image of yourself
The warning in a whoosh and thrill that leave you breathless
Longing for that ghost who kisses you and gives life to the restless bird
Caged inside your breast
She would fly high over the rules that tick away in front of you
But you must trudge carefully picking over the broken back of this forgotten beast

Watch your step
Twisted briars block your way
Roses whose wild heads hang heavy with perfume
Breathing words you almost hear
But still the path moves on
The thorns snatch at you and plead with you to stay here in your pain
To bleed your prayers into the splintered ties
That bind you hands and feet
As the memory rounds the bend and whistles for your attention
The pain hunts you on this trail of tears and drying bones
There is nothing for you here
Except loss and creosote for your wounds

The rushing is only wind
It cannot hurt you
Only what is carried in the wind
Be mindful
The swirl can lift you it is true
But beware what else has been tossed into this blueness with you
You are not alone
How many others have been raptured only to be dropped without a sound
Broken porcelain birds who were never meant to fly
Appropriately reprimanded
Scolded and humiliated
Left to find their way back
Along this road that has been buried in a world of disbelief
And cynicism that it ever existed

But I have the shining pennies as proof
Shot from the train that passed me
It is a wonder those bullets never harmed us
As children
But now I understand the pain they can inflict
As they work to separate heart and soul from body

That bird was shot months ago
These bones are dry as tears

drop of blood on the thorn bush

Red bird
So very small
Does anyone else
Notice you at all
I would not had I not heard
Your repeating repeating your tiny word

I don’t understand the note you pray
Your matins on this the Lord’s Holy Day
But I close my eyes and mouth with you
Breathing out darkness and filling with new
Day, the Sun, the promise of Light
Drawing me out of the troubles of Night
Shadows and screamings
Pain and Fear
Too tired for dreaming
I look up through the clear
Bright new dawn
And search through my windows
For a new sol to wish upon

When did you leave your master's side
To greet the mourning below my eyes
A drop of blood from my saviour’s side
The miracle that I have longed for
A sign, a clue, the fiery orb
St.Elmo sends his final word
Go in peace. Return and find
All you wanted you left behind

Ah, sweet bird
Pray for me
I will repeat that single word
So sweet
Mercy, Mercy, Mercy
On me
Have mercy my lord
Mercy on me

A confession, a profession, a pleading song
Sighing it daily my whole life long
With every action with every breath
Let it flow through me and continue in death

Lord Jesus Christ (breathing You in)
Son of the Living God (profess my faith as I breathe it out)
Have Mercy on me (I breathe it in)
A sinner (Let it go)

Repeat, Repeat
No more than a small bird's
Quiet lonely peep

hellebores (lenten rose)

These ashes are from the volcano that I have become.
I burn for No One.
He attempts to extinguish me before I escape.
But bits of me roll away
Trickling from my eyes.
Hot, furious, sad, hopeful... all of these.
He closes the cork.
Seals me in.
I cannot escape.
I have vanished; I am invisible.
But I am not vanquished; I am invincible.
I am a tornado.
I whirl.
I would that I could destroy,
But I am trapped with Lucifer
Here in this bottle.
Lucid.
And the tall
Alabaster Japanese man
With his lavender hair standing
Like a flame of knowledge upon his head
Smells of flowers and sweet fruits.
He will slice out the hump from my back
And free me of this pain!
He tells me to have Patience.
He tells me I am crazy.
But I say, "I can do anything- this is the internet."
I am the talking bottle.
The Night Sky does not see me.
She has closed her eye to me.
She will not watch her daughter.
She has disowned me.
But I glow in her darkness.
I will live!
I will fight!
With my bloody knuckles and nose.
He batters me because He knows.
How deep my fiery furnace goes.
How much ash does it take to kill a rose?