Category: Poetry

The Butcher’s Bones

Posted on by RDP

Crushing, bleak and break,
the mechanisms of my matter
are corroded by salt —
they are choked with sand.

Ripping, tear and rake,
the solutions of my mind
are dry from wind —
they are thieved by sun.

River, ocean and lake,
the brittle hull of my bones
arches for touch —
it is weathered by surf.

Yet I am tethered by the gull’s cry,
a wrinkled goodbye —
you are terrible in ropes and weaves and cuffs.

Hope pleads the darkness from the butcher’s eye,
lips feed a thousand lies —
I cannot conjure love enough or trust
      before time turns our hearts to dust.

string lights on a skylight backdrop

1994

Posted on by RDP

If you need me, I’ll be right here,
right where you left me,
in ’94.

Familiar voices within,
somewhere stuffy, smokey, dim,
splashed with string lights,
right, they blink pink and red and white.

Incense and oil,
your breath in toil, the scream,
my ears ring, and rings cling,
and my lips shudder right.

Love … I’m right here,
right where you left me,
in ’94.

Dewy face, hyperspace,
curls and a joker’s grin,
the palms, throat, and thighs,
trapped right in the well of those eyes.

Melted ice and sweat,
the pulse and beat a threat,
such frenzy and heat,
and secrets to keep, but we’re right.

Alright.

Right here,
right where you left us,
in ’94.

The Song

Posted on by RDP

You can’t live on it — the feeling.
The contraction of a guitar string,
Such anticipation.
The tankard’s dark, swirling abyss,
Pulse softening.

You can’t live on it —
The flowering of the voice,
Mighty introduction.
The kaleidoscope of colors,
Primal attraction.

You can’t live on it —
The pained pleading chorus,
Lingering mourning.
The ear’s consumption,
Desirous firing.

You can’t live on it —
The final note’s breaking,
Grappling desperation.
The ghostly vibrations of silence,
Deafening denial.

You can’t, you can’t —
Not but for those moments of song,
Pitch pointed, perfect and pure,
Magnetic and hypnotizing in its way.

In those moments you can, you can.
You can live on it.

Stay

Posted on by RDP

Stiffen your arm and raise the sword.
When the monster of weariness grabs hold,
When life’s demons fire your heart,
Scuff your heel and take stance.
When chaos bawls and the winds of loneliness roar,
When the dark endures and battle blood flows,
Grit your teeth and persist.

Forever the dawn breaks as night’s child.
Hope spills sunlight on your spirit,
Warmth in your eyes,
Flashing silver on your chest,
So, stay.
No matter the trial or beast.
Stay.

The Illusionist

Posted on by RDP

Black strands and white hands.
Moments drip, raindrops in time,
and stars glimmer for orphans, charting a course for home.

Exhalations in the drab and lonely night,
frosted breath, solitary, such secrets,
revealing cold mists, admissions, from summer to fall to winter again.

So long.
The truth as it ticks and burns and waits,
and is withheld.
Such a fleeting thing,
devoured by the maelstrom.

So sad.
A lined brow, a river’s etching by the eyes,
but blue, blue, blue — lamenting lost light.
Something revealed, seen, known and cherished.

He is me,
even in this heat with cold lips,
the delicate tendrils of my heart stuccoed to the illusion.
Black strands and white hands.

We are Like Ravens

Posted on by RDP

The raindrops are gray ravens, their call resounding in his ears and brushing at his full cheeks with a feathery and woeful constant. He exhales spirit mists into the blue dawn and rests his tired spine against the slippery wooden bones of the hut’s exterior. There has been a sound in his mind since she left, something like a sigh, a whisper, or a wanting suggestion of desire on the wind, the kind that whistles through the trees and around mountain passes during the winter’s coldest chill.

He pushes his bare toes into the black earth and reaches, eyes closed, for the worn wooden lyre at his side. The sky’s weeping moistens and swells the soundbox and bridge, and like tears on lashes, it slips off the horsehair strings. He is a dark echo of Freyr, conjuring the day’s weeping with his existence, but revolving and drowning in this boggy domain so far in his mind from anything that resembles a shining sun.

Continue reading “We are Like Ravens” →

The Anniversary

Posted on by RDP

Lines flag the throat and knees are noise,
but I remember the time back —
the easy sun when we were young.

Rotations and revolutions see tender changes,
from flowers, jewels and racing hearts,
to coffee drips, notes and evening’s tired hellos

There’s wear on the bridge and the back aches —
sameness fades as time rides the tide,
but I remember the time back —
when the fresh snows fall, or the calm rain,
the pour of a drink in a clean cup, or the ocean waves.

We, together, a timeless love song
that I cannot be without.

The Tattoo

Posted on by RDP

Blood and flame,
quiet sparks, this wooden bed.
Gods know the quickening —
the eye, the hand, the wrist, wrapped in fine skin.

Flesh marks tracing bled pattern,
soft heathen.
Horns and raven’s wings — cut me in silver.

Earth.

Spread me with axes and shields,
all that fair and fierce longing.

Over and under, over and under,
weave braids and veins
and cut the heart, fighter.
A shield born of ash and mist.
Touch me again.

The Wanderer

Posted on by RDP

Oh, Red, I found you again,
in the night’s tale.
Warm palms, wool gloves,
magnetic magical lure of the throat;
imagined memory.
An interception of the pressing dark, unconscious haze.
The flashing pearl revealed by upturned petal and sapphire gaze.
My gods, the panting;
heaving chest, anxious beat,
a tearless, tired eye.
You, please.
Wanderer, discoverer, wanting change conjurer.
Promise on our song and wait again for the sun’s bed.
I swear with wringing hands,
despite the sky’s expanse and endless, agonizing time.