a shared night

cricket chirps in the dark of my city room
as yet another tower grows

one floor per month,
twelve more to go
before boarding up
my empire state view

in the twilight of night
i wake up to
trees reclaiming their ground
vegetation overtaking population

air free

here too, gray birds walk
only they wear
a curious, forward-drooping plume
not a fearless, insistent head-bob

i wake up
in the bright of the light
things to do and get done
abandoned piles to upturn
address, assign and leave behind

soon the sun will rise in the west
with orange love and colors of dream
smells of a eucalyptus-jasmine alliance

crickets chirping in lush of brush
in the humid heat of a shared night

the everything

the everything
is the deep of your beautiful voice
that speaks to me

of the love that we share
that is sometimes,
the air we need to breathe,
the air we need to just be

you, yourself
me, myself

alone and together
here and there

and like the air
the everywhere
the always

the everything

The Golden Birdcage

The golden birdcage dangles. No bird in sight.

She sits in seating assigned by sibling hierarchy. The youngest never get to choose.

That middle bump on the back seat though does have its advantages.

Not only did her littleness allow for easy rear view reflection,

it allows her equal access to her
father there on the left, her
mother's angular profile
dangling earrings, one
sister to the right, another
sister to the left.

What it also allowed her, was an unobstructed view of the road ahead.

a vast blue

today my love is a vast blue
inviting as the sky
that holds
always

in a smiling knowing

that the truth about fogs
is that once they come,
they withdraw
and reveal bright
at a greater speed,
than they envelop and encroach

that the torrential rains
will storm and gust and uproot and dismantle
but then they will simmer and slow and stop

today from behind the sky
peeks and gleams a yellow radiance

today my love is a vast blue

re-written

once
an enlarging O
of a mouth intruded
in unallowed participation

disintegrating the intricate fibers,
sinews, tissues and tubules
that hold my precious heart in functional tact

at slicing, exacting, disorienting, disarraying
speeeeeeeed

down-dropping

m
y
h
e
a
r
t
into the welcoming embraces
of cunning sands
that break the fall
only to swallow

alarming! how resilient
these throbbing parts are
using the tracheal dark to
opiate, dissociate
to calm
and soothe me into illusions

moon-drop delusions
that awaken reveries,
augur self-made salves
and finger-paste into my mind's sky

a round milky cooling light-filled vision

allowing me to see
the frayed pieces of cord,
threads of tendons I hold
in my own hand

i pull at the deeply rooted grass
extracting, gathering, collecting
to secure, strap, tie,
together a bridge
being built and built upon
everyday

a quiet moment

the quiet moments
are as invisible
as the spaces between buildings
from this side of the river

from here it is all
a continuing scape
with peaks, blocks, dips and caves
to be looked at, felt

a convenient escape?
a much needed break?

everyday i cross over
through lit tunnels
peopled
by the momentum of morning

a bustle filled ascension into
a highly currented, choppy river with
the rare old woman, the everyday korean, the hip-hop dancer boys, the above everyone victoria secret girls, scuttling office workers, window cleaners with their sticks that jut out into the middle of the streets, helping slick city-walkers improve their maneuvering skills, those who just stop. and get stuck staring high into the sky, the brisk cold, breakfast, coffee, traffic lights, cars...

and i arrive
at my particular
space in between all the buildings

now from this side of the river
with no scape, or escape
from the doings i choose

that at times don't allow,
at times insist
that i take a moment
a quiet moment

shine eternally

the quality of my light
shines through blinds
marks like scars and stripes
my partly-clothed morning body

within THIS light
my magic is still meek
poetry only peeks
eternally seeking

illumination

no audre, there has been
no lack of scrutiny.
the nameless, the formless
are often felt.

distillation

Is a slow process
And I am still learning
To bear the intimacies of scrutiny