New Writing

she, nested and featherless,

dreams and dreams

woven in

steam and the silk

of hot creams and surrenders

my breath and, 

tempting, she teems

and, ruffled, the gloaming

and, seething, our seams

she, featherless

nested 

and lovingly,

dreams

roads gowned in barricades

hither and too far for me

that parry blows with sharp defense

roll fast and fake passage to fine beginnings

and stretch into parades charting a course

with horse-drawn brigades that shoot and

force with the pride of atrophied accolades. 

they route and sever and cross and press

the lesser-known gods of pretense and perish

in smoke coursing through a lesser god’s lungs

and pull rungs from a ladder shouldered by clowns

who laugh and who juggle our boulders and frowns

down those roads in our empathic parade 

where ponies with swollen backs push beautifully on

the roads that no one else walks upon.

and I carry my ladder to the clown and I sift

through clerical cherish and odd elements

and still those roads that cross and press

cross through a pressing element

(that smells of the fire of your vehement blessing

and perish with a single blink of your always prevailing

capricious and wailing and crying and flailing

and well-intentioned

and blind and brailing

testaments.)