Music

My body moves aquatic.
My body shaped liked Satan’s tail.
My body crosses Beale Street.
My body outside its flesh walls.

Patrick Henry said it
Give me liberty or give me death.
Strike your palm and thumb
on the Conga’s leather.

My body is a whore’s legs.
My body’s current ionizes air.
My body is not ashamed.
My body can fly.

A bird transposed
his wings on my back.
My body is a weightless note
chasing the sun’s arc.

DQ 02/27/07

Woman offering Coffee

The moon’s layers peeled
one by one reveal the small
sugar cube at the eternal place.
Arrows of fire skin point
where thighs come together,
where flesh changes tone
in color, gravity and scent.
Scent that undulates the air,
weaves itself a half spoken
smoky sentence, and places
a drunken fabric over eyes
no passing sun or reason
could ever penetrate.
The caramel pull stretches me.
No one returns from where
the sea falls to the abyss.
A red light inside warns:
Primal mode only. But no
one watches the control desk.
Just a cup of coffee she said…
and here she is rooted in my
tongue. Nothing will ever
move us again, not even
the smell of fresh coffee.

DQ 02/26/07

Tattoo

“You shall not make any cuts in your body
for the dead nor make any tattoo marks on
yourselves: I am the Lord.” Leviticus 19:28

I have a tattoo of a woman’s name.
It makes a written halo over her head.
Her head rests on her hands.
Her hands make a cradle, palms down.
Her hair runs past her elbows.
Her elbows rest on her knees.
Her knees partially cover her breasts.
Her ankles are crossed
not covering much, and her
feet disappear under a pillow
she is using to keep them warm.
It’s a very nice tattoo.

Now listen Peter…
spare me the canon bullshit.
Your written regulations
only mention the body.

DQ 2/23/07

Window by the Writing Desk

Through this window
poems gently drifted,
lovestaining paper
with the fresh morning
toffee color of your eyes,
and perfectly describing
pyramids of lovemaking
and the aftermath grave
silences we made embalmed
in the scent of our opposite skins.
Years later you are still
my sweetest dream
and I watch , by this window,
the rain distort the world
as it writes lines across the glass.
I force words on paper
and watch them fade within
scattered dark blotches.
Paper stains the same
with tears and rain.

DQ 02/22/07

Stone Maker

Acrobats practicing balance
turn to obelisks at the threshold
of your gaze. Stonehenge.

Insects crawling by
the riverbed solidify as
as you kneel to drink. Pebbles.

Music notes fall from air,
petrify and shatter
as you walk by. Dust.

Here in my mirror, you tame
the indigo mane of snake hair
with both hands. Stone maker.

I would believe the myth
if it wasn’t for the fact
that you are bouncing

on the liquid that use
to be my hips as I
melt beneath you.