Closure

Even though there's less than a lip in between,
I can clearly see where you end, I begin
to wait for symbols but the fibres are thin,
and I measure more than I'd like to have seen
in the distance in between

your words, laundry-pinned to dry in my sun,
hanging from the moment ago they were spun
in drenching new-birth, concatenating with mine
to form the meaning I'd been meaning to sign
in the distance in between

us, and what has happened, what could never be,
there was nothing woven where nothing's to see
and I crane my neck, reading in front of me
the results of what I asked for, honesty
in the distance in between

the self that I aligned myself with, and you
expelling the code that puzzles me through
the silences when we meet, our rendez-vous
from a language I speak to get to what's true
in the distance in between

the vocal chambers that reside in bodies
picking up signals from closer melodies
that sound out help from minds not at ease
like mine, a poet ambling in memories
in the distance in between

where I've done too much searching for your smile,
ghosts have passed a lonelier road in denial
of their release, who I'd joined up with, all the while
talking, yelling, mouthing verbs and nouns, guile
in the distance in between

that I'm trying to overlook even here,
sounding out various prayers to an ear
I imagine is yours, wherever you hear
the fibres telling you that I am near
in the distance in between

where really there's a bridge you laid the instant
when the strings I tugged began their descent
into my sun-deprived consciousness, sent
from the warmth I recalled as an infant
in the distance in between.

Understanding

In your greenroom of emotions,
headphones on, I am listening
to the white noise that your lips make
when they dab upon each other.

Blind to the spectacle behind
I am stuck waiting to the side.

Your story, what is now spoken
is to me like ice, thawing out
those feelings that have been melting
in your eyes. I can't see the doubt

on the screen, growing yet thicker,
causing my lost mind to flicker.

The Work Of Air Upon Ink

(By not defining poetry,
I can make man sane, with the arch of a brow
by pen, my mark made mine by
possession,
an ugly weaning of the crepuscule
and synthesis
of words, concepts and other ordures from the rebel's dictionary.)
I can kiss the rain, because lips are
everywhere, perfectly positioned
to fall unto mine,
a sweet deluge weeping for the loving touch
of my pen;
is it here,
ticking streaks upside stretched
cut throat
basting on the widened alleyways of my
grin right now, between one sensational lip and
the other limb, erect
to fool the folds
and cracks of that eager smile,
eager to sip the ink, curdled vomit
passing soon, drip,
dripping wasted life, life I could have given,
out of the corners of the mouth
that produced the kiss of the tempest,
in my choking voice?