float.

this is what you shall do: love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants… have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, reexamine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.

— Walt Whitman

barber and barrow.

The green vines winding along your white picket fence
protect you from the life you can’t look upon without laughing.
You sip your cold cup of coffee and lean back in your armchair,
while your rose tinted glasses make the entropy more connected.

But the home we have made has a white, cool bed
where we sleep entwined together like a pearl in an oyster.
And the day lilies bloom right outside of our window
while you moan in your sleep over hot-blooded dreams.

I still can’t remember where I was before I came here,
and my spatial philosophies are all tearing at the seams.
Inside this womb our veins are connected,
a modern day Frida and Salvador.

I’ll bake you biscuits in the morning while you sweep off the front porch,
and we’ll reflect on the way we’ve skirted our providence.
But for now I’ll just whisper into your dark hair
that I’m thankful for those heavy breaths in your chest.

The most arresting moments I spend with you are always the most transitory,
so I cling to your limbs like a forlorn child in a storm.
Send a chariot from the firmament and we will disappear into the promised land,
where the vines that preserved you will lay you to rest.

the colors.

It seems ages have passed since I have been moved by purpose; it is a meaningless word these days.  My muse is dead and gone.  I watched as she was tied to the mast of that marvelous ship.  It was docked at her shore for so long now and I knew it was waiting for the sun to set.  I stared lazily as the wind carried her away.  She became one with the current.  She is the water now, and I am dying of thirst.

Where the riverbed merges with the ocean is where you will find me.  Near enough to hear the waves breaking, but never joining with that salty grave.  I can feel your breath on my face, but you will not take my hand.  Why can’t I feel you?  My paltry raft will never overtake you.  Why can’t you stay?  If you are the water, I’ll be damned if I ever touch land again.

…

But, yes, I know your ship has long since sailed and you write me letters that I will never read and you whisper to me while I sleep.

…

I am bound to transience now; my senses are useless without you.

…

So I lie on the shore and you speak to me in vibrations.  Did you know that’s what I live for now?  The sail of that cadaverous ship has been taken by the horizon and that beautiful muse becomes the sky and the water.  I am thirsty for that cool, salty liquid.  But I look up and am moved by tragedy.  You raise my chin to the sky and show me your colors.  You are so far, yet so vast.  How surprising you’ve always been.

The colors of those sunsets when we sit together are unlike anything created by the mixing of paints, unlike anything achieved with brushstrokes or color wheels.  Did I ever tell you that you always made colors seem soft as satin?

The skies are painted by you, how I long to be a color on your palette.  I believe that if I could get close enough I would become vapor, a whisper.  I would become a soft shade of purple, blessing the sky and gracing your fingertips.

…

The way you brushed the hair from my face, it breaks my heart it was so perfect.

…

But you only send me the wind.  You send me the wind when I want the water.  You give me the sky when I want your smile.  You give me the land when I want your arms.

…

My muse is dead and gone.  She was carried away on that marvelous ship.