The Poet

You may become

your desires,

if only you

leave your shadow

I envy silence

for it has many mouths

Three angels in black joined by the gates to discuss true love

They pondered and debated its existence

An angel came to the angels in black and said, “look to the river, for that is the purest love. It is like true love of self, it is strong. It halts for no one.”

Be like the river flowing and you will be one with the Tao.

It is a much softer thing

to be kept sacred by a shell

to enter oblivion

It is only when I draw the characters on my palm and stare

that I become aware of their absurdity

It is not the sound

but the thought of music

which enters my ears

I take the piece of you

which ran its legs under my eyelids

I become your eyes

and find myself in golden

Next to the gates

my whisper drowns

in a collective whisper

Beside the willow tree

in the center of your home

lies its body

You come to my reunification

with my first self

I become one

A dancer and a dove

swing their arms to the beat of darkness.

Peace by the borders?

To build on love

with love of self

Birds released

Something changes

I am in love with a piece of land

or the feeling it causes me

Where soil aches to birth gold

I put my prayers in its walls

I

I watched my mother slowly lose her feet and legs. I watched her burn half her body, give her lover the ashes. And everyday, I write myself love letters in order to forget.

II

The ash is sometimes on the table where we eat

I press it into the face behind my face

and become her temporary shadow.

When I am only seen by my primal face

the shadows of my folded self

paint patterns on the wall

My shadow is the part of me of which I cannot suffocate.

The space between what occurred and what almost occurred is somebody’s truth

What is that breath of yours

in the shadow of mine?

Mine in yours

It is one eye and two eyes

placed in the beholders

For these graceless nights

when I become the pedestal

Hands to the sky

To steal pieces of stars

and give half of them to you

You run and run

with your hands on my eyes

So I run

with my eyes on your hands

I look myself in the eye when I sleep

I become the shadows when I sleep

I seek lucidity when I sleep

Nations say they are old friends

and they pick up their pieces

You will become my dream

when you step inside me

They will become a dream

when they step inside themselves