love you with joy {poem}

What joy can I bring you?

We know pleasure,
oh yes, how we know pleasure…

but I mean not of a single finger
up your spine to wake your
skin and bring your chest to mine--
no, I mean the loving trace

of my hands on your strong back,
and our sleeping tangle of fingers and legs
like roots weaving to ground together.
I do not mean your lips on the cusp of my chin,

warm breath at my neck,
but the words of your mouth--
the questions that cut the tension of touch
and ask me to go deeper.

I mean the joy in knowing
we can conflict and emerge more intimate,
not colliding in lust,
our bodies worn but our hearts more weary;

I am here to hear all you have to say,
and hold you more closely than
the arms that pull each other from our clothes
ever could.

Let us instead pull each other from our souls,
vulnerable, naked, free.
Delight in my laughter,
and I will in yours,

have the courage to love me,
dance because yes, my hips fit perfectly in your hands,
and when we make love let it be in the joy
we have found in being in love.




As published on Elephant Journal: http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/04/alone-not-alone-with-you-poem/

Alone and not {poem}

I am alone and never alone with you.

You are embedded in the most
naked parts of my soul;
The first I think to tell
and whom I most wish to listen.

You alone comprehend my duality--
I see the brilliance
in your strength and your soft hurt.
Blur the lines; we harmonize.

I feel your distinct embrace
whether your fingers lace with mine
beneath sheets for a night
or your words wrap themselves

around my heart, lingering until
the next time we meet--
the nights are sweetly sleepless
with or without you here.

Space makes no difference
between us and time holds no meaning.
Look at the stars on any night
and I will see you there.

Love anyone else and see
the contrast to our potent relevance.
We are a love unfindable.
We are an us undefinable.

Defiant, even. Taking the road less travelled,
and knowing not where it leads
and caring even less,
for the company is irreplaceable

and trust connects our separate paths.
We flow. Synchronized.
You take the words out of my heart
before I can gift them to you

and we stay attune, borrowing feelings
but leaving them where they
were found so that we might touch them
when the missing is the most palpable.

Oh these late exchanges.
I would not take sleep over time with you
will rest enough knowing
we only need to dream to meet and dance.

Our love is poetry, each word necessary
rhythmic and pulsing, infinite in impression. Raw.
Written by two whom only know
to live in the depths of each other.

Go deeper with me yet, insatiable.
More love to find beneath the wise willows,
in the roots of the oak trees--
meet me in our rabbit hole

and fall asleep with me to the sound of the sea.
Wake again more alive, with a resounding
belief that ours is not a love
to try to understand

but to hold as I would be held by you,
if you were here on this night I sleep alone.





As published by Elephant Journal: http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/04/alone-not-alone-with-you-poem/

Some of the People I know {poem}

Some of the strongest people I know are the most gentle. 
Sometimes the strongest people I know cry the sweetest tears. 
At times I know their strength more fiercely in their humility. 
Always in their vulnerability. 

Some of the bravest people I know have the most fears. 
Sometimes their bravery comes from a need to conquer. 
At times what is unconquerable feeds their courage. 
And they learn the powerful grace in surrender.

Some of the most joyful people I know have sadness. 
Sometimes their light is made brighter by the raw truths in their darkness. 
At times they are so moved by what they have found that they howl 
with sorrow fuelled compassion, humanness.

Some of the most lost people I know have the greatest propensity to live.
Sometimes their confusion is but the siphoning through of what matters the most.
At times what they find filters through is a potent dose of brilliance, inimitable.
And they embrace their journey in its entirety.

Some of the most alive people I know die time and again.
Sometimes they change in but a moment, fluid, evolving, existentially free.
At times they are so unattached that they scatter impulsively, undefined
and come to land in a deeper, more expansive sense of self.

Some of the most governed people I know have the wildest dreams.
Sometimes their discipline is what grants them their freedom.
At times their boundaries so respectable that I crave
the guidance of their sureness.

Some of what I know of myself is not myself at all.
Sometimes I am brave, strong in joy and sadness, alive and dying.
At times I am sure, mostly I am wild, always I am free
ever willing to grow, discover, express the dual nature of me.




As published by Elephant Journal: http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/04/some-of-the-people-me-poem/

I dance {poem}

I dance for the moon,
letting her pull me as she does the entire ocean,
sway me through the thick air
loosen my hips and
lubricate my spine.

I dance for my sisters
feeling their feminine pulse with my own--
freely expressive, bold, and alive.
I sway my thick hips
and pour open my back.

I dance for the music
of everything living. Cicadas they call
and roots pound with bass,
the Earth is my sitar--
move my hips, move my heart.

I dance for you--
for the weight of your hands on my hips
and the look in your eyes that said
I was yours to love
as the jazz dripped cool down our backs.

I dance for myself
and my sweet desire to live, to move
and to love each inch of my skin.
My soul at my hips,
the song in my heart.

Dance for it all.
For your grace and your wonder, to touch
a vibration that you cannot see.
Move your hips, arch your back,
set yourself free.



As published by Elephant Journal: http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/04/dance-yourself-free-poem/