seven stories here tonight,

when two dead brothers did:

get up to fight, and ignite the light,

like eve

of adam’s rib.

love and hate dance playful 

in the moonlight from below.

pool drips backwards,

seeps into my skin —

absorbes,

scars,

sleeps and grows.

+

the tales i tell here 

will arouse your fear, 

as demons inhibit each one.

but angels alike

will shine through the night,

and breed hope till hope has won.

i see a saint

in metal wings above,

urging us to pioneer,

to evaluate darkness,

and harness what harms us;

loyal land,

and lady domineer.

+

north was the church where the deepest bell rung,

tugging on strings and pumping our blood.

i fell to the pool and i let myself sink,

and i saw a reflection spilled out in this ink…

+

the image of god

was red as blood,

and a low-ringing bell

rang out from above.

through the open window

it whispered to me,

breath of my ancestors

and ghosts in the trees.

a patchwork of all 

i know, love, and sing:

my dreams, 

my nightmares,

my crossing of strings.

my desire to know all 

that hides itself from me,

my love-to-hate-the-fight and

you-owe-that-to-me.

+

my aries sun,

and pisces moon, 

my libra rising,

my taurus neptune.

they coalesce and shine

a light through me,

in colors and animals,

and numbers and trees —

i see the beauty in everything.

wonder if this will mean anything.

+

i worry this will not outlive me.

my very soul resides within these,

but i don’t want to live forever.

i prefer you bury me vertical

in a fertile riverbed:

a branch of willow

partitioned above my plentiful skull.

\\\

i feel the heat of the red,

and the cold of the blue,

and the forest below, 

in green vanity.

i see the slits

from the blinds to my right,

seizing me

temporarily.

+

and who am i to claim any connection to the above?

well, i dream in a new color, wide and inspiring wonder,

eye-opening like blood on the tongue.

i am merely a vessel to one who 

proceeds me, who breeds me,

who feeds me and leaves me

in awe, still believing,

that i couldn’t have done any of this

without his help.

+

metaphor and medium, 

as many of us now know,

speak in rites and rituals and lights —

a very similar tongue.

bordered and untiring, 

tyrant undesiring,

bruised and confiding,

i seethe,

then numb.

+

for in this hollow she did hear

like a voice above all others…

she asked him if he heard screaming, too,

and he responded with a shudder.

a haunting voice, 

the snap of a twig,

the fiery siege

of crimson…

the love was uprooted,

and replaced with blind rage;

power polluted,

no victim.

+

out-of-order for you to decide. l

lovers of code may dissect this next rhyme:

uwu