she turns me into words

Of splendors that hang
too far to touch, yet glow
in unformed thought...

of vague shapes at night
when the moon is overhead,
when like a pauper ghost it begs
words to fill its cratered depths,
words of golden coinage
from my minting tongue...

of all uncertain things
congealing round a grain,
to an iridescent pearling,
into an uncoiled time...

of what they mean I'll speak in lines

that flow with coward's courage.

It's that changing into words of things
made from fog and drunken clouds...
making something out of echoes
bouncing off of mirrored surface...

What great power you wield that pulls
substance from my vapored brain!

Yes, my words fall and tumble, turning
round the spiraled poles that sing
of northern snows and southern suns.
Coming through a foam of nothing,
dancing through my blood, those words!

Some break upon the page and fail.
Some make a line a thing to read.

I catch a glimpse of colored feelings,
then in stealth I reach to pillage
phrases guarded by stern angels,
phrases made from jeweled pieces.

Pieces of your hold on me,
pieces made of clay and magic,
glued together into verses,
shaped into a form of beauty,
made from what I am – language.


As lilies lean and time is bent
toward the West and evening light,
I turn instead to think of East
and feel me changing into worth.