TheCourtRose

( "Woman Playing Cello" by Lara Bagdasarian ) I will play you like a cello- place you between my thighs pluck and prick and twist, until you hum to my satisfaction I will drag my bow across your belly until you weep and scream my song I will play you hard drive you up and down registers one octave to the next, until you shudder between me your wood glistening with tears and sweat My touch will be soft because I understand your nature I know the curve of neck and dip of your side and how much you love to be used I will play you so exquisitely you will beg for my hands to ignite you to cinders And when I am done when you are warped with condensation and lamenting with lust I will put you in your case and forget we ever made music at all (Published in Movement: The Arts Issue. Issue #131, Spring 2009)

When we meet like this, the lights low, the curtains always shut, she stands naked in front of her full-length mirror, face flushed from the wine we finished downstairs, and anxious for me. I kneel in front of her and begin to paint. I brush the soft bristles over her belly. She shivers. A ballad this time, line by line, down the swell of her stomach and around her navel. She turns slowly, slowly. I drip prose down her thigh. She drops her head back and a sigh escapes her mouth. Practice makes her turn again. I paint tanka on her lower back, her buttocks. Standing up behind her, my breath trailing her spine, she moves her hair. Haiku is caressed onto the nape of her neck where the dark hair curls. Her hands are braced flat on the mirror, the gold ring clinking against its reflection. Shoulder-blades bowed back and jutting, breath coming faster. Circling round her, I stroke iambic rhymes on the insides of her wrists and the crooks of her elbows. Sh...

the grip of winter is lessening through pink-shot morning skies I can hear the cry of gulls renting the moist air my bones shiver from the damp, from the cries as if every important memory is found in their call echoing inside me Galveston Island, with brownies and bright sandy buckets Swansea, Wales and creaking windows against stormy gales Chicago, Illinois and... waiting for winter to pass snuggling deeper under the covers while light fills the sky at every pivot point the gulls herald their arrival I think it should always be this way for me

the story of the phoenix doesn't mean much when it's told over and over again but no one stops to plan it means you gotta die no roll of the dye you have to choose to die in order to live again we keep talking of ashes and flames but it's just games until someone grabs the torch and makes the choice to expeditiously expand their own demise in order to move beyond simply surviving the story of the phoenix is bloody and lonely the song of the phoenix is melancholy and wondrous but we speak so easily of such things as if putting your Self on the altar is no mean feat no force no remorse your choice your voice screeches higher as flesh and blood sizzle away in self made fire cracked tears and dried lips praying you weren't wrong praying you'll wake up on the other side on the inside when the song of the phoenix cries better say goodbye 'cause swim or burn sink or fly either way you're gonna die

The crackling sound of falling rose petals while I'm trying to sleep Dried and hanging on the wall, a bundle of memories, incessantly talking Dark Pink, from coffee-guy at work who has yet to actually bring me coffee, is the newest and irritated with the Lonely White for being my own Valentine for the first time in 6 years. Yellow-With-Orange-Trim, from a friend who followed the trail of sunbeams and blood, is proud like a peacock still and overshadows the Sweet Blue Rose, simply because Blue Rose likes to read The Glass Menagerie before she goes to bed. The Red Rose, old and shy, traveled from desert to sea to city. Carried everywhere and shedding petals, she was loved so hard, doesn't say much because after 6 years there isn't much to say. Thinking I should learn how to press flowers, instead of dry them Suffocated blooms don't keep you up at night with self-important chatter