hi.

wanna know how you are,
cus who you are,
ya know?

oh.

me? well, I been well
but still and always how I am
cus who I am.
you know.

sometimes I think how you flutter inside
your heart and your breath there, racing the moon
around the night sky ablaze in fiery contest
between her jewels and her sable coat

sometimes I get a glimpse of that goblet
there on your nightstand
after you’ve been in your cups
and I ken the vintage and varietal

cus you do drain what is opened to you
(a bit too much, darling, a bit too earnest and compelled)
and when it is joyous red I sip too and laugh in your rest
but when it is dull brown and rust and no diamonds

well, then I sit beside you as you sleep, those miles away
and you there still torn open and seeping your value priceless
and that goblet stinky, forceful, insisting on being drained
but only sipped from and then denied unbearable…but present still lurking.

sigh.

you toss, and then I see your shuttered eyes glimmer
and then your loss leaks, wells up and thru limpid lids
squeezed tightly against remembering ever but driven and compelled
by memory’s tortured brew…alas, that goblet…and you

I snatch up that cup (this cup is passed to me, dear)
and to my tender lips I raise it up and press it hard against them
(ah, it burns so hot, it aches so frozen and immobile)
and down I drink the bitter draughts so tragic for you, so tragic in you…

but inside me they find a resting place
to be changed and sweetened, then expelled
out thru my eyes so tender and so kind
and filled with teary balm of sorrows healed

I catch them, the tears, one by one, in that rank glass
that goblet graveolent and grim, musty and mephitic
and loathsome in its unwashed remembers and never can forgets
and while you sleep my tears work a washing wonder

and then the cup do I return and place beside your bed
and just in time, for whimpering you thrash about and grope
wanting to forget, needing to remember, your heart stuck in December
another drink to drug you, goad your hurt and to falsely sustain you

but to your lips my tears transformed within the cup
into a sleepy healing vintage of AD 33
and hale and healthy once again
my tears…my heart…
and your eyes flutter in relief,
and your chest heaves, and sighs
and fall at long last do you from that cliff
and into Her soft stark healing embrace

and as I look, I see your face grow placid
peace in rivers breathed and mercy streaming
and then you rest and restoration reaching
to touch your troubled brow and make you whole again.

so.

you got broke, yes? torn.
cus that’s just how this world…yeah.
you know.

love.

just one heart torn willingly and glad
cus that’s just Love and constant
ya know?

sleep now, you will awake, and breath so lightly
and know that all is Love Redeemed and Lifted,
scars are left as medals, evil works are sifted
and what remains becomes

the makings of many poems
of Life Divinely Gifted.