Ben Wesling, US

 

 

Free Verse   Jeweled Crosses in Her Gothic Eyes   Tight, taut, and ticking— a human time bomb, fuse lit, match smoldering, gunpowder braced for the inevitable—its identical to love I thought as I pulled on my mask and headed out the door into the wind blowing down the long empty corridors of the end of the year. She was the bomb, the fuse, the match, the subtle explosion I felt inside whenever she was near and putting on a show for me just by standing still. The sky is always empty when I am on the road driving to her temple far out by the sea where neptunes briny slaves lurk, moist and sullen beneath the waves. She greets me—a pharoah's daughter full of mystery and magic, born to the throne and never even knowing it but I see, I feel the serpent skin crawl over me when I look in her face and see epochs evolve and whole civilizations rise and fall— day turns to night and back to dawn again in the time it takes my vison to take her in and process the universe of emotions I get punched into me. Ginger root, rose petal, epsom salt kind of girl dancing, turning, spinning in my head then twist and twirl— a maelstrom swirl of smiles and feminine wiles, infinite and calculated to softly undo the strings holding up my mask until it falls to the floor, the bed, the places where I used to think I was a dead mouth sewn shut, skin pulled tight on a face flawed by a lifetime of chasing the illusion of happiness until it bleeds. Give the hurricane what it needs— satisfy the storm while it feeds on the things hidden inside the seeds planted deep in dormant earth when the sun is at its lowest point and all seems lost. Look at me, she said, lifting up my mask so I could see her expression— aztec, mayan, toltec high priestess of the hunt, the kill, the harvest, the honeymoon, spent in the beds of purple, high in the mountains—air thin and fog rolling out of the foothills to engulf all in its path. Dressed all in black, a ninja geisha, well versed in the nine thousand nine hundred and ninety nine oriental ways to please a man using only the elemental soft rays of a full moon to illumine the poetry of her body curved and still in shadows slowly moving across shifting sands out past the obelisks of fate guarding the gates of nevermourn. Kicking off her boots, landing in a pounce on my soul— I had no choice—I had to submit— I had to give in to the cosmic force she exhaled into my mouth; when she kissed me the sweet minty taste that just might fool you if you didn't know where its source was. The center of the galaxy, the woman she just has to be, the seductress of time, a moving silhouette of love across the heavens in a slow dance that only ancient gods had ever known before— we came along and crawled straight out of chaos. She wrings hot sweet arpeggios out of the raw loose string of my life, battered and bruised about to break, but then she is there—she is radiant— she is alive and changing day by day into the woman I knew, the woman I have never seen before, the one I have secretly followed for centuries under brooding and rain swept skies— I recognized her the moment we met by the unforgettable sight of those glittering jeweled crosses in her gothic eyes.   I Will   I will remain calm I will stand like a reed in the wind I will stand in the center and let chaos flow around me I will stand in the center and watch the show unaffected and unattached and untouched by ego I will     Moon, Bed, Moon   Pink roses arrived in style in crinkly wrapping paper with the card in a little white envelope signed with the ink of devotion scribbled here and there. I arrived clumsy with the back draft of heat that accompanies a warm body intent on reaching the object of its desire as soon as is humanly possible in rush hour traffic. My fingers fumbled with the cords of leather wrapped loosely around her heart but eventually I got one of them untied and she said, "look, while you were occupied I undid the other eleven thousand for you." Gasping with the breathless nature of hot water on my bare skin, I sunk slowly into the bath watching her eyes as I submerged and came out sleek and silvery in the candles dim glow. She blinked back and sloshed faintly and delicately as she talked to me unreeling stories of her past that I could only guess how close to the edge she really was at all times. Moon wobbled into view through the open window— fat yellow and lazy like an engorged trout trying so hard to spawn upstream but having a hell of a time doing it; so what was the use, why not just hang out here in the sky and call it a day. The bed was vibrating with unholy flames that licked along the floorboards towards me with tiny sparks that sent my thawing heart down the drain when I pulled the plug and watched the water whirlpool away leaving me shivering like a turtle in an empty tub. She waited in the bed covers pulled up to her eyes, fingers little shields as if they could hold me back from leaping into the jungle around the perimeter of her personality as it shifted from one thought to the next in the way that beauty shifts and shapes itself in the flickering light of the soul's sweet sugary flame. My eyes devoured her whole with quick glances stolen from midnight interludes ripe and fragrant in the cool air that always is in season no matter what the damn rainfall has been lately. The bed bent under the black wings of desire as they boldly unfolded above me and encircled her innocent aura with the dark fire of a thousand years of moon risings, voodoo red and coffin black with corn husk offerings to the carven stone gods of ancient worship long since toppled and half buried under wind driven sand, gnarled root, and the salty water of the centuries tides. Moon listened close as we merged in a shower of skin and bone and blood flowing along rivulets of satin that became our bible of night detailing the screams of angels suddenly wrenched free from heavens soft holy brothels where, not only do they sing, but also exact pleasure from unwitting demons lucky enough to wander into the blessed temples of chrome and crimson turrets spiking the sky. Bed groaned under our slow dance but never broke and when the seeds of harvest were finally plucked from the fields of flesh we lay and lingered in the jazz flavored afterglow of midnight sated and maybe even ready for another turn at the plow. Bed held us like a hand holds birdseed, so still and yet so calm and anticipating the next move, the next reaction, the next dance, the final encore... What will it be? when will it climax? why do the bodies always part and go their separate ways when I can hold them and put them to sleep where they belong? Moon stared at me as I departed in the sorrow of joy as if to say, "well. here we are again traveling by night to a new bed, a new morning, a new set of rules to follow but don't forget that I will be back again tomorrow night in the hazy dark velvet star fields above to light your way again on the endless travels you people seem to enjoy taking acceptance as you move from birth to life, to pleasure, to pain, to acceptance to surrender,  to death...and along the way you cannot escape the cycle of living that is so simple— it only consists of a few things that can be boiled down to moon bed moon.     i am not alone there are others like me out in places i can only imagine mossy misty rainy cool and rose petaled there are others with poetic fingers and mystic smiles somewhere over the horizon over the mountains over the sea there are others who feel the earth tremble shake rumble and calm as it settles back into a new day i am not alone     white crane   white crane steps carefully through tall grass each step takes nine heartbeats I timed them and vowed to do the same when the world speeds up too fast and tries to pull on me white crane follows the trail blazed by his own heart forged in nature's hot furnace stoked with the living fuel of life I shall follow my heart also and perhaps I too will step as surely carefully and unerringly as the white crane