Rituals I Can't Live By

El tiempo se detuvo en la colina mientras miraba el mar. Sobre los acantilados, el graznido de las gaviotas me despertó un sentimiento. Coro: Anhelo, anhelo una caricia que me rescate del abismo. Anhelo, anhelo una caricia. Me ahogo en mi propio mar. Muchos se van, pocos regresan. Así es la naturaleza de la bestia. Iré donde otros temen ir. Aquí no me queda nada. Coro   Solo Las nubes vinieron como pájaros de la lluvia y luego colgaron sus ceños fruncidos sobre la playa. Creí ver la cabeza de una sirena. Era una foca mirándome fijamente. Coro ################################################################################   Time stood still on the hill as I gazed out to sea. On the cliffs, the cries of gulls stirred a feeling in me.   Chorus: I lust, I lust for a touch to rescue me from the abyss. I lust, I lust for a touch. I'm drowning in my own sea.   Many go out, few return. Such is the nature of the beast. I will go where others fear to...

The punch bowl shimmered with a moonlit brew,  Goldfish swam backwards, my thoughts turned to blue.  Bobby Robot bartender, with all circuits ablaze,  Mixed up absinthe and starlight into a Kosmic Haze.   Chorus:  In the back of that bar room I was so mesmerized by you Keeper of Twilight Sadness Lady of Midnight Blue The air was fogged with incense and whispers of old,  Misfortune cards got scattered, futures remain untold.  A feathered serpent coiled on a pedestal of jade  It danced to a singsong in the shadows it made.   (Chorus) (Bridge): In the flash of a spotlight I thought you were looking in my eyes When I thought it was real You made me feel… feel…   (Solo)   We traded stolen glances in a whirlpool of light.  Logic ran for the exits, day turned into night.  The river of Xibalba carried us slowly away To a place where wild orchids wear faces of grace. (Chorus)

They heard yelling late in the afternoon, then silence. No lights lit her apartment that night. Now, it's December, yellow oozes through clouds soiled and gray. Skeletal Maples remember June Twenty-fifth, Battle of The Greasy Grass when Yellow Hair and his command fell into Tatanka Yotanka's Dream. A victory, hollow. Anniversary of an End the day she slipped  away. Some thought The Ghost Dance would bring the buffalo back. She thought Jack and pills would quiet the voices in her haunted head. Some spirits don't leave. They still march arm in arm with Manifest Destiny, making us regret who we were and who we will never be. Propaganda concocted by parents or a government that cuts your braids, and fits you with Carlisle's tight, white collar  just to remind you of who knows best. That is the truth, and if you don't believe it, you will dance at the end of a bayonet, then be buried under the mists  of History. I texted her that day. Thought all was well. Oh, Hell. Life...

He shelters under a Sitka  heavy with snow. His salt and pepper flanks rise up and down. Misty Peonies bloom from his mouth, they scatter among stars and constellations, evaporating over the valley he hunted, creeping at a distance, noting weakness and disease.  Sometimes, he waited days to strike, carnassial clamping ungulate's windpipe shut, they whirled like dusty dervishes till there was  no beat.   Like a pup, the wolf whimpers in a makeshift den, starving, but satiated while dreaming of blood. He remembers feasting, resting with the pack. Even apart, their howls held them together, sinews of sound, breaking away. He closes his eyes, listening listening for those songs that bind him to the earth  no more  

Love was a bird, elegant as a Stork, flying through the Milky Way on shiny, silver wings. Never satisfied with what was, she searched for magic moments to ruffle her feathers in all the right ways. But it was tiresome work and after so many orbits, Love grew weary, and longed for home and Peace. Peace was a Tortoise shuffling, in no hurry, across a dusty scrub-land desert. He enjoyed the sights, contented in mind, body, and heart. His breathing was easy, and his vision was like a hawk's. He saw, both, inside of himself, and out, across the desert, beyond the setting sun. Inside Peace, there was a murky world where dark and light co-existed. It was a cavernous place where he poled a raft down a misty river in a waking dream. When he awoke, there was Love, her back pressed against his shell and body. He felt her tremble. His Tortoise paw morphed into a human arm and hand. He pulled her closer, feeling a trickle of warm liquid meandering down his arm. "Why can't I teach you t...

  The air is guilty of humidity, and I have not loved enough, I say in my best Gerry Mulligan almost blue impersonation. Do I make such melody or am I just a wheezing-buzzing, Koo-coo Kazoo? If anything,  I'm only a beach blanket stiff in the sun. I don't rewind much, or flip through memory books, but I do long for a time when life was revealing and friends, not this Social-Medium, were Real. True Socialists of emotions, trusted curators of Psyche. ‘All for one, one for all,’  we laughed,  retreating to the car while you stood out in the wind smiling like a freezing Archimedes after the Feat.  You discovered your "Eureka!" We  settled  for sputtering  heat    and   Seven-Eleven coffee