Author: L KC

An oarless boat, an eyeless blue
This is all I have for you
A sleeping heart, a timeless clock
I will give these without thought
But
A budding bloom, a purring cat
I will never part with that

I’m being submerged in lights

As I step into the dusk

As I tumble down to writhe

My body tells me to hush

All that is misery now
Was joy yesterday
All this suffering is new
It balls up like yarn

The harp melody has ceased
In trade for all sin
That will turn precious coral
Into Satan’s silt

Tall, slimy, with the bodies of eels
and beady eyes
sunken into their faces
and lips so pursed
only steel claws could pull them apart

They creep into books,
poems, magazines
and sprawl across billboards
and television screens

Whenever I see them,
I wilt a little
and I get even tinier
because I know
I’ll never see myself
in their place

My cat is like snow

soft

and cold

landing with grace from above

and onto the ground 

below

As her baby bird splatters,
naked body contorted
into a crumpled discard
on the sidewalk,

The mother continues building her nest,
weaving twigs and nurturing
her valid children
underneath her directed warmth

You desired the soul of a dragon
stashing gold underneath your talons
feeling the cool metal of riches
and scourching your tongue to feed your defenses

Now you must viscerally
gather the pocket change you have
to keep your blood flowing
and leave the cloak of desires
at someone else’s doorstep

Pull me under the silted snow

Tuck me in under frost

Perch upon the branch, you red crow

Ice throttles me, I’m lost

your words are
a pinned moth
in my head

on display for
me to look
back on them

language that was
once alive and
pumping but now

is sitting in
the boundaries of
a wooden frame

egret

steeping its legs

in

the runny fog

unable

to lift the

concrete

from its feathered

self