confoundedconfusion2

B is a humble letter a bashful, bumbling, stumbling letter a letter for outdoors for endless expanses of blue and birds and branches of tall buildings and rough bricks the basics B is an everyday sort of letter except on Sundays when it dresses up all gilded roundness; the beginning of Bible but not of God or Divine or Holy or even of Love but still a letter we use to say powerful things like blinding, broken, and beautiful a useful sort of letter a letter of bags, of bearing burdens it gives us strength spoken with a boom out of the chest a sound close to our heart in our blood and in our bones

The wind keeps me company On the winding road I walk On days when it's cold enough To make my tense face numb So the muscles can be released From their smiles and frowns And masks that I display For the entertainment Of those I love And on those days I always pick up A flower or fragile leaf To place my troubles in Using whispers and Cajoling grins And then I toss them Into that special creek Which I forget about Most of the year (but that special creek never forgets me) And its biting freeze As I dip my fingers and feet in Keeps me a little saner Then I am most of the time The soft sound Which is certain

His flyaway ambition and fragile crooked bones and long arching vowels that danced along his mouth His misbegotten whims and twisting nervous hands and frantic twining eyes   that seemed to loop me in His manic nightime schemes and daylight faded lies His softly coaxing adoration and whispered words of hate I might have called it love but never would because such lies lead to hell which may have well been him

The noise they make Wraps around my tongue Testing cheap and strong Infecting my daydreams Seeping like a subtle lie Into my believing mind A metallic blood filled feeling Beating on my brain A second fluttering heartbeat In my worn thin temple Blue veins which in my head Trickle a sickly weakened red A pounding ring in my hearing Like an old church bell breaking A panicked feeling Sternum pressing steadily My voice cannot forge past And as I struggle with my thoughts Silence reigns...                          At last

Deep breath if my heart Will accommodate one It's not quite certain if it will It's tired of its rooms being filled The guests they always leave a mess Or never go away And some days I wish To break my ribs and take my heart And shake all the love away But vagabonds and wanderers Will always find their way in Breaking padlocks With charming smiles And laughing eyes And their lovely fingers Will trace the door and Then hang a sign "Do not disturb"

I take a deep breath and fill my lungs with useless air that doesn't slow my heartbeat at all and while I struggle to gain my ground my inflated lungs only drag me down they keep that dizzy empty feeling at bay when all I want is to fly away

The Tower of Burning Wings I am told there is a tower somewhere Where inquisitive people sit and stare Out upon the great wide world People who have watched as our lives unfurled I am told they write of everything they see Then burn the books to set the knowledge free Where it may fly through the air and into our minds And teach us things and make us kind I am told of oh so many things But I do not believe wisdom has such fiery wings I cannot believe in the people or their lonesome tower For always to know and never to do, must soon grow sour But sometimes I wish it were true And that there were people out there who knew What o