Sacred Contracts XX: Elemental

   
I. Water  
   
It doesn't matter  
   
I have seen already  
the pitch of purple dye  
so wild my lips taste  
like something sweet  
berries turning to vinegar  
a fleshy Moon wincing  
at the sight of something  
other than creature  
other than man-made  
something only your mind  
can wink at when no one  
else is looking, even  
while the gods sleep  
I have always felt safe  
   
I have lived what it is like  
to feel you're just going  
through the motions  
It's never until you walk  
away from something  
that the very thing  
even existed  
   
By then it doesn't matter  
   
II. Fire  
   
Who's to say one love  
is different than another    
I know no different ways to love    
   
I don't want to be doused in flames    
I've been doused before    
I've had to stop, drop, and roll    
I've had to call ambulances  
I've had to lick the red  
to find out it was ketchup    
I have had to jump on top  
of him while his fishing pole  
dove into the wild current    
and we began to think love  
had something to do    
with drowning each other in cold  
rivers like deliberate murders  
   
Whatever burns, burns itself out  
eventually  
so it doesn't matter  
   
III. Air  
   
I want constant flow  
And though I know    
we cannot choose    
I don't want to have to fight  
for Air all of the time    
   
Sometimes it's about  
the distant constellations  
I learned when the stars    
are in a particular formation  
and the hunter's moon    
puts down her bayonet  
and the deep heavy woods  
of her eyes are full of your  
sweat and everyone's sweat  
the rain smells like canisters  
of levy wearing her poems  
like Sunday wears her widows  
that you are a piece of the    
arrangement, all your colors    
make the sound of god sighing  
while he does his laundry  
beating his head dress  
against the rocks.    
   
I know I didn't tell you  
when I should have    
But, poems are about that state  
trying to reach for the accuracy  
desired by the knight in you    
Words within words  
   
The language is often wrong  
and the skin in which it's read  
is often miscalculating  
what you've said, over-thinking  
   
Yet, when you step out of the room  
oh the things you begin to so easily    
communicate and understand    
   
But it doesn't matter now  
   
IV. Earth  
   
I learned when the earth tilts  
in just a certain way  
you find yourself in love    
until the upright position reveals  
his claws are too deep in your neck  
and the poems smell like aftershave    
   
If I could just close my eyes  
tight enough and wring  
out my occasional  
okay, my frequent distrust  
I might see how it didn't  
matter that the gods  
set another place at my table  
that the event was ribbons and future    
and I was a no show  
It doesn't matter now  
   
It doesn't matter now  
   
That is a poor line in a poem    
It does not matter now  
the unimportance of subject  
a narrator chooses  
all your life    
every door that creaked  
every man or woman you unhinged  
every boulder colliding with your god  
you are this moment  
up to your knees  
in the thick of reading this  
   
Every second has led to this  
So how dare I say    
it does not matter  
and waste your time  
with my plea  
   
V. Life  
   
Don't look at me like that  
like I've broken your heart  
Look at me like you  
would the strays you  
profess to love despite  
their circumstantial  
distrust of humans  
   
Look at me as you would  
look at their hesitance    
to believe your hand-out    
is all good without an ounce    
of slap in your wrist toward  
their one good eye  
or lie between your teeth  
after the winters they've  
been forced to freeze  
in the morgues of alleys  
   
You can't reason instinct  
you can only gain its trust  
and willing vulnerability  
through time and presence  
consistency      
   
You, who claim to understand  
the nature of global outcasts  
cannot dare claim to not    
understand the nature    
of patience amid a history  
of abandonment    
You cannot dare claim    
to not understand    
street vulnerability born    
of discarded belief.    
   
You cannot dare claim    
to not understand the nature    
of reality's relapse  
a sudden bite to your hand  
a painful memory against  
the cruel spurs of a street curb    
for being different  
for being hungry  
for existing    
   
You cannot claim to not  
understand the heart of  
a stray child, or woman  
for the same reason  
I cannot say anymore  
that it does not matter  
when it does    
   
VI. Death  
   
Crazy and free; trapped in  
melodramatic misery  
Yet, let it not be said  
I never listened to that  
which I so easily preached    
   
The manuscript is ready  
does this make you happy  
Celebrate for me, the slamming  
doors that aren't good enough  
the ones I never had to learn  
about in this life, or wear  
as mangy disappointment  
when all I ever wanted  
from the streets was love  
and water for a bath  
   
You are the beautiful man    
singing Seraphic hymns    
the deaf can't hear  
You are the solitary sage  
writing the ages of poetry    
that others turn away or ignore    
in their own ignorance  
   
You are the manifestation of    
a multifaceted orb in sun light    
and dark light despite your own    
human dishonesty from fear    
of loss in a momentary choice  
you will never admit to.    
   
This,  
this I remember of you  
of us  
   
VII. Resurrection    
   
I am just an observer resting    
on the street corner    
I watch each fellow stray lick their wounds    
each tourist take their photos  
sometimes I even pose for food  
and act like I trust for survival  
I watch each wine steward    
who thinks he knows me  
through his own sojourning  
with a wife or mistress
I carefully watch each pass    
through and then back    
to their own life again  
as carefully as I watch God    
ascend again and again    
through death    
   
I record the data to take with me    
back into the dust that recycles  
its own breath through birth  
   
There's never a goodbye for us  
only a next lifetime in various forms  
and I will always find you    
watching from beneath the trees  
tugging with your eyes  
that southern point of paradise    
longing for eternal peace    
   
In all that brief wind and sky    
under the condor's wings    
~  
   
   
Author's note: No. XX was never posted here - this makes the series complete thus far