Green Boxes

Have you ever seen a poet perform
who turns the lights on for you?
her words laid out as a copper conductor
hot to ground voltages on a an inductor

the world is languid
therefore the artist exists
arc to my soul a high voltage
on the summer nights
          could you hear the transformer
          humming in our suburban back yards?
          I too, write poetry, drunk, beneath the stars

she uses electricity like a goddess
humming transformers in their green boxes

An Act of Worship

Maybe another time
Another place
I would've kissed every side
Of your face

I step with the intrepid
Love never unrequited
I'm a god among the insipid
Flavor of stars among the timid

It's only demons that dragged me here
They're having me over for tea and conversation
Such atheism needs no introduction
Like white fingernail tips they know well the art of seduction

And play vinyl records to dance to
sing romance to
Push me into a corner
And recite Shakespeare and Homer

A dark room with no pictures
Will be the death of me
A small table for three
A chair, red walls, and a cup of tea

Let the torture commence with dignity
My friend let the hairs on your head
Stand in solemnity
We don't need whips and chains, conversation is enough to hold my head under the
          running water basin that started innocently enough because your secrets are
          buried deep but mine are an open wound for all to see so keep me back in this
          low lit corner with demons and torture and work me like you had worked last
          summer the stalks fell down due to the heat, an act of worship to the coming
          storms.