talk and talk back

Talk has these tonal ways

where we are breath within it.

We need to stand up

in the moving canoe

of what we say

and to go places within voice

where we find ourselves

under the fountaining

of these vocal sounds.

I see rays off what you say.

Pillows hear for me

and lay me still-prone to listen.

My cavern silence

invites your voice again.

And I awake first hand

to find eccentricities

were in the pockets

of your unsaidness.

And I stand by my say back to you

to face your responsive intent

because you have the fury and the blaze

where as I have the makings of a crusade.

There upon, my darkest sense

of all night warmth

goes out to you.

Your voice showers me

with smolderings and lucids in song.

I am as desperate

as “lyrics without this melody” can be.

My hearing you smothers over me.

I have not richly and deeply

hurt like this

in my entire life.

You clearly say all of my pain

as if my secret buzzards

fly out of your open mouth.

I must now wear

a breastplate of trust

to do my hearing you.

And if I had the sword of endurance,

these buzzards would all perch

side by side, along this blade.

Instead, what I say back unravels me

and joy comes over us in my eyes

as if the sun hums us one.

Wishing the origins of my voice

were that pure and empty

but I say shadow and silhouette sounds

that predict blood clots, sunspots,

and partial paralysis

while absolute in my dedication to cause

while you hear me then as feathers

that gather as the down of my darkness.

The sound of your voice conveys

a death wish of oneness

that overwhelms me

as if these were your words

blessing into me.

All my listening

ordains your spokenness.

For beyond these words

and for all these words,

in their passage,

is our shared story underscored.

Yet living it,

provides no story to tell

of its richness in passing

for beyond that,

it may appear to others

that we are

just talk and talk back . . .