Just About Midnight

This Weighing

Incandescent fever, it was
Midnight, the sharing rained down
Every day, every day, e-
very day, the
each and every, the
raging storm
yes-ing this,
weighing that,
osmotic caribou
me and you
ain’t
no stoppin’ us in all this blue.

Tarragon Boo

sizzling motion,
tarragon boo—
and all the charms of me
‘n you.
Didn’t you find it
Babylon, didn’t
you find it
yours and hours
(oh so many ours):
undulation nation,
reckless magic,
midsummer night’s
anthem
nestling in the mist.

Handpicked

angle it this way,
nurse the night
out of time,
tadpole dreams
handpicked
each and every way
rocketry down by the bay
soon come,
tarry come,
any way you
reach me come.

Topiaries Yearning

Tricksters tricking
evening sky,
Lilliputian lipsticks
lolling
yesterday away:
assiduous babbling,
butterfish rock and roll,
ovoid pachyderms
uttering
the syllables of sleep—
marginal topiaries,
yearning
billabongs,
articulate
baby boomers booming the gorgeous
yellowicious day.

Looking: Longing

titular fashionista
hems the day’s
estuary longing,
looking past all
our contrivance,
our continuing education,
kissing the oblivous
overdue otherwise,
faring pas
love’s lissome bloom.
o, for mercy’s
Velcro, ventral
eternity, her ubiquitous plume.

Empyrean Haberdashery

carry me,
lush me
optimize me
salivate me, in the biomass of prime
empyrean sky,
titillate me in the ergonomic
haberdashery of wisdom,
elevate me,
daughter of roses,
opiate of the virile tongue,
osculate all the
restless nonillions of this boisterous one.

Her Elvish Beauty

tenebrous tendrils, the
analysis of
kismet’s
excess, the jongleur’s
mulberry mulch,
evening naturopathy’s
temperature humidity index—
operant care,
tis the season,
hotel de ville and her
elvish beauty, her
restless eloquence
itching the drive,
vitriform spaghetti
every little thing she does—
recitatives into the restless night.

Babaloo Springtime

babaloo springtime,
ultrasonic haste:
you were there for the quickening,
you were there when grace
overturned the wheels of fortune,
urging angels down the line,
asking beyond ordinary time,
murmuring between
ebb tide and flood,
racing for the moon,
counting the days
umbilical,
rubrics unbound,
yestering at the five and dime.

Nearing Ebony

burnt
umber, the color beneath the lines,
every line the lines of your face,
nearing ebony, nearing
anarchy of the senses, the
vagabonds of interior angles,
integers of sensations,
soundless, windless, yet
timeless in an
avalanche of gaiety,
skies tumbling cerulean blue,
oceans of infallible embrace
called to the
immaculate dreams
aching in the night.
cast your fate:
leave your face
under the billows of time,
born on the wings of mercy.

Marian Babes

Just as if
u wouldn’t, you did—
showering roses
trilling lines
all but lost, he were—
bewitched, bewildered, & bamboozled
octagonal bliss
understated aftertimes
terrestrial blissfuls
marian babes
interpretive dance, interpretive
diminuendo, diplomatic immunity,
next to the lasts that linger—
inwrought,
gossamer,
holy stone,
tessellate, inscrutable, monumental—

In the Moonlight

marry me,
ogle me,
oogle me,
native me,
deliver me,
annunciate me,
nourish me,
caress me, your
enchanted.

[Acrostics all. The entire text of Just About Midnight, a chapbook I wrote to commemorate our 10th Anniversary as Black Madonna babies.]