Savoring Desire

She wound her way like ivy in-between thoughts,
curling cozily, permanently, vertically.
She is flesh, simple flesh, and I
found her skin effortlessly.
Then, closing my eyes, I recalled how
through finger tips
I tasted her palms and wrists.

Have you fingered prayer beads, chanting?

Have you ever intoned long and slow?
Have you knelt in silence, unceasing?

Repetition mesmerizes, enchants, unfolds…

That is what touching her skin did to me.
That is why I could not release her memory,
or forget her face, as if I were under
the spell of some sensual grace.

That which held her pulse

freed my own in some strange way.
I could feel it rising from a soft field,
energies fusing beyond sight,
ghosts rising from the yesternight.

There was no hurry in this prelude of touch;

anticipation, first kiss, latent eagerness,
desire sparingly dispensed
like the final drops from a desert fount.

That  night, like ivy, rose slowly,

curling cozily, perhaps permanently,
as I began to unwrap her name.

end/michael bogar 

Sometimes I Remember the Dragon Skin

Sometimes, I remember the dragon skin, 
sullen, sulking, huffing fire to get attention.
Now rusty armor has been shed
and I have closets of surplus cynicism.

 Sometimes, I put on an old suit

to feel the acid pierce my flesh again,
enter my too-good-natured soul.
Bitterness can feel life-giving,
coursing through predictable veins,
pumped afresh through the mundane.

 Resentment, childishness and contempt

embolden church lambs that graze
on the anemic stubble of compliance:

 “Love your neighbor”

sucking marrow from once strong bones
may leave you feeling invisible.
To be tamed is a horrible lot,
to lose the pulse of freedom
for the good of an indifferent herd.

 Sometimes, selfishness is terribly underrated.

The stalking beast uses all means at her disposal
to snap the neck of her prey.
She waits in the sun, panting,
eyes lifted behind hungry incisions,
prowling, bored, restive,
waiting for the weak,
for the advent of adrenaline release.

 Ecstasy is the mother of all tragedy,

swords clenched nobly in the fists of warriors,
the guttural cry of an enemy pierced and gutted.

 The plundering Greeks knew nothing of morality.

Life was struggle.
Conquest was participation.

 The good man was the subjugator.

Sometimes ego must reign or there is no self,
absolutely no personality, no contest, nothing to lose.

 Judges, please bury your sanctimony.

Life is fire, changing shape and hue
with each sputter of orange turning blue
and blue to white, and ash.

 I envy the stallion with his erection

wobbling like the balance-bar of a high-wire walker,
defying gravity, damning convention.
Spectators pay to see death mounted,
pierced, pumped full of new life;
or to see some poor bastard crushed like a Dungbeetle,
or clawed lifeless by the sweet kisses of the huntress.

Sometimes, I am possessed, I admit it.
You may call it demonic, psychotic,
or you may collect your thrill by watching me win or lose.
But I enjoy this rush to power,
and sometimes, so do you.

end/Michael Bogar

Concert of the Gods

One hundred thousand suns burst their rinds,
dispensing swirls of light  
before names, before time,
spontaneous tendrils hemorrhage passionately.

 The celestial chalice splinters like porcelain.

each crack highlighting the alabaster skin,
stabbing the fertile soil of night.
Atlas groans under the mass, fingers claw
toward stability, bending, shrugging, shifting,
hoisting each eruption into position.

 Picking up my guitar, eyes closed,

empathic fist clenched as an in-breath tightens
each muscle before the down-stroke.
Poised, without plan, silver strings
cower beneath my hovering hand,
chords slammed through a Sunn Amp.
I mimic the concert of God –

 Agni ejaculates streams of sparkling magma,

one rogue ember penetrates a breach in the egg,
fusing softly. The countless Denizens of Eternity
stand to admire, “Fire! Fire! Fire!”
and Infinity bursts into bloom.

 Notes like ash drift from the eager womb,

seeds burrow, sprout songs. Incessant pulsing
moves the rapt onlookers to applause.
One whispers, “Hush”, and then conception,
gestation, birth. A spiral of milk
spills from torrential breasts.

 Sorcerers and scientists explain how

continents were knit together, how stray notes
strung randomly are subject to magic.
The full belly grows warm with spawn,
igneous arms lift the dawn, infant fingers rise
into cerulean skies, wiggling cloud-ward.

 The child is laid under a crescent cradle,

golden bough gently tilting, Helios
spills pearl white milk to young Earth;
first breath, the infant suckles…
there has been a birth.

 

end/michael bogar

Three Last Words

Yes, my eyes lit up, coal bright
an enigma about to disclose it’s riddle.
And my imminent silhouette
spread like an orange-red wraith
under a wisp of sun,
turning solid in your embrace.

 the way you became familiar

with my skin, found the faint
scent of perspiration
to which you returned again and again,

 and the way you traced the rise

up the back of my thigh,
cupped my bottom on the way,
continued your voyage along my spine.

 We both watched the exploration

in the mirror, spectators of our own recital.
Leisurely, the evening wrote itself
in lines of verse made of sighs
and irrational sounds. Before sleep
gathered her kin, three soft words
and a final kiss gently tucked us in.

 

end/Michael Bogar

I HIDE IN THE STARS

Nefertiti, smooth as amber has it all,

honeyed lips, midnight silk for hair

reflecting the shimmering moon.

Each evening she stands, empty hands

longing for the diamonds of the Gods.

She reaches through the diaphanous dark

into the vault of sparkling fire,

fingers piercing dusk.

Desire is the blight of sated eyes

and empty nights. Dispirited by fortune,

the Queen turns up her palm, fingers

beckoning the unclaimed charms

that dangle over an endless Nile.

Beyond her reach, knitted together

on indigo, the stars are called.

Heavenly dunes stacked like glitter,

radiant before her stately hex...

yet each speck remains immobile, unclaimed.

Buxom brown sovereign stirs the wind,

casts another spell; they always work

on the wills of simple adoring men,

but not on the twinkling stellar gems.

That is why I hide with the stars.

end/Michael Bogar

Come

Come Pleasure, vital seducer
to the bed, to the quarry vulnerable,
lean in, look, there linking you and
uncertainty, she awaits...

Peel back the clatter of sleep,
bare the quiet neck flush with need,
kiss the nipple under a patient pulse.

A kiss?
Two, passionately fixed,
mouth to mouth, irrational gesture this –
yet consume we must, infantile urge
to suckle, ravenous lips, crackling fire
as tongues poke about like starving chicks
inquisitive for edibles –

It is an act of greed, of taking,
or perhaps exchanging lives
for just a few minutes...
questing some curative extract,
some soul supplement to relieve the
boredom of having just one skin,
or some attempt to solve the
exhaustion of living in between.

Such delirium uninvited, until
an Angel inwardly whispers
“Come”

And you know you must come…
come in
come again
come to
until you become
a single living thing,
from two...

end/Michael

Growing Down to Grow Up

"One may not reach the Dawn, save by the path of Night"

Kahlil Gibran

 Growing Down To Grow Up

(Written for my children: Carise, Micael and Jason)

Each is a seed of boundless probabilities,

Skin encircling soul, holding all necessities,

Gifts and possibilities, nascent budding rose,

A tint of patterned petals, anxious to unfold.

Unique and wondrous flower, embryonic pod,

Drawn out by Gaia's power, fertile womb of God.

Beneath the crushing clay we wait then break apart,

Alone in seamless silence, enigmatic start.

Each seed must burst asunder, shed its fragile skin,

Lose its perfect circle, then begin again.

A skein of tangled roots exploding into birth,

 Fantasies expanding on a tapestry of earth.

Sown and sewed by Daemons within and out of sight,

Likeness cloaked in darkness, emerging into light,

Pushing through the soil as the Plantsman works above,

Dispensing rain and weeding, each an act of love.

Delicate newborn sprout pierces the emerald lawn,

Finally rising upward after months of growing down.

A shoot, a stalk, a blossom…then the sated bloom,

Symphony of brilliance, supple budding plume.

end/Michael Bogar