A Poem by Dustin Pickering

Alas!

"Time is a game
played beautifully
by children."

          -- Heraclitus, Fragment 79

Jazz of my soul, kindly direct me
to the street
where children play without bruising

their seasons strong.
Stag.  Glorious drifter, and let my heart
wreck the gloom.

I waited in the horror, bent by curious wings:
o heart, stop, death is love's wakening.
Stop, kill me, and let the sin grow stronger.

Alas!  I am dead.
Mourn me with the violence of the altar:
through me, seek to yearn.

Ideas flood my valleys; my anchorage
keeps the miller content.
Carefully choosing my words,
passion kills 'til I cry.

Lift me now in the dying shroud.
Kiss me as You wouldn't before.
The lyrical dance, o mysterious soul,
will hurt less now.

Together we have played someone else's game.
Why do the readers care
if we love, unaware that depths are pouring out?

Shivers, dense and determined, will release my ecstasy.
Fire, break the pact.
Come nearer, Sasha--
touch me, let's not forget.

Dustin Pickering is founder of Transcendent Zero Press, a poetry publishing press out of Houston, Texas.  He was featured at Public Poetry in 2013, and was a Special Guest Poet for Austin International Poetry Festival that same year.  He is published at Seltzer, Lost Coast Review, The Artistic Muse, the virgin Muse for Women anthology, Vagabonds, and Dead Snakes.  He was selected for the Texas Poetry Calendar 2016.  In his spare time,  he plays guitar and flirts with younger women.