Salamander

(album: Violet Bent Backwards Over The Grass - 2020)

Get out of my blood, salamander!
I can't seem to blow off enough steam to get you out of my head
Soul cycle you to death, run you out of my blood to San Pedro
And yet, everywhere I go, it seems there you are
And there I am

I don't want to sell my stories anymore, stop pushing me
Some stories aren't meant to be sold
Some words aren't meant to be told

I want to leave them underneath the nightstand to be forgotten
Or remembered should my thoughts come upon them in the middle of the night after a long beach day
Or by you, some afternoon, to thumb through with your worn warm after-work hands
I love you, but you don't understand me, I'm a real poet!
My life is my poetry, my love making is my legacy!
My thoughts are about nothing, and beautiful, and for free

You see, the things that can't be bought can't be evaluated, and that makes them beyond human reach
Untouchable, safe, otherworldly
Unable to be deciphered or metabolized

Something metaphysical
Like a view of the sea on a summer day on the most perfect winding road taken in from the car window

A thing perfect, and ready to become a part of the texture of the fabric of something more ethereal

Like Mount Olympus, where Zeus sent Athena and the rest of the immortals to play