Saint Julian Press Poet ~ Leila A. Fortier

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~Swallowed~

 

I now live inside the poem that has no beginning and no end~ Swallowed inside the belly of verse~ I am swollen with words of divine passion~ Swimming in the ambrosia of untouched heavens~ Amnesia of my previous state of being that never was~ I am now a softer, subtle form~ A shape-shifting lightness~ A radiant weightlessness~ A spacious awareness~ Tactile beneath both skin and consciousness~ Don’t look for me in the empty rooms of the shallow life I have vacated~ Look for me within yourself~ In the quiet crawlspace of your soul~ The altar of your heart~ Listen for the small voice you would never suspect~ I am there … waiting for you to join me~

 

—First published in Liquid Imagination

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~Symmetry~

 

 

S

I

L

E

N

T

Is

The

Chorus of

Bounty born

Within the covenant

Of sound~ Where dual breath

Dances in simultaneous symmetry

Where emotions become liquid spread like

Ink in the dust of the skies … and stars are merely

Particles of our humanness shattering~ Everything that

Is holy … everything that is divine … is singing

So sweetly … nearly imperceptible … yet,

Place Your ear ever close to my

Now ecstatic heart and

Hear me waking

As if from

Deep

S

L

E

E

P

.

 

—First published in Torrid Literature

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~Covet~

 

 

Tell me what this all

Means~ The lines between us where our

Words have become silence and the spaces have

 Become our words~ Speak to me the meaning beneath

 The surface of understanding~ The deeper penetration of

Our chemistry~ I know nothing outside of the world where

Your eyes hold my universe and my universe holds Your

 Heart like its only full moon~ Perhaps there is no

Language to be known outside of this art~

Perhaps sound itself would

 Be a violation~ This

Invocation has

Become

Our

Necessity~ The essential

Vibration of our expansion~ Vital to

All creation~ Warm as a womb and silent as a

Chamber~ We are the sacred~ A secret born unto

 Itself unraveling~ Everything else is muted beneath

Your tongue that covets my prayers and my prayers

 That covet Your songs in motionless wet words~ I

Just want to dissolve within this alchemy where

 Expression is alive and born once again~

There is no more space between our

Breath and the air of this

Tangled inhalation

Where our only

Separation

Is time

 Itself

*

 

( and yet, we have merged into timelessness )

 

 

 

 

—First published in Love is the Law

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