"It is really beautiful up here" she whispered.

Her skin brightened in the glow of the fading masterpiece of crimsons, yellows, and golds the sun had brushed across the turquoise sky "This is it, this is what heaven is like."

I couldn't hear her, but I could read her soft spoken lips and study her face—which I always imagined as less of the cover to a book and more every word inside. There was not a greatness or a sadness that ceased to mask her portrait. She was all heart and soul, every bit of her.

I watched as her bright eyes changed to become more glass than eyes. As if, for the first time, she was seeing life, love, and something more. Something so deep and beautiful that not even Hemmingway or Fitzgerald could even begin to put the prefix of it into thought.

Among the dusting of the clouds and transparent sunset, I felt her heartbeat could silence and the lungs of which gave her the life I so cherished could empty turning her flesh a pale blue—and she would fade peacefully into the scene before me.

This very thought frightened me. Too soon would her feet touch the ground—and nothing I was humanly capable of, or possibly godly capable of, would ever captivate and hold her so perfectly or turn her eyes as vivid—and there was nothing more I wanted.

In anticipation of the too-few precious hours in tandem, we divulged our carnal cravings at each others’ hands, but omitted fragments, saving them for some other day, finding them too truthful.

When you hold your body to mine, as you have told me you will, I want a flurry of colored breath, peach and magentas and crimsons slipping translucently from every part of me and wafting in and out and between us like a graceful fog, and not just the force of fingers that have waited too long to touch, but the electrostatic brushes of life’s restlessness falling slowly into their own gravity as we learn to trust the moment.

Our lips are full of nerves and that is why a kiss is so much more than symbolic. I placed my lips to the skin of an orange and I was met with the sensuality of the whole terrain of this world. Intimacy then, is the slow press that reassures humanity – the invitation into a world with no walls – the rush of blood that comes from being completely receptive – that is the kiss I want with your soul.

After all the epochs of lovers, these are all the same words, but they are lanterns bouncing across the plains and sparking anew in the way that the naive are always entranced by the lighter in their hand when they first learn how to light a cigarette, elated and dizzy from the *****. Twinkling.

Sometimes all it takes is a breath and I am light and wind and red paper confetti and the moon and a golden orb that turns all it touches into a shining constancy of what’s called love – and I visit your heart knowing that you can’t tell it’s me, and then I must leave– and I know that I was not in my body, but that it must have kept existing while I was gone because I always wake up in tears, and someone had to cry them.

Conventionality dies between us and there are no titles or promises to speak of. I once found security in labels, only to find that they leave no room for the inevitable growth and weathering of time. So I ask little of you – only that you are always true with me, and that you occasionally put your hand in mine.

Day breaks on Doubletop Mountain, shadowing villages below.
Three-thousand eight hundred feet tall, it captures the eye!
And standing at attention there in front of me, a battalion of Sugar Maples in full…. Fall…. Regalia!
Cascading tones of Crimsons, Burgundy, scarlet reds and Golden Hue.

Gazing over Dunk Hill as farmer’s plow  fields, turn again for fertility,
There are only brief streams of life giving sunlight, and now the sky turns to a pale grey.
Me, well I live for this time of year….enjoying the evening autumn constellations,
Or Moms dining table adorned with Indian corn and blackberry canes!

Bessie's Margaretville home begins the fall ritual of canning and drying.
Breaking out winter clothes…as she proclaims "no whites after Labor Day"!
The last bit of warmth now dwells just behind the Catskill’s Harvest Moon,
And the V of geese honk their good-byes to the summer sun.

I have always accepted you.
I have watched you take and take and take.
You've taken my family,
hell, you've even taken friends.
Suicide. Cancer. Disability. Age of Old.
I've seen it all.

I've seen you in the pain,
the Love that is overwhelming as people weep over you.
Once have I cried because of you.
One funeral.
A boy, my age, murdered by his own hand.
A classmate. A friend. Dead.

And I watched, as people wept at his funeral,
and how easy it was to pick out false Love.
How untrue they were.

You take, and you hurt, dear Death.
But you show the reality,
our truest forms,
our deepest souls,
the Love buried deep down,
how real you make us.

But I see you,
even in things you haven't yet taken.

I see you in the trees,
as they turn to feathery golds and crimsons, oranges crisped as they crunch underneath our toes.

I see you in the morning,
as birds flutter amongst my window
fettering amongst the trees.

I see you in the river,
horses that run rampant across my memory,
as I long to just run away and ride,
to feel the wind rush through the curls upon my brow.

I see you in my mother's eyes,
in her laughter and smile.
Her eyes when she is pained, how hurt she has been, or as she dawns things anew,
or when she cries of the loss she has grieved.
Giggles and joy erupt from her lips, as she dawns on the silly things her father did.
The curve of her lips, as she remembers her past, what Time has given her and what has passed.
Oh how she looks of her parents,
how kind I remember them,
always full of Love, even after I have seen them leave, depart the land of the living and go onto the gates of Heaven.

For they live in memory,
and that is the gift you have given.
You have given us peace and memory,
and for that I thank you.
Most are angered by your name, oh Death,
but I?

I am not afraid for you,
and rather,
I welcome you.
Take me when you will.
I'll gladly take your hand.
I thank Time for what he has given me and countless others,
but you, I thank for the bargain of Time you have given each of us.

It is a treasure,
the memories we are able to hold dear
and the peace we don't have to fear
when we take your wrinkled hand,
and step into you fully,
without a pain left to feel,
because that pain is left in our world
as we step onto the floor of Heaven
and gaze upon the greatest sight of all.

Perhaps we as humans need to stop seeing you as we want to see you
but to see what's in you truly;
the collateral beauty of it all.

I haven’t felt her
in 5 days,
I haven’t felt
how delicate
the rim of her
mouth feels
against mine,
how enticing it
is to get a taste,
I have to taste
all of her,
they way she
flows through me,
she’s mends all thats
broken, then breaks
it when she leaves,
it’s only been 5 days,
I miss the bitter taste,
the way she makes
my tongue curl
up like a slug
swallowing tablespoons,
she pulls me in,
and hangs me with
the rope she yanked,
scraping the bottom
of the barrel,
for even a scent of what
will remind me of her,
every taste
is like losing my
virginity for
the last time,
and she became
so much more
than a past-time,
so much more than
something to
pass time,
it’s been 5 days,
soon to be back
at the crack of the
new year,
she’s a constant
resolution
that I can’t wait
to break,
or is it me she can’t
wait to break,
she leaves a bitter taste
on my mind
and thoughts that flow
through my veins,
she’s someone I can
thank, she’s someone
I try so hard to forget,
she dictates and mediates,
a forged signature
on bills passed to
loved ones
that I’m okay,
but only for the night
she’s anger, she’s happiness
she paint’s crimsons kisses
on my knuckles,
and heals cardinal
crevices in my mind,
it’s only been 5 days,
I’ll see you soon
I’ll taste you soon

The white bleached corpse of day is fast
- reddened, bloodied -
torn to scarlet shreds of evening
slashed by wild and fiery crimsons.

Light leaching and passing westward
from bridge to bridge
garlands of mist drift up the river

Shadows dart, shelter and linger
blackness creeps and claws
the shades of night

Darkness spills down docks and ditches
fingers through the strands of light
by midnight every dock is still

Moon hangs full, naked and weary
slow stiching silver threads
through tall ships rigging
in the dim and dreary night

A yapping dog disturbs the quiet
more insistent than the stars.


© M.L.Emmett

if we were to assign emotions to colors -
passion would be where magenta and orange kiss the horizon at sunset,
joy would be the yellow of my socks every easter sunday that i can remember,
and melancholy would be just another shade of blue.

i told him,
i am not done with you yet.
three weeks post breakup,
we shouldn't feel as unfinished as we do.
like, in the ridiculously complicated narrative of he and i,
the author got up one day,
scribbled a quick ending,
and then set the novel on fire.

i read an article in an obscure magazine
about Shelley Jackson,
an artist
who got thousands of people
to tattoo a singular word
from a story onto themselves,
and then sent them back to their scattered existences.

maybe that is what this is,
another scattered story.
another vaporized narrative.

i can feel it in the air,
but not pull the phrases together.
it's like trying to hold onto smoke.
our story slips through my fingers and gets in my eyes.

if we were to assign emotions to colors -
my ribcage would look like a Jackson *******.
my head would be a paintball arena.

i am so full of indigos,
and mustards,
and crimsons,
that Van Gogh, himself, would dip into my palette
and claim to have never seen such beautiful sadness before.

i don't know if it hurts because it still matters,
or if it matters that it still hurts.

i feel the frenzied ache of creation in my gut.
i am not a painter,
but my mirror is showing me
the immaculate collection of brushstrokes
i have become.

a few weeks ago,
i was approached by an artist who offered to paint my bruises.
to collect my contusions with watercolors.

what a beautiful intention,
to immortalize the growing pains,
memorialize the bumps along the way,
to make something permanent
of these perpetual transitions.

if we were to assign emotions to colors -
my pride would be gold-plated and rusting from use, like my grandfather's watch,
courage would be the pure green of every bud that has dared to grow through concrete,
and love?
love would be prismatic,
like spilled oil on asphalt.

a rainbow one moment,
vanished the next.

crimsons from the runaway sundown
were an open **** on the sea surface
skyline's throat ingested the fireball
whole without mastication

her fingers played hide and seek
while her unbidden tears
matched the hues of the rippling waters

and staccato sad moans lingered like dirge
above the melody of the distant surf…

I can taste the colours of your kiss
Fiery crimsons bursting through
Mellow yellows
Exploding into sweet tangelo
Cool blues
Turning violet
As my senses play this quiet duet

I hear music when you touch me
Bass lines throbbing alongside
Exotic rhythms
Tumbling into trembling strings
Soaring voices
Dulcet tones
Within your music my body groans

I can smell flowers in your words
Tender Honeysuckle pervades
Alluring Rose
Sweet Alyssum quickly follows
Heady Jasmine
Lascivious Lilies
Impressions that set my spirit free

You muddle my mind with euphoria
Sensibility rearranged
In anticipation
Of this intoxication
I live
In Synaesthesia
Whenever you are near

(C) Pixievic

on the steps of the notre dame
i lost my sense of color
every moonbeam through the
cracked walls of the House of God
danced around me like blue gypsies
performing a ritual upon
every ringlet of hair on my head

in the catacombs of paris
i lost my sense of touch
every skull feeling like silk
dead calcium caressing
the flesh beneath which
my bones were moving
alive and restless

beneath the arc de triomphe
i lost myself
the curve of stone caving in on me
like a Parisian Goliath
and I, a madman David
names of fallen soldiers
engraved upon the walls
breathed back to life
from dust they have returned
they reach into my cerebrum
their stone fingers pulsing
with the hymnals of war
to meet with the battle
of indigos and crimsons coursing
through every nerve of my anatomy

behind the eiffel tower
i lost my art
paris lights beating down
a beast sleeping through the
tides of eulogies and odes
its orphans have to offer

Soft somnolent skies have ceased seething, for day’s nearly through,  
while winds echo whispering thoughts of returning to you
and heavens throb, pulsing and bleeding in crimsons, once blue -
their passions, like flames, fill my veins as you pass into view.
The breeze holds her breath as you touch, then embrace me anew
and smoldering clouds withdraw, blushing, then paling their hue.

The twilight is painted with wandering dreams of your charms,
so close your eyes slowly and slip into sleep in my arms.

The pendulous moon appears, sweeping the fog from up high
distilling the drops into notes of a hushed lullaby,
their quavering tunes spinning tales which amaze, mystify,
while tremulous stars fling a fire that fevers the skies,
for stories they tell reflect love as revealed by your sighs -
their fury is burning, alive in the depths of your eyes.

The twilight is painted with wandering dreams of your charms,
so close your eyes slowly and slip into sleep in my arms.

The shifting shore’s moaning, seduced by tempestuous tides
which flow with the rhythm of flesh as our senses collide,
and quiet explodes as the stillness of night’s amplified.
A lingering kiss bids adieu till the morning breaks wide
when cockerels come conjuring dawn with voluptuous pride
enticing the sun into banishing night, starry-eyed.

The twilight is painted with wandering dreams of your charms,
so close your eyes slowly and slip into sleep in my arms.