Sleep Chaser

Sleep Chaser

Running through the dark waves behind my eyelids

I search for dreams in my stormy brain

My body lists endlessly

heaving itself into every direction

The more I search

the farther my goal

The longer the hunt

the shorter my prize’s duration

There are always the drugs to cheat and win

but they hang on my shoulders long after the victory

I race that which does not move

My sanity stays afloat only because I can occasionally attain it

But too often it alludes me

seeming to laugh at my tired face

All I want is for my rational to go blank

For a few hours to forget to think

But when the time has come

the tide slows me down once more

and I look again for that formless thing

which embraces me in a warm bath of rest

February 27, 1994

Tressa Lee Breen

The Piano

The Piano

A slow crescendo

licks across my skin

swimming from shoulder to shoulder

A hand on my neck-

like being brushed with a comb of spider webbing

I can hear you

even when we’re not close enough to touch

though our body hair becomes entangled

What wonders come from your mouth

when you’re not using your tongue to speak

You can play me

Ivory keys

ivory flesh

it makes no never mind

Your lips make my pores sing

Sweat drops down on the bedding

eight note

quarter note

writing a tune that hooks us together

What music could issue forth from these sheets!

February 23, 1994

Tressa Lee Breen

Ember Rose

Ember Rose

The dark fire

like burning chocolate

is always in her eyes

Her body is the color of toasted orange warmth

Forever hot

her midnight cherry hair flickers

around broad naked shoulders

She flowers in the night

arching her spinal stem toward the moon

Word crackle out of her dewy lips

sometimes thorny

always true

This igniting rose blooms in heat

Eternally thirsting

she drinks in passion

absorbing lust in all its garden varieties

pulling it through the roots of her being

She lives

searing reality with the embers

of her blue shadow

February 22, 1994

Tressa Lee Breen

Heather On The Hill

Heather On The Hill

You rose over me like the morning glow

your light and warmth seared me with love

and you cauterized my past

In happy radiance we merged

I burned my initials in the sun

On a hill wrapped in heather we began our lives

Nature married us

and in union with all amongst us

we flourished

But dark was my destiny

and it blanketed your fate

Your crescent youth became full

though your womb never did

and then began to fade

Your flaming hair slowly simmered down to cool gray

and your white flesh crackled into lukewarm embers

The months of your life followed their only course

and I could no more stop it

then halt the cycles of the moon

You waned away from me

till night eclipsed day

and the sky was barren

I put you to earth

and now my Heather blossoms

in the heather on the hill

February 7, 1994

Tressa Lee Breen

Perspective

Perspective

The rains came

Wet embraces from Mother Nature hugged the land

and people feared a smothering death

I went puddle jumping

The winds came

Arms blown round the world lifted it up

and people feared a whiplashed death

I went kite flying

The earthquakes came

Earth reached up and gathered itself onto itself

and people feared a claustrophobic death

I went dancing

The snows came

Banks grew and encompassed all things

and people feared a glacial death

Guess what I did

February 2, 1994

Tressa Lee Breen