doubting you would, under the Ford Street Bridge at dawn, you kissed me, as a trumpet vine grabs onto every available surface, on arbors, fences, telephone poles, and trees, you wrapped your tendrils into my yellow throat and made the world feel closer than it ever has before.Unmediated by the veil of what we think we know, I kissed you back, and together we became unfamiliar, like finding new oceans. George Cassidy Payne is a poet from Rochester, NY. His work has been included […]
George Cassidy Payne
Detox Prayer
I am weak but willingI am flawed but fluid. I am lost but listening.I am ready for you to come through the portals. From my crown to the roots of my feet, I am ready for you to enter. Here. Now. Passing through this misery,I am ready to be mindful. Let all who come with me be liberated. Let all who […]
A Bond
As lemongrass holds the river’s first shimmer of morning light, you possessme. Drifting in the marsh, my fingertips dipping in the water, like a luminous blue god, you have become an idea that I can no longer doubt without proving my devotion. Yes,you hold me, you hold me, you hold me as wood holds the frame of a house, or as iron […]
Sri Yantra
Just as water will flow througha well-worn riverbed, even beyond and after death,I go to that place of memory between our legs, holdingthe sacred vessel with my lips, a holy mass we recite by rubbing,by binding, by applying our Tantric perfumesto the wound and by eating the unfolding body baked with sago,the astral body weaving […]
At First Sight
The hour I walked through your temple door,I came and knelt before your table. Thirsty and tired after a long journey,you asked me what I needed and poured water.I had no answer for your beauty. So I loved you without explanation. George Cassidy Payne is a poet from Rochester, NY. His work has been included […]
A Midnight Oracle
Spread on the seagrass, curved as fishing knives, the cards of my past arrive unexpectedly, three swords piercing the heart, the only organ that won’t bleed to death, while the sleepy moon turns its encrusted eyes from molten tears falling on the gray, blushingcheeks of a corpse. I am no knight, but no one said I was. I am no devil either, although some declare […]
What You Cannot Help Naming
Hiking with children, in a nature park at noon, the world is sparkling and synth-laden. Without trying, the sacred ibis of thought is upon them, as their fingerprints singe burn marks of poetry in the bark of trees.To them, pine needles are hairbrushes for unicorns. George Cassidy Payne is a poet from Rochester, NY. His work has been included in such publications […]
The Bobcat
Without pride, senses controlled,born or to be born, we met as hilarious strangers, each wanting something impossible.I wanted all beings like you to be happy. You wanted no being to deceive another. For a brief moment, we were sincere.Both of us, protected against the spirits of the dead,on a darkened street, on the outskirts of the city, waiting to cross over […]
A Definition of Bliss (for Joseph Campbell)
In this land of a quick and unexpected death, where the air is almost wet enough to drink,I am merely seeking an experience of being alive, my best and only religion,the music of tiny, bare footsteps splashing. George Cassidy Payne is a poet from Rochester, NY. His work has been included in such publications as the Hazmat […]
I Miss You
everywhere, in the hairs on my head and of my body. In my nails, teeth, skin, flesh, sinews, bones, marrow, kidneys, heart, liver, diaphragm, spleen, lungs, stomach, bowels, mesentery, and excrement. I miss you. Your absence floats in my bile, my phlegm, my pus, blood, sweat, lymph, tears and saliva. I miss you. In the oil of my joints. […]