Traces of Fire

Let's paint visions of passion and spread our lust
(love)
like fire across the land,
leave traces of your noises and my strength in the air.
Don't hold back
I want to hear your voice

deep in the sky
resonating with the stars
two shadows entwined and
writhing
please

Let's set this place on fire
dance like silhouettes against sand
hot summer sun
burning
burning
burning us alive

set me on fire
I wanna set you on fire
let's do this the right way

beg me for
my strength and passion
beg me for a flood
(don't put out the fire)
beg me

I am your panther
predator holding you to the ground
I have no claws but
muscles and flesh they
tremble as I keep you down

I'll set you on fire and you'll
cry outloud
my name on your lips like
the Holy Spirit just awoke your soul

I see curves and
flesh crashing
the endless tidal wave
crashing to shore and
pulling back
again.

Let's set this land on fire,
press my lips to your damp skin
let's set this earth on fire
show them what it's like
to be consumed

Pulling closer,
crashing together
two shades they crash
the desire to meld forever in this
carnal dance.

Make noise, make all the noise
I want them to hear
while you feel
my strength and my
quick coaxing to the edge

my nimble fingers
your legs wrapped
the wood thuds
thuds
thuds
against the wall
Leave marks, leave marks on me
dig fingernails into me
Sweet sensation of your pleading in my ear

Your fire is out of control and I will
devour every
blessed inch every damp inch
your legs wrapped
your pleas tumbling into my ear

Is your heart crashing?
I feel it crashing against mine
or is that your flesh
crashing
into mine?

Let it go now

And there you fall, fall endlessly only to find
you are still wrapped in my arms
catch your breath
before I set you on fire again.

Ly Hansen

Intoxication of a Butch

I have to admit, here before you
I cannot explain why
I must look away from your
Dark, magnetic eyes


You intoxicate
Slip into my mind and sieze control
You overpower completely
You look at me and
I feel your hot breath
On my neck
Like sweet flames rolling over flesh
Rolling over me
taking over me


You caught me
By the tie as you passed
Murmured something
Hotly
Against my ear


Visions, torrents swelled up. Inside
Torrents
Predictions


Lips upon my own
Draining my resistance
Making me sink against you
As any butch should when
Hy finds the
Perfect
Femme


You kissed me with the
Passion of all my
Lovers combined


Fingers graze the back of my neck
I am helpless
I see skin against skin and
My better senses
Take over
My hands slide to cup
Rounded flesh
And I
Seize control.


Kiss you soft,
Slow, as tender as
A gentle breeze,
Graze your cheek with a
Shivering touch.


I answer your lust
With romance.


Lips hover
You are breathless
Hazy as they attempt to open
Chest heaving
Shaking beneath my touch
And your hand slips from my tie.


I straighten it carefully and murmur
"What a dame,"
And press my lips to your cheek
With promises of future encounters.



Ly Hansen

Holiday Wishes (from Ly)

A brief intermission to say, I hope you all are having a wonderful holiday season.

Back to our regular programming soon.

Today it's Grandfather's house and father's Christmas after.

It all seems like a lot of hulabaloo over the wrong thing.

God bless.

Progression of a Sex Scene

Let's get drunk together, you and me
Be irresponsible with me
tonight.
Forget about those obligations you had
yesterday, or tomorrow's bills
or the way you hate
how cluttered
your house is.

Lock yourself in this room with me
I'll open the wine bottle, you get the glasses
And I'll take this moment to say
I love your sweet smile
and how there's always
something
fire
heat
pressing just behind it.

Let's get drunk together, now
spill our secrets to one another
all our secret fears
You'll giggle too much and
I'll look at you a little more intensely
than usual
tell you  in the best way that I can
how you
move me.

Oh, how you move me
I said let's get drunk together
just because I like to see you
smile, and giggle
and forget about everyone but me.

Or how about
let's try something new
let's get drunk together...

my fingers tangle in your hair
my lips against your skin where your pulse
beats hardest
and baby, it's fast, your pulse is so fast
did I make you feel
dizzy, like your room was spinning
all around
as my fingers guided your
journey
arched into
and touching that place that makes you
look at me in sweet
sensual surprise.

Did I make you feel like lightning
like tidal waves crashing
and down your walls with a single
press of my lips to your
damp skin
Did I make you feel like
you were a space traveller
observing heavenly places where you and I
often breathed, together

Did I make you feel
drunk, off my love
off my touch
Let's get drunk together
throw your head back
my fingers trace over your
beautiful throat where your life
thuds hard in response to my
other hand.

Let's get drunk together
so I can make your head spin too
because seeing that
fire inside your eyes or the slight
curve of your lips that tell me
you are about to pounce
and I will have no choice
Let's get drunk together

because even without a touch
you make my head spin
and torrents of our
heated whispers and pleas
fill my head like fog.

You arch
hard, draw me into
that place that makes you
cry out-loud recklessly
your skin damp against my fingers
your chest heaving
your perfect sounds tell me
that we are drunk together
as we drink in
one another
and devour the night's hours.

Ly Hansen

Desert

Dry summer heat made my skin red,

in those three weeks I spent with you..

I wore that sunburn like a badge of pride

My whitewashed Tsalagi skin was warm for a while

with you.

Your hair flew in the desert breeze

deep brown and red flames against the backdrop of deep blue sky.

You laughed, at nothing,

a laugh of pure happiness and knowing this too

was something you may never forget

(I hope you don't).

What we must have looked like

two people overwhelmed with an earthly joy

at being free

flying through the desert

like those eagles we saw, flying above volcanic mountains.

It was so hot that day, I remember,

but I wore a sweater, still

to protect the tattoo I got

a panther with blue eyes.

I'd never seen anything so beautiful

the pale sun glowing through strands

of your flying hair

the sagebrush spotted across barren sand

and mountains in the distance

mountains that I swore

I swore the mountains were

like music, symphonies rising against the sky

and an eagle flew above the volcanic black

keeping pace with

our hearts, I think.

I remember you crawling

on the ground like you had suddenly become twelve again

half of your body in the branches of a bush

sand on your jeans, as you tried to catch

that one little lizard, that probably would have

made me jump, anyway.

I giggled, in my masculine way, and pulled you out

told you to stand

and we went searching for beauty in the rocks

(I secretly prayed that we would find that, and not a snake)

a white marble rock, or a deep amber

I placed a few in my pockets

like they could solidify my memories and

make them permanent.

I told you, standing against some boulder

staring up at the flat top of the mountains

watching over us like giants,

the white cross in the distance

(God's little reminder)

I told you

I never wanted to go back

never wanted any of it

to end.

I felt my longing like the summer heat

in which we stood, together

drawn like magnets

two shadows thrown across

the desert sand,

no space between my silhouette

and yours.

Nothing was ever so beautiful as the desert

and in the best three weeks of my life

we left traces of our joy in the sand.

Ly Hansen

Borderline Apologies

I have to apologize, today, here
You see, something's wrong with me
chemically.
I don't know what exactly, because I can't name
the chemicals or the receptors that aren't there or aren't
functioning properly.

You see, you get frustrated with something and
that's the end of it
But my frustration will roll like a tidal wave
over and over, and become a force that even
I can't control

These words tumble out of my mouth
like a lot of little accidents all piling up in
the middle of a street, stacking one on top of the other
until one misspoke word becomes an entire night
of my apologies and my mistakes

and I don't like to complicate things
I don't like to complain or hold my art
in chains of misery or sadness
my art is beautiful and this poetry is
a celebration
like fireworks yearning to touch the moon

but today
today my art becomes this
memory from the past about
being angsty and pathetic and
being that stupid little girl
in middle school
who couldn't cope with life
or hold herself accountable.

this is me holding myself
accountable
to all the little mistakes I have made today
all the apologies I owe
because of this monster inside my brain
that stomps and fumes and hurts
hurts..

this defect inside my brain that makes me
borderline
borderline between sane and insane
between stable and an earthquake
hammering at my foundations and making me
step over that line into
the wrong side.
borderline between
my apologies and my mistakes

I have this monster that lives in my brain, you see
it makes everything all wrong when there's
nothing wrong...
or if there is, it makes it into
an apocalypse.
I have this monster that tells me to panic
to be angry, to blame to...

it's all wrong.  it's all wrong and
I'm sorry.
today is a borderline day where there's only time
for my mistakes
and these apologies.

Ly Hansen

Moonlight and the Sound of Falling

Oh, my fingers how they pressed so deeply into your flesh
And how you reached, how you ached for me.

I am here in a room I don't recognize, beside me
a woman breathes deeply in her rest and I lie awake
my arm draped around her

Nights like this I remember you, your perfume
Your skin damp with perspiration and my kisses
remember being pressed together
as if the closer we got, the less we could be taken apart

The moonlight tumbles in over her flesh
her hair splayed across my chest, and her pillow
and I think how atrocious, how wrong
how wrong that this lover is not you, that I can't even
remember where I am

I've searched for you in the faces of other lovers
yearned for you against lips that were not yours
their kisses were never the same.

It's funny...

the empty vodka bottle beside the bed
I cannot make love to another woman sober anymore
your intoxicating presence can't be matched
no matter

how much I drink, no matter how
I try to pretend her flesh is yours
her kisses
her sweet form bent against mine
in the moonlight.

It feels cheap, filthy, I feel no more than
a hooker in a dirty a motel room
In this place I've never known yet
looks so much like the other places I have been

an Irish flag hangs on the wall

her hair is deep red, not like yours
her hair is bright like fire, spread across my arm
but the irony is

you set me on fire with heat like the sahara
with just a breath

but she...
she's all wrong.  her kisses her body stiff
she says...
I'm too rough
it's been a while

she's not you, doesn't feel
like you
she says I'm too rough
and when I tease she
gets angry.

she's not you.

I remember how it always seemed to be perfect, every time
every hour spent laid in bed together soaking in the sweetness
it seemed natural, like the flowing of river to the sea
or musical notes

that's what it was like
a symphony in my bed rising and falling
building to the point where

you draw in your breath, grasp at my arm
bury your teeth in my skin to silence the inevitable
sound of falling

You look surprised that someone could
know you so well, bend you to my touch, my intention
I draw it out of you like an artist draws images from
paint or clay, subtle curves or a perfect line

she's not you.
she's angry and quick to tense
She speaks harshly, smokes, uses me
in the same way I was using her

It feels dirty, in this room with a loose bedframe
an Irish flag hanging on the wall
like a cheap movie, a sad story

she's about as pleasurable as the first woman
who ever tried to melt that stone in me
which is to say, I felt no pleasure at all
I felt used, violated, abused under a hand that

isn't yours.

I gather my clothes, my phone.
The room is still dark.
She's asleep, wears a scowl
loose red hair making her pale skin look
like marble.

And I think
to someone, she must be beautiful.

Someone else could have been gentler with her
would have left the marks she pleaded for on
her milky white skin

I couldn't be who she wanted, needed
we were two strangers tangled together
in desperation

she wasn't you
I suppose I had to confirm that

she didn't curve to my touch
or match my every motion with hers

she told me I was too rough
but I think
I was trying so hard to pretend

She'll wake up without me this morning
and after that we won't speak again.

I feel cheap, baby, I feel dirty
I feel desperate.

I only wanted you, I only looked for you
in the faces of other women, other
lovers
but none of them, not one
was you.

I remember delighting in your flesh
attempting to draw every bit of your pleasure to my fingertips
as if you and I had been made
for this exactly, for this absolute state where I know
never again will I find another lover so perfectly matched
another lover who could find that place of
deep contentment and endless need within me

I recoil now, draw away from any hand that reaches for me
or attempts to drag along my skin and press deep into that place.
I recoil.

I lay alone tonight
and I recall every sound
and I feel
vulnerable and naked
exposed before the many eyes
of the many lovers who were not you
and I think they must have known.

The moonlight tumbles across my sheets
where you should be
I lay alone, press your shirt to my chest
breathe in your perfume and hope
that I'll dream of you, lover
dream of your flesh
and the sound of falling.

Ly Hansen

Minimalist

Take a look around this cluttered, scattered bedroom
A desk with four unread books, stories frozen at the place which the bookmark sits
Two extra bookmarks without mates, a journal and a pen beside
Door ajar, a coffee table full of books, movies, an unused lap-harp
To match the unused keyboard against the wall.
This place it seems messy, like unconnected thoughts and

unfinished sentences, words collected together that don't match
No punctuation, no end, merely all unfinished piled together
A sketchbook, two books to
release demons and understand how the Evil one oppresses
Empty soda cans, a camera, a collection of essays on gender
All these scattered like shells on a beach, shrapnel on a battlefield

I sift through it all like sand, I search through each piece to understand
Try to organize what can only exist in chaos.
Where a lover should lay, rests my bible,
and Pablo Neruda's haunting words that haven't stopped speaking since 1970
There my dog sleeps, her chest in a careful rise-and-fall, whimpering until I nudge her
and near, a remnant of childhood, a game meant to remind me how to be
carefree and that it's okay to be unproductive sometimes.
I feel like I have rested in this room forever, this room full of clutter and
incomplete thoughts, incomplete definitions, incomplete goals
In this room I feel there is too much, all the answers too complex.
Yet I fear the day when I gather my backpack, my clothing
My bible, my pillow, my blanket, a few luxuries, and my companion
and leave the rest --
all the rest...all the useless rest --
to drive away from everything I have collected in my life
into the grand unknown of
a clean slate, basic survival

homelessness (for a while), skipped meals, saving change
sleeping in the back of my truck like a vagrant,
where next to me will lay my bible, my poetry, my journal
and my sleeping dog, her chest in a careful rise-and-fall.

Ly Hansen

A Prayer in Anger

No ounce of sweetness in this flesh exists, momentarily I am transformed.
I breathe out my anger, feel my hatred like an entirely separate being.
I look my anger in the eyes, she is so powerful and so full of rage,
She is so full of venom it creeps across my skin like a tendril;

I don't know this angry person, this person who can hate another human being.
This jealous person is unfamiliar to me, I only know I wish she didn't exist.
I close my eyes to pretend that penetrating gaze isn't mine;
That angry person cannot be me, that hateful person cannot be.

Hateful curses must not come out of the same mouth that sings praise
It cannot be so, I will not let it be so, not tonight or ever again;
Yet every time she rises in me like beast ignited by endless fire,
Roaring and raging just under my vision, brow creased

an incomplete sentence, hangs in the air.  I let it go, I have to let it go,
Let it go, let it, I beg you.  Keep hold of me no longer, dark core poison me no longer;
Poison me no longer, I denounce you from this flesh that refuses to rage
Refusing to hate and envy and corrupt, I denounce my hatred.

That hatred built a wall, solid and thick, standing firm to the sky;
Behind, I claw, I cry, I beg and plead on my knees,
Heavenly Father, Heavenly Father, take this darkness from my heart
The burden is too heavy and I can take it no longer.

On my knees, I beg, Heavenly Father, take it away now
This anger no longer protects me, this distrust no longer defends me;
This anger belongs to no one, it's held me for so long;
Angry little beast lays before me in tears, she has shrunken before me,

This angry mirror image, it cries before me and asks, "Why?"
The creation of a past long gone, built by hands that were not mine or His
Who is this angry beast who lays before me?  This poor child
of envy and darkness, who made her this way?  Who would?

The mirror image blinks, fades like a projection and I reach but
My hands reach into empty air, finding nothing but understanding there;
Please Lord, as I have begged so many nights until sleep overcame
Please Lord, as I have wanted for so long, I want peace.

I denounce, I release the beast named Anger, the cursed child of Envy,
I release this stranger to the air, into the hands of God,
This, these words, this is my release, my denouncement;
I seek the sweetness again, the patience and adoration

With my eyes turned upward, I pray for peace and patience
I am not anger, I am not hate; the core of me is neither
With my eyes turned upward, I pray for
I pray for the breaking down of my defenses and the strength to surrender.

Ly Hansen

Boy with a Pretty Face

Palms pressed deeply against marble, fingers gripping the edge of the sink,
Thick pressure in my head, pushes against the confines of my skull,
Insistent, pounding, your never-ending questions start to probe
What I know, what I thought, what I dreamed and held dear,

These quiet, troubled brown eyes look into another face, another heart,
Begging the question, "Who are you?  Who are you?"
Are you a boy with a pretty face?  Are you a girl who wants to be Peter Pan?
Are you the little girl in the alley, face pressed in the gravel, bleeding

Eleven years ago, little broken girl lays in the dirt, the monster above her
Hovering, breathing, panting, sick monster tearing,
Eleven years ago, pretty little girl innocence lost,
The world fades to black and the pretty little girl gets caught in that alley forever,

Who are you?  The question breathes against the mirror, brown eyes searching
Who are you?  Always always pressing at my skull, always asking
Who are you? Stop asking me, you're driving me into darkness
Who are you? Don't make me answer, don't make me explain

I am a girl, who looks like a boy with a pretty face, a flat chest, brown eyes
I am a survivor, a victim, wearing a binder to tie down my
Memories and ghosts left in the past, left in the alley,
I am nobody you knew, nobody you ever saw

The question pounds and the little girl imprisoned
Destroyed in that alley eleven years ago
Stands before this mirror today, a tattooed survivor
A stitched-together image of what I want to be

I am a boy with a pretty face
I am a girl who dresses like your brother
I am genderless, formless, boundless
I am who I want you to see

Who are you?  The mirror asks me, searches for an indication of
My gender, but you are looking at the wrong thing, looking
In the wrong place; if you want to find me
Go back to that alley and there I will be

Face pressed in the gravel, sucking in dirt, staining the rocks
Attacked by a monster, a beast, a nightmare
There I am, you see, that little girl with long hair and bright eyes
There I am, becoming the little genderless one, safe in my refuge

My genderless paradise where monsters never attack
The pretty-faced boy, the girl who looks like Peter Pan
Somehow beautiful in the gray, somehow brighter in the middle
A boy with a pretty face, I will be who I want to be today.

Ly Hansen

The Visiting Hours

Cold white floors reflect an anxious expression,
Eyes tainted with emotion - love, hope, want

fear, impatience, pleas for the future to arrive all lingering there.
The receptionist checks her watch and draws her eyes upward
A skeptic in stiff clothing, scrutinizing my worthiness,
Visiting hours haven't started, she tells me,
Two minutes to go - two hours of allotted time I am given,
Maybe daily, maybe only weekly,
Lilacs held in hand, I grip the stems so tightly that I feel
the structural sinews starting to flatten,
Two minutes to go til visitng hours.
They pass, they fade as I wait,
Lilacs held close to my heart, my feet tread heavy
and fast across the floor.
Into the room I go, where she is, visiting hours
in which it is just us, and I can openly express
all those things that only she is to hear.
Only during the visiting hours can she press
the lilacs to her lips, thank me, and smile at me in her love,
eyes shining with starlight and strolls along the beach,
clasped hands and murmured affections against bare skin,
only during the visiting hours can we be ourselves
only during the visiting hours can she openly love
openly share her heart with me.
The visiting hours are over, says the warden
wandering in with a frown on his face,
it's time for you to leave, says the warden
placing her charts and carelessly swiping his eyes over the scene,
her hand draws away, the warmth draws away, the lilacs resting between her fingers,
lover's whispers no more, one last smile she tentatively offers as I am
ushered out by the somber man,
left to wait until visiting hours again, seeking out echoes
of "I love you" with lilacs pressed to her lips.


Ly Hansen

The Waiting Hours

I wake in the dark, alone, grasping at the edges of vision;
You were here, weren't you?  I felt you here - you always are.
I search the darkness, sift through the waking fog, grasp for traces of you in the waiting hours;
These long hours, how they torment me - the in-between 
In between being whole and missing the most divine half of myself.

It's funny how fate weaves together so unexpectedly,
Funny how I stumbled upon the presence of you by mere mishap;
How quickly your importance grew, as if alive, as if self-possessed,
How quickly I ached for every moment to be in your company, to be with
My soul's completion, to devote every waking hour to 

Idle conversation passed between us, affections exchanged,
To soak in the song of your laughter and know the warmth of an offered embrace.
Whispers exchanged throughout every available opportunity, they carry me
into this state of constant joyousness, constant gratefulness, constant need;
Your warmth, love, completion, rakes through every last nerve-ending

Every piece of me, down to each atom, shivering with happiness;
Reunited with you, I can only think that this is fate, can only accept it as divine favor,
God, Krishna, the Great Spirit, smilingly watching as two of his creations
Shades passing through life, suddenly brighten, intertwine, embrace
and they are made whole again.

Lovingly, lovingly, intertwined endlessly, we attempt to fill a need
A desire so great that the outpouring of affection, passing of time, loving words exchanged,
It is never enough, never enough, never enough;
Oh, deep aching, in the waiting hours, in-between.
In-between being half of a whole and being complete

Being completed by you, spirit intertwined for eternity with
your soul; I keep reaching for you, grasping for traces of you in these dark waiting hours,
Aching to be whole again, aching to fill every last second with you.
Eternity is ours for the taking, these two shades lovingly reunited
Two shades in a forever embrace.


Ly Hansen

Unanswerable

Someone asked me once what you looked like;
I couldn’t draw a picture, or write a poem, or take a photo
and fully answer that question for them.
In this I tried to think, how do you explain the beauty
when stars pass through the sky and fade –
jumping just for the thrill of it
that layer of clouds even when there are no clouds in the sky –
like cotton floating too high
guiding your hand through waves of wind –
driving too fast on the highway
warm sun beating down on paled skin –
taking a breath of fresh air for the first time in too long
spotting a singular silhouette against the backdrop of deep city night --
a faceless shadow with a story to be told
thick bountiful snow for the first time all year --
glittering and untarnished by the weight of life
the vast unwavering warmth the first time you realize that
you’ve come home, finally.
How do you explain with the few words we’re given
all those things?
That’s the same, you see, if I tried to explain
the radiating compassion in your smile, in your eyes
the memories stored like a scrapbook, of a woman whose
smile takes up her whole face, whose heart reaches out to every person she meets
the warmth of hand against skin, cradling the saddest of souls against a warm heart
murmuring after a long time searching, “you are loved, you belong,”
and so the only response I could think of spilled tenderly from my lips
fingers clenched around the remnant of you, so far away from me now,
“She looks like love.”

Ly Hansen

You Trouble Me In That

You trouble me in that
there’s never enough words to accurately describe
the pummeling of heart against ribs
the rush of blood through veins
at the sky blue, crystal shine of those eyes
or the dazzling glow of a genuine smile
a head thrown back in laughter, coy secretive grin
(these things and more make you more beautiful than can be described)
Yes, you trouble me
because I can never fully explain
the depth of what I feel
or how I believe that
even when the sun burns out
when the stars burst in the sky
leaving nothing but the ghost of celestial memory
shadows, two forms standing underneath the sky
marveling at the smallness of themselves
when all this has disappeared
and the only remembrance is in
molecules floating through space
particles of former physical selves floating through the blackness
I will be there somewhere in the memories of time
haunted, blessed by memories of you
the brightness of your eyes
somewhere out there, together with you
remembering that all I could ever do
was love you.

Ly Hansen

To Whom It May Concern

 To whom it may concern:

sometimes in the middle of the night, I’ll wake up
and see that you are not here
and my heart aches in my chest
so I pretend you are
and bury myself beneath the sheets.

To whom it may concern:
I make up stories in my head, as I’m drifting off,
of the life we might have had
if things had been different
breakfast in bed, midnight laughter amidst sighs
the bliss of you and me.

To whom it may concern:
I’m writing this because I miss you
because tonight, concentrating hard enough to recall
every little breath, sound, graze of skin
isn’t enough
and this ache burrows in my breast.

To whom it may concern:
I think sometimes if I wish hard enough,
one morning, maybe, I’ll wake up and find you
laying next to me, breathing slow
dreaming sweet things,
warming my side.

To whom it may concern:
I endlessly imagine and recall, concentrate and
attempt to hold on tightly to every memory
because the truth of it is
I can’t live without you
and tonight my bed is empty.

by Ly Hansen