-slkjfdsf-

fifteen years since i read a mind that way

mostly      we got older

     times we stayed black glyphs on
     snow-white amnesia only

     pretend amnesia clearly

     

"sadness sung through a spotlight

screaming on a background of smile"

we never said it that way even when we did

yes i still quietly wish i knew how to hope you

-lifelong-

“On a strung length of clothesline perched a temporary bird.” – William Gay, Provinces of Night


from each other we turn and
pull tightly and
this all does
not break

but for the small absence of…

...you
will quietly
call it...

something
for a word
like
         this

       

-lips reading-

oddly

kissing you

nearly you
attend


almost

oddly kissing
you nearly

you attend
almost
oddly


kissing

you
nearly

you
attend


almost

-when to ravage you-

telling

the way your hair
falls without screaming
into the arc
of your neck

and yet
how it deafens

the loosening ache
of your thighs




revised from 2010

-kingdom-

  when at     times     my hand

enough     deficient

to regrow     stem

cut
of daffodil

a bee

stuck     blood
dry
at the toe

  a drop of     your crazy




revised from 2010

-glancing-

it’s hard to look away, to hush the night under this moon’s colloquial pearl. brittle galaxy of the winged and the legged busy telling each other everything, fizzing within the big bang of earshot, within a stoned throw. so i may raise my voice enough to carry south what doesn’t pool at my feet like shadow in prayer cast. dear someone, somewhere out there, i am sorry as an unopened letter. something is owed, though not unending as the vague black overhead, but in the way the stars vie for little pieces of it. whispers and shivers of everything i wish i could tell you.

-letting go-

                         sound

of two hands

-villainess-

she knows he knows
such is a man’s way of knowing
what drifts beneath his bound is the skin of a woman

frail affair pooled into shadow of tree pile been heaped up on the horizon

seems when a man wants a woman
she is a lake slick with tremble

heart deep –
  the shadow crush depth

peripheries entangle in wake, wake

she is the drowning of an eye
whereupon his row fails to tease up the tiniest ripple

he is surely the whole of the woods
an always fetching of oars

-a bad reenactment to follow-

the girl out in the tide still

almost to his chin
the boy remembers

the octopus he dragged ashore
  many kite strings set loose

then not breathing

then his girl

-headlights-

swung as my stomach into the drive

trees, then a panic
of trees

called by name but a smile larger
than if fallen

you and/or the dark

secret

-the day porters-

i stepped into the morning
elevator with an old woman
who cares
for the building and
her cleaning cart
which is
a trash
can on a cart

told her i’d heard
something funny
that
someone had
referred to her as
the “day porter”

i’d smoked with her
outside and often but
to this she didn’t smile
or grit her sandstone
teeth or even lift her
blasted old face from its
vacant
downward
fix

then i noticed her hand
  a grandmother’s hand
on the rim of the can or
the pit of my stomach and
her mouth i swear didn’t
move when she asked

if there was a dead baby in here
we wouldn’t notice the elevator
is taking us
would we?

-hand held something-

                                                      for allison


like the want of eye
in the eye
of a doll
held tightly
in little arms

little arms
     littler world

-coyote decoy-

just as quickly
we're burdened
with

there’s more

to not eating
the rose

-damn beautiful orchard-

i’ve been sitting in this orchard
awhile

it’s the last place
i want to be

and as such
a perfect place
to find enough distractions
laying around

keeping me maudlin

after a few days
i noticed something freaky

my eyes
though cold
from staring
wet
from crying
somehow manage
to burn

heh

and so i’ve been quite happy
sitting here
contemplating my foolish
observation

while staring at nothing
but this beautiful
damn orchard

thinking perhaps i’ve discovered
the very reason
beauty
is

and now here you finally come

dressed in the orchard’s mist

-how the night will purr-

tonight i am the center of debate
among the council of night dogs

at issue is the stone floor upon which
my boot laid pace is uneasy

i enter a plea of vodka and kick
a beetle into a truck tire

arguments run as far into the night
as the stitched wing of a cricket

when recess is finally called i run
upstairs to make love to my wife

but the baby is awake and the cat
is tongue-out dead on my pillow

-night drive-

everything i said to you was brilliant.  so much that i could feel your silence listing my way through each perfectly missed turn.  something like faith, my hand on the wheel.  you fully allowing me the light of the moon.  most times the moon open to my theories as the road full of cliché; the blink of your face at the turn of my eye, the struggle for somewhere so true of nowhere.  there were times i said nothing, as though not to alarm a farmer on watch for his harvest of locust.  those residual moments when the radio stirred in its sleep.  the wind missing chances to break free with your hair.  in them i realized so sweeping your belief in disbelief.  likewise, the ghost of that farmer leading with torches its horses crossing the road on crutches.  i suppose everything i said proved immeasurable the distance between driver and rearview, voice and throat.  though i still felt lost and strangely alone as your shadow so easily dodged the passing signs.  they all said: left to guess, passably right.

-burning old love letters-

boy and his daily pail of ash
clanking about the white tones of
an old morning

stops to climb the oak outside her
bedroom, the handle of the pail
between his teeth

until he reaches the nest of
a starling, collects the five eggs
grey in his palm

and scoots his way toward the end of
a branch, letting the pail drop with
his halting smile.

boy and his handful of starlings,
tossing them one by one through her
open window

and waiting for her not to come,
and giving the branch a hug, and
done with his pail.

-a curious couple-

we come upon the end
of a rowboat
collared in sand

hull deep lies
a boy missing
mostly his wrists

the peak of your shadow
dips into the pale trough
of his thigh

smellin' that salt makes
my nose bleed snakes all day
he creaks and then
spits a tooth

see my wiggly little blood?

you whirl at me primed
with a scream that will
surely loose the devil

i give you my hand and opt
my love however so deep
as your bite

the boy stares and threads
his blood
through an oarlock

-hell, just guessing-

keep dry the field where your voice grows
hanging

by the roots of a tree
risen into the clutches of heaven
nearby

a man, quietly, missing

-artifice-

darting shadow of your tongue,

could it coerce a cat
to slip into halves

the lump in my throat?