the witching hour

Sometimes I tire so of this little white box

waiting so apathetically for my fingers

to spin it a tale and knot it together

with a clever phrase

throwing in some imagery for colour

and irony for weight

i throw and catch and turn about

and they ask are you

are you up

and I tell them

I'm up I'm up

except when I'm down

but hey babe you know babe

i'll always be around

talking into this little box

spilling my thoughts

like loose water in the rain

and i'll go back to the refrain

there is nothing to restrain me

no one to retrain me

and so when they ask

are you

are you up

and I tell them

I'm up I'm up

except when I'm down

but hey babe you know babe

i'll always be around

as mad as a hatter and with half the tea

so really tonight you'll have to excuse me

because i cursed old father time

and he turned around and cursed back at me

I and he and the blind mice three

telling each other our history

and they ask me

are you

are you up

and I tell them

I'm up I'm up

except when I'm down

but hey babe you know babe

i'll always be around

I'm up

I'm up

(except when I'm down)

and darling dearest

love my own

you know I'll always be

(I'll be around)

The Curse of Common Courtesy.

Let's skip all of this nonsense

these greetings and pleasantries

it's not like you ever left this conversation

you with your telegraphic eyes

with your photographic face

and you could send me signals

from fathoms below the sea

it's always been you and me

in this mixed up mess of a language

and its one long interaction

made up of gestures and chemical reactions

this study in intercultural creations

and you and I are a new mess altogether

I've forgotten all the tongues I used to talk

all the other tongues I used to taste

with the sting and tingle of wit and want

the line between can and can't

With you it's no line

a long vowel of a word with a thousand meanings

and I am the master dictionary

you are the queen of the thesaurus

throwing inflection around like the curve of your hip

against my -against my hand

and I'm catching every tone

deep in the weight of every bone

so lets skip the pleasantries

the greetings and the greedy giving

all i want to know is here

between your chin and eye

do we have a word

for goodbye?

(for you. because I am so sorry.)

Arrival.

Today.

Today

(and it will soon be yesterday

and then then and at last long ago)

but today

was something new and untouched.

It existed on its own

blooming into being

somewhere along the gap of night

which exists between the reality of yesterday

and all the thousand same before

and this new separate thing

all strange and glowing with foreign light.

I woke into today

with one strip of light across my lips.

It pulled me, a gentle tugboat

drawing me from this ocean of sleep

and into this new created port

to rest and revive

before the long dive back among the dark waves.

Today I walked the long pier

with the light stripping away the salt

from my deep dreams

and arrived.

Sanctuary

the evening comes

let me sheathe this weary blade

within the warm earth

take the weight of these wounds

and turn them into something new

grow something green under the dark sky

let it bloom to starlight and starling song

and wax beneath the moon

I will take a knee for the shadows

rest my head against this scarred hilt

and find a deep moment in the rolling dark

I and this sword and the blooming new

nested next to me

resting for the stretch of time

Dawn breaks

and the battle calls

So sword and I are gone

with a wilting bloom behind.

Fluidity.

It terrifies me

the way my blood in water

spins and disappears

vanishing between the smooth atoms

of this foreign wasteland

to assimilate

to appear as nothing

a non-thing in this clear world

and like that I am gone

another transparent being

in this fishbowl of honesty

with no secrets

no self

to conceal

Passing through

I've gone through the old maps

looking for trace of lemon

slipping the black light over the edges

counting codes upon my inkstained fingers

crossing these cloudy clues off my list

and there must be a conspiracy

some covert covenant amongst secret saints

who know each other by their hidden halos

and I cannot get the light to bend

Once I dreamed my way

I woke on the doorstep with the words

ringing through my slender veins

Enter Friend and Rest

for you have found Utopia

Now i slide between dreams and dust

searching the antique rolls for some silenced path

some stairway or corridor

searching for the shine of a halo

I'm just here for a moment.

Tomorrow I will find Utopia.

sprawl.

will wonders never cease. the world wobbles on and the wicked wander through their worn ways whistling "God Save the Queen" and we ask and we whisper. may he save her. may he may he he may save her. but who shall save us. this is the way the world goes. around and around. a round on me and let the flow go free. we are men upon a marble and who knows when the crash will come. tiptoe through the forest but scream along the streets. this is a story for dark nights outside of candlelight. when we have forgotten the children are there straining for the echoes. and how it rumbles how it roars the echoes of this land and its new birth. its ripping strength it's shattered legs and let us lift a glass again. three cheers for the night Night was born. Hooray Hooray Who ran with the news to tell? I am death destroyer of worlds.( he soul thief he shadow king.
he dark dancer he dust dragon) i am king wearer of crowns. i am queen of the royal sheets. i am arms thrown wide across the night. i am the equator where all earth meets. so scream. scream with me again. this is the story this the tale. tell your children. tell your sons and their sons. tell the sons the tale but keep the girls quiet. this is no string of words for a gentle soul this is sword and stone. this is blood and bone. this is more than you have known. this is what it means to be alone.

Needy.

i pull the sense from you

packet by packet

unwilling teeth

bared to me in a grimace

i warp into a grin

and say one more one more

o my love

one more only

tell me once and once again

the truth of what this means

these changing scenes

and you with your smile/snarl

scream/sing again

dropping packet by packet

these tied up bundles of truth

a grudged thing

a weary action

and i am almost

sorry

but o my love my love

once more, one more time

tell me why and how

you love me

with your grimacegrin

you singsnarl

I don't know

No

I don't.

If you aren't busy...

make me a machine
with a slick neon sheen
with buttons that glow
and a screen that knows
(everything)
make me a machine
to fix this
to trick this
world that keeps breaking
every tie I'm making
and I'm all undone
and I'm all alone
I have this dream
that everything is what it seems
and there was a machine
with a thin static grin
and a thick neon sheen
the strangest thing I've seen
can you make me
this green glow machine
to fix this world
do you know what I mean?

Reproach of a Teacher

O cruel you

to give me wings

and leave me with these bones

so heavy and thick with blood

these wings you gave me

hang useless from the puzzle piece spine

that I use to keep myself upright

and the tips drag in the dust

with the feathers worn loose

What a foolish thing to give a child.

What use has she for an imagination

in a world of gravel and gravity?

A thousand.

a thousand thoughts

and one good line

with your eyebrow raising the question

like a hook

and I am caught

a floundering foolish thing

a thousand thoughts

and one good time

with your hand in my hair

like a knot

and I am undone

a laughing loving thing

a thousand thoughts

and one good bye

with your back flat in the shadow

like a locked door

and I am alone

a shattered solitary thing

Hallo Hallucination.

between this cold concrete and this caffeine

its no wonder i can't sleep

my toes are curled against my feet

ten tiny mice in their infant stages

crowded together for warmth

I watch them from this fuzzy height

pretending they belong to me

and alternatively

that they do not

that they are some strange thing

washed up against this slab of a shore

by some tricksome winsome wind

and all I have to do with it is this casual encounter

in which i stare at the foreign creature

curled up in the cold and suppose

what if I and this bizarre creature were connected

As I lean haphazardly against this concrete wall

creating and severing these foreign feet

I wonder vaguely about the strange angelthingyou

and against this cold concrete

with all of this caffeine

I find that though I can't sleep I can still dream

Run

Climbed the ridge today

and stretched my scarecrow skeleton to the sun

leaving my long arms straight and still

and the heat sunk like a sound into my soul

some secret signal of forgiveness

and I soaked it in

while along the ridge

the flashes came one by one

a sudden blaze and then nothing

a thousand souls seeking freedom

Architectural Failures.

Let the storm build a wall around me

I will take for windows the gaps between raindrops

and what a beautiful carpet this shining puddle makes

For my roof the rolling clouds will do

and for light quick the flashes come

Thunder sounds the alarm -a visitor!

and I am at the door with the wind a guard dog at my feet.

Let the storm build a home for me

I'd like to see you find me here.

The thunder rolls again

The lightning strikes the shadows flat

and throws the light against my visitor

You! With all your shining heat

a blazing sun against my storm

and I am lost again, homeless in this hope

(of you with your open arms for walls

your smile for a sun and strength for a guard

for a roof your shoulder and for a window

your eyes and how they see the world

and for a home you and all your heart)

Crystal

You

with your golden knots of sunlight

that drift around you like a halo

are out of place along these long metal slabs

on which the shattered remnants of some mysterious stone

are ground and burnt into a form of magic

You

with your long fingers and slender hands

that stretch smoothly into the wind

shed a sublimity upon this grey-graphed world

softening the industrial lighting with a glow

that the stealthy stars stare at jealously

You

with your warm honey voice

the sound which melts through this cold air

fill the sullen corners of this strict structures

transforming the muffled clatter of this mundane matter

into a sort of song with your soft sorcery

You

with your quick grace and easy laugh

with your golden knots

with your long fingers and slender hands

with your honey voice

You have stolen me away and I am long lost.

The Vigil.

I keep the nighttime vigil

I and the disjointed notes

that wander out of this piano

breathing on occasion beneath my fingers

pushing its single lung

one of the hundred that lie flat

and straight against each other

pushing it up against my single finger

to cause with its collision

a guttered gasp of noise

and then quiet again

until unnerved the piano breathes again

and shoves the darkness back

for a half beat or two

which is one

and I sit here and wonder

about halves and wholes

about selves and souls

I and the lonely piano

which pushes itself against me

as a preventative to solitude

I keep the nighttime vigil

wondering what about this half self means

what does it take to make a soul whole.

Aspire.

Oh you slender city spire

look at you curling through the smog

a gentle mockery of these smoke spirals

and I wonder who you are signaling.

I've been down here for years

timing this pollution carefully

let the puffs of poison rise

one by one against the grey glue sky

and stick there - gangly clouds

with no grace or grief

just a crowded clump of confusion

with the singe of cynicism and I-

I don't know what I'm trying to say

with these signals and stares

So city spire with your cathedral spikes

Who are you singing to?

What are you standing for?

Somewhere is there a station that receives

that sucks up these drifting thoughts of mine

and translates the screams and screens?

City spire does he hear you?

Do you speak and are heard?

O city spire I send my smoke to you

Direct it as it should go.