Dear Void.

The Nylons

2012-02-15T22:33:00.000-08:00

There are strips in your stockings

where your skin shows through

startling in its hue.

The moon has crept beneath your eyes

all pearl and silence across your cheeks.

The heather swells delicate in your veins

as they run purple across your wrist.

The willow has woven itself

into your hair that weeps past your waist.

All nature has bent itself to your making

All earth lies sleeping

waiting for your waking.

Yet when you walk, all they wonder

is if you know about the tears in your stockings.

How foolish to judge a nymph by her nylons

like the wind by its weight

or the world by its waiting

or the heart by its loving.

Proper places

2012-02-15T22:20:00.001-08:00

To rebuild the earth

to restore the glory of the world

to prophecy that beauty

shall debut again

is beyond me.

Let me announce the quiet

turning of spring to summer.

Let me stand as herald

to the place where cold water

comes up from the earth laughing.

I will be the louder voice,

the longer hymn,

of the already present song.

I will take up the full-hearted pen

the ream of paper

and act as historian and mapmaker

inscribing worlds as they were and are

but ask not of me the future.

Do not question me for truth

in it's deeper patterns.

I may tell you how it appears

but not how truth be

that too is beyond me

to track it in it's essence

and not merely it's effect.

Let me stand as herald and announce the world

but leave the judgement to a better Lord.

Exit wound

2012-02-15T21:30:00.000-08:00

When the tide retreats the sand

lies in lonely lines

ridges like arms

that could not contain

the beloved.

When the sun sinks the trees

stretch sunken shadows

fragile like fingers

that have lost their grip

on sanctity.

When the summer fades the water

hardens into harsh hiding

frozen like feet

that cannot follow

the track.

When you leave the room, the world

disintegrates into despair

silenced like my heart

that hates to remember

being alone.

The Game

2012-02-15T11:11:00.000-08:00

Kissing the corner of my mouth

weighs me down

tilts the sky

spins the sun haphazard

Galileo's marble on a slope.

I become a lost thing

the treasure in the field

the pearl in the palm

of the child

along with his cat's eye toy.

You force me from the circle

drawn in the sand

by the ruptured silence

of your smile against my skin.

Kiss the corner of my mouth

scoop me up into your hand

Win me the way you would

the marbles on the cement streets

crowing your victory

and I will slip into your pocket

content.

Cape Cod Suicide

2012-02-11T22:30:00.000-08:00

The sand seems a strange place

to choose to die.

Strange to think of swimming in

to the shallows

scraping the soft grey skin

feeling the tide strain to pull you back

towards its black-blue embrace.

Pressing on

to the burning light, the heat,

the eternal sun.

The asthmatic gasping

the salty thrashing

and all five hundred pounds of grace

expended along the shoreline.

At night, Brody walks alone

into the sea.

Past him,

the dolphins swim

to strand themselves

upon the sand.

The Garden

2012-02-06T11:14:00.000-08:00

Almost too heavy to bear

your white cheek on your white hand

draped like a willow wreath.

There is too much of weeping in the curve

of your neck as though it aches.

The summer sun is cruel to beat so

across your shoulder.

Winter's weight has not yet lifted from you

for all the full season's blooms.

Almost too much to bear

watching you from the doorway

sitting at the iron cross the flowers cannot soften.

But soon you stand

and shaking still reach out to take my hand.

It is almost too much

but summer will come at last.

Creator debt

2012-02-06T11:06:00.000-08:00

When you die, he will die too.

They will place you both in a narrow coffin

packed too tight to bear

such cloesness for you two.

In the darkness you go first

and then him so close behind it is

almost not worth the diestinction.

You first- it is only fair

since you came first as well

and bore him along as on a leash

a long wet cord from which he issued

went forth into the world but always returned.

When you die he will die too

and it is hard not to hate you for it

for giving such life as is possible to love him

and the taking him silent in your crowded tomb.

Author mother be kind

and let him die alone

before you claim him set him free

and bury him on his own.

Ex-Galatea

2012-01-08T15:24:00.000-08:00

I have carved out the curve of your head

in wood, in sand, in stone

with rigid curls and sloping strands.

I have shaped the structure of your skull.

I t has taken me years deep in coffee grounds

waking from dreams to find in the sheets

the contours of your face folded tight.

The hang of curtains tied and pulled

have formed your silhoette in shadow

and in the garden grows

a topiary trimmed to fit your shape.

I have carved out the curve of you

with knife, with hand, with thought--

the back of your head on the train

with no return ticket.

Hey Cleo

2012-01-08T15:12:00.000-08:00

You lie by the sea

like a sarcophagus

hands folded across your chest

with all your worldly goods scattered

at your feet in tribute.

The gold of your skin sits solid-

it frames your face in heavy light.

All still and silent

the ocean waits for you to wake.

I settle into the sand thinking

it would be no good to be alone

in the eternal secondlife.

pardon the pun.

2012-01-06T17:19:00.000-08:00

The first flight fell

all light and air with no strength

no core with which to stab at

the greedy grip of gravity.

I will not make that mistake again

to fly is not to float, to drift, to dream.

It is to take in one hand the heart

and with all its beating power thrust

into the imperturbable sky.

No waxen wings then will do.

I shall weld myself a weapon

a pointed shaft by which to drill

into unyielding blue and having driving deep

emerge triumphant and engorged

with all the wealth of air unfurled beneath me.

With iron bar and steeled accord then,

I will strike into the sky.

It is, after all, man's Wright to fly.

Without Comfort

2012-01-06T17:17:00.000-08:00

We are both pregnant

but on you it sits heavy

pulling the jowls of your face

into a mournful caricature

and swelling your large hands

into overripe fruit, close to bursting

Your belly does not sway with your thickened thighs

but sags like concrete on a muddy hill.

When you lift your feet

it is a reluctant charge, a duty preferred forgotten

and your mouth lays closed

lays like the earth under snow that will not melt

We are both pregnant

but you have slept through the dark

and seem to carry only despair.

Ignite

2012-01-06T17:14:00.002-08:00

To find you

cropped short, ungrowing

but stretched like wax

across the long couch

is to see a candle with no wick

all potential and no power

a cloud that cannot rain.

You move like thunder

with eye flashes to herald noise

but all the time distant.

I pour water, dig deep

but you wait like that holy vine

the mistletoe that grows on air

my platitudes and pleasures do not reach you.

Poured like wax across the silk

you will not melt nor burn

but only bend around me

till I am the thread caught fire

and at last we conflagrate.

Chapel

2012-01-04T10:28:00.000-08:00

It is hard to get paint to sit

the way air does directly after sunset:

A lover who, once alone, lets down

the curtain of her hair

and becomes an open stream

a current pulling to nowhere

but beyond, always beyond.

To do so demands patience

the right mind to mold the blues

and the desire for darkness

with all the warmth in women's wrists

hot skin with the life beating beneath it

It's hard to do

but somehow Rothko manages.

Dawn from Defeat.

2011-12-08T16:46:00.000-08:00

Turn aside the burning blush

let the fire settle from thy smothered eyes.

Let grace like silent snow fall

and cool thy singed soul.

This is truth and grace abundant

that in the midst of despair

is the gentle hand, the turning sound,

the path made straight again.

Step away from the immolation

shame is not your birthright

You are a new generation

and the dawn is a gentle light.

Hazards

2011-12-06T22:24:00.000-08:00

The address cannot be read.

The ink has grown into a spider's web

woven against the mossy envelope

and there is nothing to be done.

There is a room

in the back with no door but a slit,

A blank faced wall with a thin lipped mouth

always open but unwilling

to swallow each slender morsel.

Day by day they feed it

stuff it full of telephone bills

and birth announcements.

They have not checked it in years

gone back to see how full,

how heavy the room had grown

They did not hear how it groaned

under the weight of the words in their thin paper skins.

The words that were not read,

were not yet grown into thoughts

could not stay their germination

but burst instead into luminescent bloom.

It is Christmas Eve

and the Post Office is on fire.

Shadow Sonata

2011-12-05T22:31:00.000-08:00

The dog next door is howling

I try to remember that he is just a puppy

and does not understand the lonesome sound

he makes in the deep night

but it is hard when I think of him alone

in the quiet apartment

making his own noises to keep away

the shadows that seem to slide under the door.

I too have my shadows

that slide through off-hand comments

and grip with a brutal grasp

leaving bruises where I used to breathe.

It's hard to breathe

thinking of you in the dark

walking some sidewalk by yourself

while I thought you are safely asleep

or at least at home, shut away from the night.

I am so afraid

that the shadows have lured you through the door

have taken you for their hungry own

and will not give you back.

The dog next door is howling

and I am crying with him.

Shame

2011-12-05T12:12:00.000-08:00

There is a sort of sickness seeping

through my soul

As if hearing through a fog

that all my bones are broken

that they have no marrow in their middle

They have turned cold and brittle

beneath my skin

and stripped of their calcium

sit like rotten twigs against each other

in an autumnal pile-

not even good for burning

for the sake of the sullen smoke

that singes as it sulks along the streets...

there is a sort of sickness in my soul

and not even sleep will silence it.

2011-11-30T17:51:00.000-08:00

The story starts

between one breath and another

and it has such terrible teeth

sinking into me, so hungry

with its carnivorous strength.

It beats like a fist on the door

a shaking fist of a man

who I have never seen cry.

Why he is crying now, I can't bear to know.

But I open the door anyway

he is standing there and I am afraid

that if I hide he will not go away.

That what he says will never go away.

It's a lie of course.

It cannot be a true thing.

We were going to be married in July.

First Freeze

2011-11-20T15:19:00.000-08:00

The first skin of ice

grows like dawn across the pond

with fractal patterns

spinning in a liquid fingerprint.

A breath would break it

but still it stretches with fragile edges

tightening its hold on the smooth surface.

A misty layer taking a pearl sheen

it is the quietest spreading thing.

What would not bear a fingertip

will grow swirling bones of strength.

Winter nurtures the newborn

and nothing thickens into new stone.

From a tendril of affection

comes a love you can stand on.

Blinded love

2011-11-13T17:27:00.000-08:00

For this only can I give you

the sweetest shade of my own two eyes

In your place of pain

in your gaping wound

I can place no healing hand

Stand you there shaking

with the spit and spittle

scattered across your face

with the stench of loss of control

streaming from you in potent flood

and you are a broken thing

an eagle on shattered wings

I cannot reach to you my friend

cannot speak to silence the sounds

of those gutted breaths you keep taking

I am myself bound

myself a broken bird

a mouth of fear standing in darkness

This only can I give you

That I shall not see your shame

that you must not see me seeing

you in all your filth and fear.

My eyes are closed and heart open

This only can I give you

the blessed darkness of face turned aside

of a shame unseen.

Ice Snap

2011-11-10T19:26:00.000-08:00

The loudest rupture comes in spring

on the tallest finger of the oldest cherry tree

out in the midst of the green

The bees wait for it

slowing their buzz in their waxy cones

to better hear the report

The birds keep up a constant pattern

across the nondescript sky

drifting on silent breezes with cocked heads

The sun lingers day by day

each day a minute longer or two

just to see, just in case

The loudest rupture comes in spring

on the tallest finger of the oldest cherry tree

With the first petal sprung

Spring sounds out across the green.

Rude Awakening

2011-11-06T06:33:00.001-08:00

I woke up and all the clocks were changed.

I walked out and all the locks were changed.

I have no key to turn the time

no hand to turn the key

There's a circle with the center

and I'm a perimeter

What does it mean to be a cipher

with no denotation, no equation

no clue towards conclusion?

What does it mean to ask a question

but as a suggestion?

You asked if I was running late

if I thought I should go walking.

You always held me in a net

but there was never a connection.

I dreamt you were a dream come true

but I awoke and all the locks were changed.

seamaid

2011-11-06T06:24:00.000-08:00

Boot it ill to claim

this sort of travail, this travel

as a crime, this climb

to the top of the bottom of the heap

and at least it was not so deep

as the last dream

where you swam like a fish

across the scratching sand

and every breath was strangling

with your jewel skin streaked all ruby red

and the whole world a facet, a faucet

with the light turned off

with no water flowing

How to handle that dream but to dive

again and dare some transformation

so it is and so it shall be

but what worse curse this

with women's wiles and fishy styles

half-soul, half-flesh

and nothing doing.

Don't call it travel-- this travail

you half thing in water, in air

dragging your descendants

through evolution.

No Spark.

2011-10-28T22:08:00.001-07:00

I planted the home on fire

with yellow marigolds glinting

just above the low smoulder

of last winter's brush piles

Red snapdragons spit their flame

up against the siding

and the water stains seem

to be steaming with the paint

boiling and swelling from the old wood.

The grey clouds sit on the roof

like sullen smoke.

Only the rain spoils the picture

They said you were my perfect match

But it doesn't seem that we get along

like a house on fire.

To fall, To follow.

2011-10-23T16:26:00.000-07:00

Wild worn nature with your tangled tendrils

hanging off the shoulder

of the wicked, winsome Eve.

How terrible could your wrath be, your least displeasure

when this its greatest joy rings so loud throughout the trees

that I have awoken

dragged from something like death, like dying

into all that is green light, green life.

It was winter when I slept and spring replaces dawn

but when I go to sleep it will grow cold again

So turn and turn about but I am a man of fire

heat and light drawn from me, hissing, into the air

as though something taken, something stolen.

How could a man as rich as I be robbed of anything

and weep as a peasant shorn of his dear only lamb?

This sibilant whisper says nothing loath

a counter melody to her raindrop footsteps

and the whole world seems to hum.

I am the last of the first, the men of old die with me

I am new born, and late to die

let all who follow, follow me

As I follow winsome, wicked Eve.

(to the garden, the world)

Essay

2011-10-23T16:08:00.000-07:00

When beginning my essay

there is such a look

about the first words standing proud on the page

fierce pioneers in the blank blizzard.

I am loath to add to them

to crowd them round with lesser thoughts

with piles of therefores and wherefores

Wondering what it's all good for

I pause

and take another study break.

(Off Whitman's Beginning My Studies.)

Storm sense

2011-10-19T12:35:00.000-07:00

The storm surrounds me and I

submerge my voice into its noise

Submerge, not subject

not as though it were reduced

a mere part amongst the whole

but rather released

as a fish submerged into the sea

becomes more fully fish

I and the storm become

lovers

as young people fall in love

not out of their element into another stranger world

but swelling towards their truest soul

falling only

because there is not enough room to rise.

Scraps

2011-10-09T21:25:00.001-07:00

What a wicked wingspan you have

feathertips straining at every window

You have to enter every door

sideways

I wonder if that affects your view

of progress, of regress

The only way you can go is up

but the ceiling is made of glass

so hope demands a sacrifice.

Almost alright

2011-10-07T11:57:00.000-07:00

It's not the swinging door

or the empty bed.

It's not the quiet table

or the stripped closet.

I can stand losing the smell

of your shaving cream

or coffee in the morning.

Your mismatched sock

showing up at last

doesn't reduce me to tears.

You left and the house is empty.

You went and stripped my finger.

But I'm alright.

It's just that the only thing

that won't leave me alone

is loneliness

feeling rundown

2011-10-05T22:08:00.000-07:00

tongue tied up

laid on the railroad tracks

vibrations say the train's coming

I've never said such a word

but the metal can

speech without air, without lungs

and I've got those and a tongue

but it's tied up on the tracks

Train's coming

whistle screams

and so do I

Tongue's untied.

(I still died)

Modern Stability

2011-10-04T20:39:00.000-07:00

There are three things that cannot be moved

Four that cannot be shaken

An iron tower built on rock

A king without mercy

A mother from her children

A misquote from Wikipedia.

Roar

2011-10-03T14:08:00.000-07:00

Learn your lesson

like a lion learns the gazelle.

Let fear be your teacher

the tooth takes its toll.

Rise and take the floor

you are either one or the other.

Take the ribbon in your hand

shall it be leash or lover?

Take the last of those who left

were they bound

or found free and wound

around your little finger?

Be taught by the open door

by the empty floor

You cannot act the child

and demand to have more.

Love is full of fear

tooth and claw and a locked door.

Love is always near

but it demands all of you and more.

Learn to love

like the lion the gazelle.

With hunger and heat

Would you like something to eat?

Commandment

2011-09-29T20:04:00.000-07:00

Take, then, woman and be

mouth and heart and all the world between.

Be word and song and all silence between

and stand in the line of twilight across dawn

Bend like wind and stretch like the river

keep the faith like a kitchen lamp

keep the kitchen like a castle

And above all woman be

mouth and heart

and all the world between.

Hope

2011-09-28T22:04:00.000-07:00

Chain me up

tie me down

Take all the ropes and words and

whatever else you have.

Make a wall, a window with a lock

a door with a bolt

a castle with a tower.

Keep me shut up, shut down,

shut in away from all that out there

the out there where I could wander

where I could be lost.

Lock me up

Chain me down.

I don't want to leave you.

When the hero falls

2011-09-28T21:40:00.001-07:00

Who sent you

who taught you the words

to say to me?

You have the face of a stranger

with blue eyes the stranger

for being behind such a tongue.

You have the face of a stranger

but the voice of a shadow

the one behind me

always whispering the half lies

after all the man who tells a half lie

has sold the bastard child of truth

sold him into darkness with weeping and gnashing of teeth

and who are you to speak with such a voice

to use such weeping against me?

Who sent you with this message

to freeze the very heart of me?

Do not give me that with your knife tone

Do not hand me the handle of that dagger.

After all it is only said that

I cannot shoot the messenger.

Tristram

2011-09-28T16:29:00.000-07:00

To take a footstool for a kingdom

To trade honor for a kiss

I have turned my body to shield

and my sword to pillow

there is no tenderness like the blade.

To drink the blessed poison

To toast most meddling Fate

I have taken wine with another

after swallowing- with myself.

Greater than my self, my higher I,

and not myself at all-bound to another's crown

To taste joy in liquid and despair in dregs

To drink to the bottom of desire

She is all red and white

The crimson flame and the other's bride.

To be both nephew and lover.

To be dishonoured and delighted.

To be Isolt's- and no one's.

Isolt

2011-09-28T15:01:00.000-07:00

This then is to love:

to eat the wild greens and not know hunger,

to drink the mountain stream and not want wine.

This then is to love:

to spend the day in sun and not know thirst,

to spend the night awake and not know weariness.

This then is to love:

to speak the whole day and not waste a word,

to stay silent for hours and need no song.

This then is to love:

to sit alone by the willow tree and be always two,

to stand at the river gate together and be just one.

This then is to love:

you there and I here and not a gap between.

Mark

2011-09-28T14:59:00.001-07:00

To stand in ice- and not know cold

To wait at noon- and not know heat

To hear the harper- and not know song

to see the cathedral- and not know faith

To be in day- and not know night

To be in night- and not know sleep

To be alive- and not know death

Is to be in love- and not know love.

Kent.

2011-09-25T16:13:00.000-07:00

You have a thing for heroes

Achilles and Hercules,

flashy swords and light feet.

You're all about short speeches

quick quips and battle cries

For Narnia, or Rome.

You like the mystery

of the mask and cape

so Captain America.

You're into tragedy

the great sacrifice, the bait

the battle of Thermopylae.

So what about the

milk-skinned, mild-mannered man

the alter ego without the alter

(but also not the ego)

Because I'm dying here

with nothing quick to say,

no game to play

and no mask to save the day...

just me.

I have a thing for heroines.

Sam's sons.

2011-09-16T15:56:00.000-07:00

The foxes are full of fear

dragging red fire behind them

And the fields parched receive them

The grass waving their long arms

Crying "mercy! mercy!

on us have mercy."

but there is only heat and fear

and what does a fox know of grace?

He knows fire

and fear

and fleeing.

O how the fields are burning.

The fire runs like fear through the grain

and the fox flees on.

Call it a coda

2011-09-16T15:51:00.000-07:00

You roll up in your stretched out accent

want to take me riding in your syllabic chariot

driving on your round vowels

into your stiff diction landscape

(did you forget darling?)

You ring the bell into a cathedral call

intone invitation with swing and hook

singing a weather of sunshine and breeze

(dearest I hate to bring it up...)

Moving with your skip rope beat

all twitches and tenderness,

double beats of the heart

rhythm taking up flesh for a while

and you want to take me dancing

(sweet, my dear, don't you know?

I'm tone dead, all deaf, can't move

I've got no where to go

I've gotten over you. )

Queen

2011-09-13T22:41:00.000-07:00

You've got your hair slicked back
into a smoothed up beehive
with a black silk dress
sticky as honey along your legs
with shoes all gold and glow
upon your winged feet
and when you sing you hum
and i feel the buzz between your lips
like a sting between my skin and bones
You've got your hair woven back
and my fingers get trapped in the wax
I cannot pierce you sharp and sweet
cannot feel your honey swell
to hear me sing me back to you
I am just a drone

Sailor saved

2011-09-13T22:04:00.000-07:00

coming out of the water

and the sand feels like knives

on these fresh new feet

do I dare to walk again

to claim the grass as my realm

the road as my right?

how terrifying the world

with the clouds stripped away

how broad and bright it lays

across my dazzled eye

Is it true that I once ran

here and farther than the light stretches?

All I've done lately is drift

in the half cocoon of water's grip

unsure of if it's sinking

or swimming when your feet lose their grip.

Still here I am

washed up on this shore again

So tell me land, will you bear my weight?

All I ask is that you not betray me

and send me lost again, lost at sea.

lost in translation

2011-09-13T21:44:00.000-07:00

I have written of the secret

I have written of the shadow

in this sacred cuneiform,

these holy hieroglyphics

and it seems arcane to demand

these troubled brows and whiskers

to learn such things as what a nun

may mean to me, or not.

Shall I strip the word of vowels

the image of it's story?

Should I send with ravished beams

a trembling masted ship

from shore to shore throughout the storm

and give it nothing but a casual kiss?

You sit waiting, all ablaze

to know what

what I mean, what I say

what? Do I mean what I say?

and I laugh and tell you of once a girl

in a story, you haven't read it?

Well then this is not for you,

it cannot be.

Off with you and your hungry eyes

I write the holy verse

use the old world's words

to spin my hurt, my grief,

oh help me help my unbelief.

I use this sacred cunieform

to tell the world how I was born

Now would you read it back to me?

Deidre

2011-09-02T21:44:00.000-07:00

Oh Deidre of the night black hair

for what are your lips rose red?

well might the blood rise

in your porcelain cheeks

for this is the voice of the hills

calling out to you

O Deidre where are the flowers we gave you?

leave your lilies of the field...

they stood and sung and were our dearest bloom.

Deidre why did you draw them to their doom?

How slender your feet

so rarely did they touch the ground.

Fian carried you like the summer breeze

and now what have you done with he

he and his brothers three?

Deidre do not look behind thee

he is deep beneath the hazel tree.

O summer bloom, our dearest darling,

where is he now in this fateful hour?
You cut him down with a smile
drew him to his fate with your face
and now there's nothing left but to tuck
our warm arms around and take him for our own.

What scandal? You would follow him here?
Let him be, let him sleep.
A curse upon you Deidre.

midnight madness

2011-09-02T21:18:00.001-07:00

let me take you as rope

old grass or linen

long hay knotted over and over again

till it looks something like wood

til it looks like something

I would want to keep

Let me try that, to turn my eyes

across the shape of you

with a squint or a monocle

anything to manacle

this creeping sensation that

you don't have the sense to

come in out of the rain

too simple to swallow

so lets add some levels

lets add some evils

let me take you as rope

it's hard to hang yourself on hope.

The Lady

2011-08-07T10:21:00.000-07:00

The river is the last road I will ever take

with its one start and one end.

I've been on the river all my life

treating the current like ocean swells

and wondering what solid land

would feel like below my wrinkled feet.

My feet have shrunk

without the weight to stretch them.

The water whisked their strength away.

Once I found a slipper along the muddy bank.

I slid it on my foot and it slipped right off

breaking along the pebbled bed

into sparkling shards.

Perhaps things on land are not as solid as they seem.

As for me, the river is my only road

and I will drift down to the sea.

As I sleep I hear them calling behind me.

The Lady, the Lady,

The Lady of Shalott...

I hope they find her.

Dawn

2011-08-07T10:15:00.000-07:00

Among the hills

I am the last to leave the cradle

to see the sunrise above

the earthen swell that defines my world.

My sister, who sleeps beside me,

climbs to the ridge

races to meet the morning halfway.

She is all light

leaving no footsteps

but her shadow

and a faint one only.

The sun is the tightest hug she will accept

with its stretching fingers brushing hers

as its spare hand lingers across the hills

(across the flats, the sea, and the hills again).

She stands and watches the light

bend across light and sees it only

sliding along the skin of one

who climbed the ridge, and the next, and the next.

When it has risen and become fully hers

like the day she cannot share

she returns to bed

curls among the covers and creates

a darkness she can pretend is night

so that the relentless sun reaching for her

through the curtains, the covers

is a new dawn still.

When I shake off the dreams

that keep me quiet and still in the light

she wakes next to me

a whole day ahead.

Pro and Conversation.

2011-08-07T10:11:00.000-07:00

How do we keep you

keep you safe

and I suspect a placard

hanging off the sheer glass wall

describing a natural habitat

inscribing natural habits

where this specimen was bred and why.

We'll make you comfortable

keep you calm

and I see a bed

transformed into a whole room

with pillow corners

and sheets so starched

they become the sharpest things there.

It will be so quiet

nothing will upset you

and the lacquered box

is soundproof with no air

to carry the sound.

The dirt is so heavy

that nothing could tip me over the edge.

Shard of Truth

2011-08-06T10:07:00.000-07:00

Glass isn't water.

Sometimes I forget

and picture you inside your house

with all the window walls-

the last specimen of some swimming species

caught haphazardly in a bright lit world.

Sometimes I wake up

panicked

that all the windows broke and you

lay gasping across your sea-green couch

with your hair drying in long knots

and your wet eyes hardening

into wooden replicas like museum skeletons

where they pretend to know that the dinosaurs

wore red across their backs.

All the children would come and stare

sneaking pokes against the back of your arm

when their parents aren't looking

just to make sure that you are really

real.

Sometimes I wonder if you are

and that's why I came crashing through

your living room wall today.

Sometimes I forget

glass isn't water.

Homestead

2011-08-05T15:52:00.001-07:00

My grandfather's shower smells like blood.

I suppose you get used to it.

He was born in this house

made of wood and concrete

and one door that opens off the second floor

into the air.

He is the last of six sons

and daughters too

but they married and moved and changed.

He hasn't.

In the barn walled in by corn

there is a roof beam that reads 1842.

It could be amended to

"1842 and still working"

but nothing in this house is ever amended.

Mended yes, fixed and repaired

but never changed.

My grandfather has hands like wood-

oak root, that snaps concrete.

He is the master mender

but even he does not change.

He was born in this same house

as his father.

His father died here

and so will he.

The shower water smells of blood.

It has seeped through the house into the earth

where nothing ever changes.

Godmothers. (without the wand)

2011-07-30T22:10:00.001-07:00

Now it should be taken
as a remark upon his character
that he takes such effort and care
to conceal
his baldness
which is no fault of his
but only Nature's whim.
As for his figure
he is well proportioned
with a stolid girth that close reflects
his standing as a steady townsman
whose opinions carry great weight.
For his worth
it is well over two stone in silver
and half again that much in land.
His beard reflects his wisdom
and if it is somewhat scraggly
it is well greyed
a sign of much experience.
All this to say that,
considering your waist
is your best dowry,
the sir is as well endowed as you
and the match should be made by May
though even a January rush could be managed.

The Other Cinderella Story

2011-07-29T06:14:00.001-07:00

I'm going to need you to pay attention.

she said

and the way she had of raising her eyebrow

to match her voice

made him look twice

and sit up straight

but the bottom of his spine shook

and he couldn't tell if it was terror

or something else.

I want something that really pops.

I might be the mother of the bride

but everyone knows

I'm the brains of the operation.

The fairy tale business is old news

blah blah blushing bride and handsome prince.

Boring.

What everyone wants to know

is how the woman who made it happen

thinks, walks, and what she wears

and if you hop to it, that label will be you.

So...

I'm thinking red

something smoking--

this mama isn't going to sit back

and dandle gran'babies on her knees

even if they are heirs to the throne.

Make them flashy with a bit of heel

not too much you know as it'd be a bit of a shame

to wear what the queen ain't got--

I can laugh at her even if the press can't

'cause after all I got her the crown

and the ring which might be better.

Cut them tight

if they look too big

people might start asking questions

like how that little bitty slipper

followed something that looks like this.

We'll let them talk

and I'll dance at her wedding even if she can't...

"And the wicked stepmother was given red hot iron shoes

and danced until she died."

On Wishing Well.

2011-07-14T21:09:00.000-07:00

She saved all the pennies she ever found

face down on the ground like they were

praying -the last honest worshippers

to the last Lady of Luck.

She kept them in a silver sleeve

that once held a golden photo

with his hair and the sun all glowing.

Now it's just pennies

and every full moon she pulls one

with it's copper sphere to match the silver one outside

folds two hands around the tiny circle

and every full moon by the window

she closes her eyes.

she wishes...

for bridges to burn

for a fiddle to play

for a globe to upturn

for one more day

where he was hers.

Doorway.

2011-07-14T20:50:00.000-07:00

So he's got this sword

and shoes that look like

they look like they been somewhere

PHEW. they smell like they been somewhere.

so he's got this sword. and the shoes.

and this look like.

lady.

and i can feel my toes in a way

i haven't since last may

when tom went swimming after that old bag

and came up with kittens and a full summer smile.

but still.

there's the sword and that look.

but it's after dusk and the door

well she says the door should be latched

and checked THREE times

but she also says thrown salt keeps off the Eye

yeah and who's the one who sweeps

so there's her

and there's this sword and the shoes and a man.

and he says.

lady.

are you gonna let me in. or what?

So i did.

So there's this sword and the shoes

and a son.

Where's the man?

Shut that Sass

2011-07-14T20:25:00.000-07:00

When she sasses

it swings down the street

on long sticky of strands of

she saaaid whaaaat.

and it sticks to the mouth

of all the slack-jawed children

with a sweet sugar sting

to fill up those cavities

bouncing around in they empty heads

like rubberball fireworks

till it explodes off their hands

and the clap clap telegraph

begins again

she said she said

she said husssssssh

she said she said

-You better not miss that bus-

and husssssh.

the street is silent again.

But when she sasses...

Not your Tom

2011-07-14T19:56:00.000-07:00

crook tail'd king
knows he's unlucky
and he don't care who he damns
takes his time
swinging between
a slouch and a sullen strut
but who's watching
who's worth walking for?
corner cat, king of the street
corner cat don't want your meat
lights out fur
and full moon eyes
crook tail'd king
don't want your anything

One Last Salvo

2011-07-14T19:25:00.000-07:00

People in a battle lost

love differently.

time flickering out

in the looming night

In a lost battle

the lovers know first

the difference between surrender

and salvation

God save the listening.

2011-06-30T21:52:00.000-07:00

And they cry, "God save the king,

save the queen, the priest, and me"

O save, save, save,

O Ave Ave Ave,

how holy you are, with your holy teeth

and your bleach, and extended reach,

and oh how the people crowd

to hear you preach

and you teach them to say

and they pray and they pray

"God save the king,

save the queen, the priest, and me"

Say it once say it twice

Say it a thousand times or two

If you say it loud, and loud enough

the echoes might make it true.

That's how truth happens

it's how it came to you

out of the darkness laughing

So scream on with your bleached teeth

and your holy corners on unholy streets

scream "God save the king,

save the queen, the priest, and me."

With your hungry mouth

and holy smile

I will sit and wait for the bows

wait a while.

All I hear is

God sate the king,

sate the queen, the priest, and me.

And as far as I can tell,

you're still starving.

Ideal (Deal Me Another)

2011-06-23T23:17:00.000-07:00

O! A curse on Florence

on all the cobbled streets that ever

ran over riverbeds and replaced streams.

Shame fall over Verona

blur the sunsets grey and the stars

into a dirtier shadow over painted roofs.

Ill luck on all of Italy

raisened wine and fallen olive trees

storm and drought and broken fountains.

Doom and despair, darkness and dust,

Let all the lovers cry:

We have walked the roads of Rome

and Romance is still a lie.

Taking the Company out of Coup

2011-06-23T23:04:00.000-07:00

At least it's a creative

catastrophe --

I can always trust

you for an apocalypse

that really pops.

None of these half-

hearted half-moribund

tales that stumble across

acrid post-aced landscapes.

You scrape the scraps

from the bottom of the barrel

and then light it

on fire.

Even the necromancers argue

that you take all the romance

out of the Spanish flu

and Italian emphysema.

I cannot emphasize enough

how the empaths shudder at

your sesame street creeds

Sharing isn't caring when it involves

more scaring and scarring

than the average cocktail

with a molotov wick.

It's another 2 am Thursday

and with you

the week always ends

with a bang.

feather free

2011-06-02T08:23:00.000-07:00

Everyday I watch you

sit on the porch and pluck

out your wings

it seems a strange thing to do

after all the trouble of growing them

but then it was a strange thing

to grow them in the first place

How you managed it with those distinctly

human bones I'll never know but I suspect

it had something to do with the boy I saw once

slipping between the trees with earthen grace

with wide hawk wings tucked beneath old denim

and feet that didn't seem to leave a mark

I know. I went to look.

But they called me back to say

that you were sick, that you were crying

through the fog of a fever

saying that you saw feathers, that you heard wings

And I cried by your bed for the angels to leave you be

The left you alone but you were never the same

always in long sleeves never with a smile

and I wonder what covered you so.

Everyday I watch you pluck your feathers

from your scarred arms, watch them fall on the littered porch.

2011-05-12T09:04:00.000-07:00

Dreamed

2011-05-09T20:59:00.000-07:00

You've put yourself in all my dreams

tied them in a knot around my finger