Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Injunction to the Innocent

You hide behind that halo

and those wings aren't meant for running.

I wonder one day

if you'll ever stop and breathe.

These hymns aren't saying anything

and the world is too old for this-

your playacting at purity.

So stop and feel the dust beneath your feet

feel it through your bones

track it through these red ropes woven of it

and remember-

ashes ashes we all fall down.

So let loose your little pose

because, babe, you're too old for this.

The race goes to the runner

and the prize to the liar.

You've got blood along your white robes

and stains on your pearly toes.

So give in and let go.

Live a little.

Monday, April 26, 2010

Storm Coming.

in the sunset shadows
our legs stretch long
all the way to the horizon
with only our small heads
leaning over the edge
while our thin frail arms
wave across the length of the land
trying to grasp hold of something
something solid
and still we go sliding on
and when the sun slips below the sky
we are swallowed up
a single splash in a sea of dark

we sink beneath the rolling night.

Monday, April 19, 2010

With Apologies.

I wonder what he was like
back when his hair was black
and the muscle rippled along his back
Now it is the fabric that I notice
the good weave and solid color
and the drape across his shoulders.
They are still broad
but the sunlight doesn't cling to them
as I imagine it once did
burnishing him bronze
His smile has a barb in it
that he tucks beneath his teeth
I can almost see it though
in long afternoons under the heavy heat
He must have been cutting
with those deep eyes and black curls
and all the snide surety of strength
How ruthless he must have been
Father Boaz in his youth.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

House of Mirth

Welcome to the house of mirth
where the carpet is woven of a thousand
quips per inch, how rich
let your satin slippers shuffle
and like sparks the wit will rise
between you and all this hungry crowd
with their slick skin almost bursting
through the double stitched seams
as their well fed guts wobble with droll rhythm
because despite it all they are hungry
and so are you, so sit a while
press the chilled glass against your lips
and let the flippance flow
Take the quick flick of eyebrow
and flip the allusion back around the room
if he catches it so much the better
to bat it back with a twist of the lip
and a finger twitch to play with words
what a toy (a joy) they are
Let the light and shadow dance
tell the story of what she said
and how he looked
and how they howl, the hungry crowd
pushing up against each other
prodding with their elbows to find
if the others are laughing as hard as they
you and all the others
in this shining house of mirth
pushed up against each other with their slick sweat skin
and then roaring laughs with the hunger groan beneath

and if the wit runs dry
and silence encroaching streteches it's hot hands
have no fear for here in the house of mirth
the gilt frames are all empty
and we have been careful to pick all the pieces
each shard of mirror glass
is safely gone
So laugh on.



Sunday, April 11, 2010

claimed.

I bet it all so baby
don't ask me about tomorrow
I burnt my dictionary
and don't know the meaning of the word
I buried my treasure map
because i thought it was absurd
to leave anything behind for someone to follow
to leave a track to make a trail
To make it to where you could be
anyone's but mine

claimed.

I bet it all so baby
don't ask me about tomorrow
I burnt my dictionary
and don't know the meaning of the word
I buried my treasure map
because i thought it was absurd
to leave anything behind for someone to follow
to leave a track to make a trail
To make it to where you could be
anyone's but mine

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Nowhere else.

There's no where to go
but here
and deeper in
drink the dark up
pretend it's chocolate and
I'll follow the sting of it
down your throat
with my single finger
cold on your smooth skin
and you will swallow and smile.
And smile and smile and smile.
Let us begin again
to grab with our glowing teeth
great snatches of the dark
and we will tear it away
gnawing the inky rubber
into a bite
ignoring the taste
as it bounces against your tongue.
Stretch your golden cheeks wide
and then with your slippery laugh
slide the swallow down
while the sound goes slipping away
around the corners and back again
sending echoes back
like a sonogram
and I wonder if that's why we're here
if somewhere in the midst of this deep dark
we're looking for what's been waiting
some ungodly stretch of time
for your laugh and my cold hand
to grow from
and I wonder if this is why you
with your tiny rosebud mouth
and your silly pearls for teeth
are tearing so into the night
ripping great mouthfuls out
and gnashing it into nothing
with small strips of shadow along the edge of your lips
and you wipe it away carelessly and laugh
again and again
and snatch another bite

somewhere out there
in the deep darkness
there is a dream or a child
or something that makes you
aching and hungry and tearing
so we plunge deeper and deeper in
you with your pearl teeth and laugh
and I with cold hands
and all the writhing dark

This.

This is how I sometimes tell it
you with your specific face
your unique eyebrows with that one arch
that slides over sarcasm
and your slim slip of a tongue
that runs over the long lines
you brain writes in its secret script
with a laugh and a lilt
you standing in the midst of this story
this every story
of every day
this once upon a time and yesterday
all tied up in ordinary twine

sometimes I tell it this way
with the long stretched form
blank and blurred
and all the thousand details crowding around
to give structure and definition
by cold marble and sunset rays
by a purse of silk not cotton
by the thousand faces around you
and it is one story
one day, one way
and it will never be again
but in the midst of it is anyone
with any face
with any grace

This is how I tell it sometimes
in a shout in a scream
in an avalanche of definitions
this is what I mean
In a whisper of a wail
in a long arching song
with the spine of a tale

This is how I
I tell you
what a thing I am
and who
and sometimes why.


Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Nietzsche and me.

and we wonder
who put her under

you have not yet heard the thunder
the lightning hit
and you with your child-eyes under cover
missed the news that the world is over
and you with your white hands
still reaching for the bright light candy
don't you know the hall is empty
that the fear had been set free
and you with your skin still smelling of that baby cream
do not even know enough to scream
cannot find the words to ask me what I mean
when I say that its the end of the scene
that all that's left is truth and that it's obscene
and you just look and want to know if you're the king
if I'll be your bright light queen
and you wonder why, you wonder why i scream

you wonder
what put me under
what pushed me over this edge
and from the dark I'll whisper
it was this, it was knowledge
and you'll go back to sleep
because ignorance is cheap




Heart Not Included.

stand up straight
and touch your toes
under all those layers
no one knows
(no one knows)
about that silicone spine
and those synthetic smiles
it's all about the swing of the hip
just ignore these plastic chips
the blush is a stain
and the smile remains
regardless if he forgot your name
because you'll never go lame
with those long limbs
supporting that stretch of thin
and i wonder what you did
to stitch all this skin
across this stick skeleton
but its okay
because he says
baby, baby
(and one night maybe
he'll get it right)
hey baby baby
hey baby barbie.

cynic.

And so they lived
happily ever after
and so did the neighbors and the chickens and the flowers that died before winter
and the children that were just born
and the young girls with eyes that saw the world
like a knotted present heavy in their soft hands
and it will come undone and lie open and ready
sweet to touch and soft to see
stretched out across their long legs
a panoramic view of paradise
and they all lived happily ever after
(each of them with their summertime lives and their long laughter and tight woven braids of fine gold hair and slender feet and great big glow around their delicate eyes and dirt and despair and princes in poverty who don't get poetry and grumble about the burnt bread and worn leather hands and year after year of long winter night and cold winter days and darkness in the corners of the dusty room)
and they all lived
and they all, they lived.

ever after
only comes once
upon a time.

insatiable.

I want to love you with all of these tied up hopes
these packed away dreams
and ragged edged seams
and you and all that glow
and ache and burn
and I have been so
I have been so alone
I want to love you a thousand ways
I want to see you wild and free
untouchted and untamed
a hard hungry thing
and I want you home and mine
and only
tied up in who I am and you who are
and in this tight us
with it's inconceivable knots
I want you angry and strong
cold and proud
and fiercely jealous
all those things that tell me you
are a man
and mine.

emily's gardener.

Come
O strange solidity
You shadow with sinew
Come climbe these stairs
that curl against the wall in the dark
a spiraling secret at the center
and the wrought iron is knotted together
a thousand thoughts tied into a spine
a twisted plot to support this story
and still they spin
upwards and upwards
and I, I am among the stars
at this perilous height watching the wind
turn the earth slow breath by breath
and I wonder who it is that is breathing
to keep this stone thing moving?
what is it that keeps you moving?
I can almost hear you now
fathoms below amongst your fellow shadows
in the company of your brother ghosts
and I wonder when you'll fall
give into the grip gravity wields
and slide down the banister into the dark again.
I've given up on grieving
Hope has given out under all this leaving
Oh somewhere in these stars
I've given up on living
so climb shadow climb
stretch your phantom limbs
and I'll stand here listening
stretching over this swollen chasm
to hear the whisper of sound that sneaks like a song
up the cold corridor
your steady footsteps and something else
that sounds like blood and beating
that sounds like living

I listen to the echoes
of this, your secret song
and it sounds like love like hope
it sounds like not alone.