Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Juno.

She is the sort of person that makes you believe
in war bulletins and those sorts of things
in the divine right of kings
and the absolute necessity of never
ever cutting the tags from your new bought
king size mattress no matter how they scratch
beneath the cotton sheets
suffice it to say that whatever she says
we all agree and that it was, that it is
exactly what we meant , what we mean
in every circle the center
is hers by unquestioned right
at every line she is the head
and we think of her we dream
in our cotton sheets on our king size beds
but she does not think of us
she is the sort of person to make you dare
impossible improbable things
but is herself as implacable as gravity
and so we fall over and over again
in desperate love only to land
lonely on the cotton sheets
She bears the name of Greece's bane
and with it bears its weight
She is the sort of person to set the seas aflame
and we all we all whisper her name
leaving the homely shores with the lonely beds
to sail the stormy sea and land at last
at Normandy.

Commercial Christmas.

I hate your winter coat
with its synthetic fur fluffed so high
off your thin shoulders.
It is the strangest combination
of sodden wealth and self-righteous glow
because after all
it is not really fur.
Merely some woven chemical stretched
turned and stitched by some small hand
the smaller for the small coin
for the small rice bowl
at the end of the long day.
Let the crowds count your righteousness with you
and let them imagine counting your coin
running so deep over their hungry fingers
that they could dare
with nonchalance
to walk about in that sort of thing
that has neither the grace of beauty
nor the virtue of price
but merely reekx with an obnoxious indifference
towards taste and tact.
Truly it is one of a kind.
How I wish you were.

Monday, November 15, 2010

PoL

There is something slick about who you are
(you keep it wrapped up close
in your hands in your pockets
and I cannot reach it there)
that when I try to describe it leaves you sullied
(not sly or distrustful
just that his story never fully ends
or begins or something. )
and you slip untouched through my grasp
(with a hello and how are you
and good and you and goodbye
and gone)
One day I will surrender to the mystery of your being
(leave the awkward greetings
and hall shuffling around each other
for some more open face)
but for now I am still intrigued and eager
(it is a new game with rules
which I want to learn
to build my own quiet victory)
and so again, Hello, and How are you.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Cutting against the cold

My skin has grown so smooth
worn with the weight of light
that your finger's touch
goes straight to bone
and there rests
carving your fingerprints
into my slender palms
and how the warmth curls
from your tender hand
into the crevices it has carved
and this shaking is ceased
for a moment yet
We are still.
The cold cannot encroach.
Winter is coming with its claws
but my slender hands are safe
within yours.

Saturday.

Half asleep
beside you I watch you think
you write
as though your first love
was a typewriter
with the right hand slamming
an emphatic end
to each completed sentence.
I cannot lose the rhythm
the build till triumph
and then silence again.
This is the long hour and how it turns
and still the words come and continue
growing to crescendo across the page.
I cannot miss this ending
with the tangled thought laid smooth
across the screen
and a final resounding crash of keys.
How the pages fly before you
an inky wind rife with weight
and they shall sing whether
they choose to or not.

The keys at last are silent
but there is another page waiting
and another tomorrow.

Friday, November 12, 2010

Hao

There are worlds where we dare not tread.
Most of them inside my head.
would you like to, like to climb
the twisting stair the turning stair
I've woven it from what is left of my hair
so come up come up my quiet friend
and find where the rabbit hole begins
I built it in my cellar
and it ends on my roof
come up come up
and I will show you the proof
there is no need to show alarm
to keep your dainty hands aloof
I carry the Queen's own charm
I was once her right arm
So come up come up my small, my dear
bring your fragile eyes and have no fear
there is nothing here too terribly queer
there are worlds where we dare not dread
for they are they are inside our heads
So come and settle come and see
we shall make ourselves some tea
with arsenic biscuits
and words so sharp they cut
if not sheathed in whisper
for sound is it's own wound
wound tight around your neck
tying off your tongue in tight knot
so step in side my parlor dear
and I'll stare inside of you
are you are you up to par
do you have nightmares of me?
Don't be afraid, the light is on
the world has not wobbled yet
but soon the turn is coming
and it would be best to not forget
where to place your hands
and where to choose to stand
so come from the doorway dear
for worse may enter and worse may leave
but time is a careless sieve
grasp the moment while you can
and take a cup of tea
do not be afraid my dear
at least not afraid of me.
For there are worlds inside my head
Where others dare not tread
There is always something worse to dread
But at the least you are not yet dead.

Have a biscuit?

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Collapse

Call, hills, with me
my old friends who I have known
since I could walk
could slip through the small door
and be gone.
Oh hills my beloved hills
Call with me!
Add your voice to mine!
Throw my sorrow and need
from crest to crest.
Let your long green sounds
sink down your swelling sides
and soak the valleys in it's sonorous blast.
O hills beloved hills
My beloved is gone
and I know not where.
Hills did he cross you?
Did you bend to let him by?
Have you seen my love walking?
He has escaped my wavering cry.
Hills my hills, you opened to let him free
Now close to cover me.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Persephone

The holly has strewn her green
haphazard on the path
and what a bridal bloom it is
all gloss and dark with summer's shine
saved away beneath the sudden point
that raises to prick the careless foot
and draw forth its berry red
as triumph and tribute and right
for the winter is always hungry
and will steal what summer spun.
So let the eternal green bloom.
Winter's teeth are never still.
The leaves may swell from buds.
Winter never eats its fill.
Let the bride walk her way
and suffer the prick and sting
The red bloom may smother winter
and spring may come again.

Monday, November 8, 2010

Burma

Come and I shall fold
these shattered hills around you
we will hide beneath them
and make shadow puppets
of the stars
There shall be a peace in the twilight
when the shadows have not grown
but in the dark the trees sound
like footsteps
and the long angry mouth
of the scratched and silver monster
breaks forth in its laughter
oh my child, quiet now
perhaps it was only a dream
this time is different than the times
before
when you woke to the burning glee
of those that would destroy us
this time, this time
it is just a dream
look how I have built the hills
into a home for us
we shall call this rock a wall
and this tree a room
I shall fold my shattered arms
around you and we will sing
the old songs and the old stories
and the old safety will grow
wispy at our feet
I will build a home for us
out where nothing can touch us
and the night is as empty
as ever it could be

O my child my quiet child
I shall fold the hills around us
how silent your laughing mouth
in this laughing dark.



Sunday, November 7, 2010

what winter sings.

let the last languid chord roll
while we wait for the dysfunction
that is the silent point of this function
and who, and who
wears green to a funeral
but there you are
looking like spring and summer
met in a twilight somewhere
and decided to take the night off.
The longstemmed glass clings
to your hand a single rose
on it's transparent briar
The sting sits at the corner of your mouth
and it pierces us all when you smile.
So sign here, sign
here you go my longstemmed love
with your slender legs
on those slender heels
and from what bitter ground does
such a bloom weave it's way to freedom
and at last you are free.
Let us throw the rancid rice
and slip the flat champagne
Singe our fingers on the flickering fireworks
sparklers against the sullen sun
and did freedom look this strange
when you took up your golden chain?
did you see this when you stood
all slim and afraid and on fire
and did they ask you if you knew
then
they did they did
and you whispered I do.
So bloom green-willed woman
with all your wit and whimsy
sign the dotted line and be done
Remember that this too is what you have done.

Oh my slender rose, my only rose
look how the red wine spills
The longstemmed glass is shattered
and it is the least of your ills.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Golden

arrive arrive my golden love
the mirror glass has thrown you far
slanted across the floor
like some throbbing shadow
and how your skin grows tender
and your hair your hair it glows

Shall you speak my silent love
with your red lips blooming
In the center of your snowy face
come and draw the soft cheek back
like snow banks revealing spring
and your teeth they gleam they gleam

and how this blood runs free
your very feet are tingling
and how your fingers fly
Spin me your tangled tale
my long lost love tell it true
I have been waiting for you for you

Monday, November 1, 2010

Lightning.

I have lost you amidst the grey
that rises wistful from the sea
and sits sullen on city streets.
It is my quietest fear
that the grey seeps from shadows
and will climb into my soul
through the soles of my shoes.
It is how you disappeared
all sticky silent with the sidewalk
still slick from your slippery shadow
and a single slipper smoking
grey bannerets of victory.
I have lost you amidst the grey
and the silence is stifling.

A shattering flash
and you arrive glowing
with every hair on end and eyes
that spark through the dark.

Love like thunder rolls.

Witness.

Bend before the breeze
My love how you look bamboo
so tall and slender
with your whispering hair
saying nothing of importance
but entrancing us all the same
So turn and turn out
The wind is coming about
and of course there's no need
to shout and raise a commotion
acquiescing is the least motion
and compliance is the quietest sin.