notes on grief

the ivy on my house

is trying to get into the window

small hands

creeping around the glass

and throwing themselves into the crack

the valiant soldiers that fall

in the trenches

and the wet wax flows

quick down the pane

clear blood streaking the glass

they told me it was only raining

I walk hand and hand

With my sea monster

Liquid and cold

She wraps herself around my arm

And sometimes I find I stumble

In this shifting sand

Slipping on these slivers

Silver glass amidst the grey

And in falling I find

That she

My sea monster

Is no longer at my side

She’s slipped through the slits in my skin

And is stripping her way

Through my veins

Burning with her salt granules

That trace new wounds

In spirals around my soul

And suddenly I’m a seatossed flotsam

A figurehead

To a sunken ship

My sea monster stands beside me again

Wearing a familar face

For every swing of the clock

Pendulum pendulum

Drop again

Slice me in pieces

Once twice thrice

And then she’s gone again

Here I am

Panting and broken

A mermaid with legs

A womanly soul

On this wide expanse of sand

And I am alone

I am peeling off your handholds

With each breath

I find each exhalation

Is a little play of death

Sidewalk chalk

To Sistine grace

But a portion nonetheless

The sand in our sheets

That calls to the sea

And still it slides past the glass

In solemn lines of tan

A military funeral

Through this narrow channel

To the marching beat

Tick tock tick tock

And I am letting go of cold

Erasing the fingerprints

You have left on my skin

Even if this means

Raw edges and red lines

I am peeling off your handholds

In a freefall to the sea.

I would like to stab myself

With this electric current

Slit my skin

And watch the sparks pour in

Golden and blue

Small spikes of something else

I can’t control

And maybe this is the answer

Lock the door

That leads to my mansion

Of prison cells

Close the book of unhappy endings

And burn the library down

Watch the stream of spindled needles

Slide up and down my outline

I watch my shadow shrink

Under the pointed attack

And I think I will stay standing here

A shock of golden wheat

Heavy and swollen

And ready to fall back into the ground

These glittering lines gather and surround

These flexing drops of me

And my face is beaded in its glow

I never knew salt shone so bright

So here will I be

Great and golden

Frozen to the light socket

Till you want to try love again.

The Holiday

Flooding the street the voices rose in waves

as the outstretched arms rippled towards and away

from the golden hero, the shining god.

Adrift in the crowd, he came like a ship

sailing through the town on glory

and worshipping hands.

Let the town rejoice.

The day is new.

There is a king to rule

a duty to perform.

How eagerness grows from chaos

for the voice that claims to know

the way things should be

and calls himself king.

Let the fox eat the new grapes.

The fool dance through his belled shoes.

The children run rampant in delight.

The war is over and what he says is true.

Sing and lift the new king high

call out your joy and delight.

He calls himself the sun

and he has brought us light.

Fidgets.

The warm anxiety shoves

its way along my legs

angling roughly against the table

to bounce with excess force

as though to protest its restriction.

Restriction by existence.

It is a problem more common

than not.

The way my breasts thrust

through the future first

broaching the air before

my mouth, my eyes arrive

and as herald therefore

also definition.

Woman.

Existence with restriction

is more the norm

than not.

It makes me anxious

to have the self

by being

be not.

This or that.

Because of this

not that.

I push against the table

as if

shoving

will expel (explode)

these sensations of cessation.

The norm is restriction.

Existence more common than not.

Woman.

By being, be.

Make existence into

the morn.

O Zeus

Let us die then

if we must under lordly law

but give it up lightly

under the light- not darkness.

I can feel the pulse

thrusting against my ring

the tide tugging

the ship of my finger

against its golden anchor.

Keep calm, after all,

we are not adrift

a raft becalmed

but rather let the rift

between life and us

rise slowly like the dawn

and when the soul is full blown

open to the sun

then let us go

and die under lordly law

full of light.

Inscription Upon a Journal

To transcribe the heart as it were

(already done: in steady rhythm

the flush and flux

of aortas as though a sort of

a or b thinking did not

could not exist)

a wasted text.

The act of transcribing is

of course, translation

more moving when it depends

upon the ribs

and their actions as such

(the force and flex

of organic ridges as if rid

of a wave with which to ride

out the storm one must curve

in upon oneself eternal)

when not redundant.

To transcribe the heart as it were

is, of course,

redundant.

Nevertheless, I love you.

Cause and Defects.

I will continue to casually

destroy

these parts of me which can be

destroyed casually.

With cause

or without

but always on a case by us

basis

a sort of basic evaluation

by which value is laid bare by me

and then through process of excavation

destroyed.

Start then with the small pieces

above all else it must be peaceful

in order to maintain causality

in a sense to render those last

moments of despair into an ode

an old poem or fact

of destruction.

After all we are all

quite casually

casualties.

Letting off Steam

We missed the sunset

walking among the streets

not noticing the time or clouds

or other such trivialities.

You were in a fine rage

on destiny and dynasty

tying them up with bloodlines and battlelines

in the triptoungue way you have

and I was walking adrift

in the wake of your street preaching.

Perhaps I should scatter coins

or applaud

but I am entourage not audience

and so I follow, encourage

by silence and such things

until you subside at last.

We sit on the sidewalk in the shadow

until you whistle cheerfully again

and suggest a cup of tea.