Crush

I am going blind, yet
still manage to swat
the fly troubling me.
We are alike, authentic
to our nature, our million
mirrored eyes, the fire
reflected there. And so
I set the trap, a piece of
fruit on which he settles
and dies contented.

Summer

Then it was summer. Warm air,
sunlight shaken by the trees,
the sound trees make, breathing,
sighing. All things are healed
in that blue light. And man-made
things- the house on the hillside,
the silver windmill, the old wood
barn- are no longer satisfying.
But the smell of earth, the pungent
flowers, the hawk's harsh scream
reels down for rabbit are immortal.

Paper Bird

Who is better left
by the roadside?

The roadside being
the point in life where

darkness becomes darker
than distance, more violent

than birth which severes
the lung from its heart,

ripping the mind from
its platform. And so one

lies quietly by the roadside
like a miniature god, a broken

cloud, a paper bird.
Becomes the paper bird

whose scissors cut off
its head, punch holes in

its fragile chest and shreds
its lovely, scalloped, wings.

Beneath the Dark Sky

In a red chair beneath
the dark sky, a child
is crying. When stars
rise, the heart becomes
a mirrored shell; sees
everything, sees itself.
The world is bending,
black leaves slowly covered
in snow. Cold shadows fill
the lungs, freeze the voice.
And still the child is crying
like a stone bleeding in
the garden, red, red as roses.

Confirmation

Many things have not yet
been confirmed: the elusive
source of rain, the helpless
routine of changing seasons,
the invisible flowering of
the soul; the way it quietly
survives the trauma of flesh.
The trouble is, with all things
hidden, the signs are subtle
like a single leaf catching
moonlight, shines gold and silver.

Of Power and Glory

If I long to be
remembered,
I am forgotten.

If I pray
to be forgotten,
I am judged.

I am no more
a monument than
grasses, wild cathedrals

of tree,
the brown-winged
bird, his moment

of singing,
flying, clinging
to what he knows.

The worm writhing
in her muddy bed
tunnels lower

and lower where
footprint or claw
can never follow.

Mouths of Light

The light will feed you,
then eat you. Drawn to light,
we are doomed. So we huddle
in darkness, starving but alive,
the door closed and bolted.
Outside, Death begins his day
mowing down the daisies whose mouths
are filled with light.

Laws of Entropy

Despite the desolation of its landscape,
splintering of its lumber, ominous crows
who fly in through the attic's broken
window, this is where the world we live in,
governed by light, made of dust & web,
ruins and changes us. In sulfur forests,
the white-fogged lake resists intrusion
of a sunrise, the fragile starling's nest
invaded by grey fox is torn and emptied,
the skeletal ivory of a deer perfectly
preserved lies quiet, useless, abandoned
on a bed of leaves. Everyday, in a house
made of transient materials, we struggle
incessantly against the elements, the laws
of entropy, the broken attic window.

Lamentations

Whose soft cries are heard
in the cathedral of evening?
The sound of dumb sheep bleating
in the fields, the sound of water
falling from its source. In this
religion, the barbarous cracking
of sky, the shape of shadows that
burden our hearts, the terrible globe
of moon who wears its light as if
it were not stolen, the faithful carry
their grief in the folds of their hands.
Then God, like a mighty wolf in the night
hunts down the sinner.

Unspeakable Night

There is a night
of which the body fears;
its mouthless shadows
without gravity or fire.

Like a child who dreams
he is a small bird captured
by a lion or a migrating fish
eaten by bears. Everyone wants

to be immortal; this in itself,
could be a curse. With such thick
scars, weakened by a hundred years
of wounds, a limitless number

of sorrowful days, perhaps,
it is a gift, afterall
that night of which
the body fears.

Mr. Creator

not the one in heaven, but
the one who writes, your words
smooth, aerodynamic skimming
over the waters of my heart,

then sinking. But the mind,
tentative & shy, counts the excited
verb, the stagnant noun, the rhythm
of a sentence; hides its questions.

So long, the eyes have wandered
many pages like inconstant men;
the corkscrew of the heart opens
every sealed-up bottle, drinks it.

Mr. Creator, master of the arts
of emotions, telling, choosing
the perfect stone, the moment
wherein flawless water propels

the Word into the future.

The Laws of Resistance

My heart is not a cup. My open
palms are more like hooks for sorrow.
Sometimes at night, my heart stops
beating, fills with darkness, poisoned
by its own resistance. Nevertheless,
I am tired of wanting to ease my body
like a worm resisting expulsion from
its cocoon, like a fetus fighting
to stay within its water. In summer,
the light reaches in through curtains,
an unknown hand, the shape of a cup.

Psalm to Love

The violence of your love
is brown-hooded Famine.

Your blood is not your blood
but centuries of flame. A man

is not a man but animal
who follows the smell of soil,

of flower, of meat. Did you
expect me to sacrifice myself

to pain? And you say-

"I have brought you back, cleared
your veins, set you on fire."

The prophet leads his followers
to a cold and shallow ending.

Within the Absence

The absence of a negative thought,
however brief, is like the wind
passing through a tree, pruning
its leafage, then dying down or
an abandoned house whose architecture
still retains its hollow beauty.
What happens within the emptied mind,
the undressed body, the space between
the hand and glove is simply, purely,
most remarkably nothing.

Questions Upon Rising

What is the nature of
waking? Rising bread,
bright-yellow lungfuls
of light, exhaling darkness?

And what about hope? How
it clings like sleeping bats,
the talons of a hawk around
the rabbit's tender throat?

As for happiness, this too
comes in waves. Swells across
the inclined shore, then pulled
by its tail, back into the sea.

Exposure

When you pull
your pants down,
beware of angry dogs
and open blinds.

The Meadow

What do you think about
this life? Are you a man
of darkness or the precious flame?
If I bring you a simple bunch
of wildflowers, will you kiss me
or turn away? Here is my heart
picked fresh this morning, my whole
self, a wild, unkempt garden;
my love for you a light-filled meadow.

Without a Jacket

In rain, the soul
becomes a desperate joy.

Overhead, the darkness
wraps the heart, comforting

the grief of bones, forgives
the arrogance of mountains.

Suddenly, the smell of earth
like coffee, unleashed the licorice

leaves and stones, the round, wet
color of starling eggs. If I could

live forever in the rain, the storm,
without a jacket, this would be my Eden.

Liquid Spirits

Opened, the cherry door
behind whose flame-wood lies
your silver box of nights-

Pandora's gifts cut loose
of its most treacherous spirits-

where metal sweats tarnished
scotch and whiskey.

Here the satyr's ire
crashes down, cracks bone,
wounds muscle, marks skin

with vulgar colors, shatters
a strange raw creature that
used to look like me; quietly

in the morning, pieced
carefully back together.

Savage Moon

What the wolf wants,
the wolf gets. Only
the moon, perhaps,
escapes his jaws.

Now, we speak quietly
among ourselves of secrets
that are beautiful & deadly,
secrets which inspire us,

then kill us. What could be
more astonishing, savage as
the moon and wolf who hunts
wildly beneath it?

Blocking Out the Light

Eyeless creature, I am
entirely made of darkness;
searching in darkness like
a midnight moth. Imagine
a body whose threads, tightening,
block out the light; perceives
the source of pain, rushes to it.
Falls asleep damaged, trembling.

Towards Morning

Take one pebble
a day, place it
in a jar- the weight
of life. Everyday
eat a peach, remembering
its sweetness. Tend
the newly planted seedlings,
open up your heart. And
late at night, each night,
pray towards morning.

The Outer Skin

I am not afraid of
snakes. Do you believe
the body is a portal?
The snake grows, but as
it grows, the outer skin
does not. I've loved so much,
feared so much; shed my coat,
resting in sunlight. Then,
instinctively, like terror
slither back into the shadows.

No Place Like Home

There is no place like
home; the river is freed,
let out of its bones.

Trees remember groves,
clouds drift away in search
of ceiling.

My grandmother rocks
steady as wind
in a wooden chair

that creaks
and groans-

lumber
of a ship

that takes her
nowhere.

Winter's Child

The boy was fragile like a newborn,
drifted down beautifully & flightless
from snow-covered hills, expectant.

Some kind of red-hue stained his lips
as if he had been drinking blood;
his hands, the claws of field-born foxes,
earth beneath his nails, as if he had

been digging graves.

The Nature of Things

On a rotten wood step
outside my little girl room

painted with one-winged
dragonflies and ladybug,

I watch

over teal-brushed fir trees
and spider-webbed powerlines

a brown, wild owl
sweeping for rabbit.

In this manner,
I memorize
the burnished sky,

the sallow lake,
whiskered tips
of wheat, once high

arced eastward
the weight of wind
sleeping on a field.

Miles away
and years,
I hear

whip-poor-wills
in the deep throated thicket,
chirping frogs,
oil-black crickets

and consider
the owl.

Against the World

Wandered off,
away from huddled wool
towards the overwhelming

shapeless-ness
of wind; its little bell

ringing.

Wind has no language
that warns of fox or wolves;
the clover that it strokes and ripples

has little acquaintance
with violence.

Overhead, a tin-white cloud
singled out from the darkening
nimbus, shifts then breaks

apart.

In the Sense of Hearing

You said you heard
God's mouth move
without speaking;

in all of my life,
I've not known
a mute-swan to sing

or my good father cry.

Here, in the white,
we heal hours
we've wounded like

roads of the city,
salt between stars,
seams of the cloth.

And filled with
regret for the beauty
of sound, the silence

incessantly burning
the ear of our scars.

Polemic

In dense rain, black
flies sleep hidden,

they understand
the essence of wisdom

in evasion.

But if you aren't
tormenting anyone-

who will you
persuade?

A Child's Room

Bare altar, built
off the main house

where practiced
little girls to pray

dissected, spliced, hid away-

what tiny pieces remain.

A Song of Shimmering

I know what happens
to the hummingbird-

beats quick,
dies privately
beneath a veil of sun,

the gold, the blue,
the shimmering green.

The mystic bee
winding down,

sings leaf. Sings
flower.

Living in the Moment

If you're strong enough
you survive the minutes;
if you think of them like
hours or years, you quickly
lose the ability to win.
When wolves sleep patiently
curled up in a blizzard,
they conserve their heat
without poetic notions of
forevor. Maybe, one small
dream of summer, just before
the snow breaks.

Beneath Our Feet

Someone once wrote about
the efficiency of a chair,
its obvious purpose. How much
more proficient, the versatile,
undervalued floor?

Still-born

Confide in me your problems,
wet match, cold blanket,
reluctant daybreak. Take
my hand, let me burn your
frozen house, pull the needle
from your vein, pick muscle from
the bone. Still-born, blind, even
stars are grateful for their sky,
fading roses for their dutiful stems,
the ocean for its vexing tides.

Wasteland

We don't always know
what we're doing:
the knife at our wrist,
the gun pointed, the lye
in our throat. In a space,
immense as morning or narrow
as a nostril for breathing,
we lose ourselves to grief.
In the middle of the desert,
we are like a trembling bird
living by itself in wasted
places; like the night-bird
in a waste of sand.

Cracked Stone

Old, like cracked
stone but doesn't betray
it's particular age.
I could read meaning
into this: ageless, yet
ancient, a million years
versus the next few minutes.
When I say, "The heart is healing"
I mean endlessly.

Organ Meat

Visceral is a word
that smells like grilling
meat. For that matter,
there is no rational way
to explain how organs
are moved by beauty.

The Land of Oz

This is not the holy city.
It's a trailer park. One plastic
potted plant in the trashy yard,
a hole in the ground made by the dog.
Ants inherit the earth, a nursery,
a battlefield of funneled dust.
From inside the rusted trailer, music,
opera, Madama Butterfly.

Stigmata

A signed, written
statement is powerful
evidence. Consider
unmerciful night,
its unwavering confessions.
How its bone-hard teeth
chew through heaven like
blood-sausage or uncooked meat.
Already, jagged wounds coagulate
and dry. Put your fingers there,
if you must, to believe, to bear
the task of witness.

The Beautiful Hunt

I hear familiar hands against my door,
I will write about self-enclosure.

My brother is playing his guitar
in the attic with invisible strings;

the night becomes a howling,
terrible creature.

My father reads his Bible breaking
mythical ground, he says

"the extinction of the body
is as inevitable as struggle."

The sound of wolves clawing
at my door; I write about the language

of death, how beautifully
it hunts for silence.

My father says "There are windows
to every soul" I crash through mine

while my mother works barefoot
in the kitchen, picking up the pieces.

Prayer

When life
left the room,

briefly-

the color of silence
(black) remained.

In a small vessel, ink
of the last desire

spilled prayer.

Stray

I am amazed,
the depth
these steps

spire down.

Without shoes;
the sea is enormous,
so enormous

it sinks down.

What vanishes?
Where does it travel?

The sparrow rests
above stone graves

like a shoeless
stray child.

Tonight, the woods
are endless, the wind

trapped within the trees
and I must journey on

bleeding, unshod feet,
I must journey down.

Through a Window

At last, I came to a stopping place,
a period at the end of a long
nonsensical sentence, a stretched
piece of rope, worn thin before
it separates completely- the final
step into utter darkness. By morning,
it begins again, the soul everyday
astounded by narrow shafts of light
pouring in through a small window.

Apology to Father

On other grassy planets
things could be different-

Father,

we were never made
for this one.

The Secret Page

The missing book,
the weeping hour

thorned into the hands
that find it- a page,

the sound of sighing,
the color of a stone

with shriveled skin
of human kindness,

tender, somber words
that speak of home

and how we might,
at last, reside there.

Here, the shape of life
becomes a vessel where

all things secret loosen,
rise and spill; transforms

shadows in the darkness
into a single, precious prayer.

Typhlotic

Is there a God? Dissect
a protein, examine the heart.
The blind toymaker fashions
perfect dolls, with steady hand
sews buttons for their eyes.

Lover Descending a Staircase

Do you know
the sound the ear makes

pressed
to shell?

Hollow, pink
whispers fog

down winding
pearly stairs.

Winter Lyre

Heavily, in forests
sound glances
off trees,

and the cry
of the lyrebird
cast from the reed bed

knifelike

finds its way home.

Near the lake,
cushions of weed,
perfectly voiceless,

anchor the cat-tail
like wingtip to crow;

heavier still-

sky's speechless
solemnity pulls down

the snow.

What Beauty Attracts

Where there is beauty
long grow shadows;
worms attracted to
scent of apples. Pin-holes
of the nightsky draw
the dying star

dashing it to earth.

Wild horses leave the prairie,
stand beneath careful, salty cliffs.
Birds fold their emptied wings
like feather-belted coats,
drift to sleep. In the distance,
sun becomes a bleeding artery

then, darkens and empties.

Maligned

Did you just call me
"word whore"? Never mind-
the pigeons shit anywhere
they want to.

Briefly, What Hides

I saw you in
the woods this
afternoon. Something
troubles you, the secret
stalker, your old life.

And yet, the sun
shone through as if
weaving you a dress,
a frock of timid blue
and white. Then,

I saw you
vanish.

The Snare

He's waiting for me
just inside my chest,
the blacksnake aiming for
a frightened animal.
He's waiting for me,
he doesn't know. The Dark
can't recognize itself,
a molecule of water never
acknowledges the ocean.
Like some poisonous, beautiful
spider who is not aware
how savagely it kills,
he waits for me.

When Death Comes Calling

We haven't met. How did
you find me? Why are you
holding a weed wacker,
I heard you carried a scythe?
Well, its understandable
in this economy.

I'd invite you in
but you see, I have
a 5 o'clock hair appointment.
You can leave your card;
I'll text you.

The Cross

There is a painted blue cross
in the sky tonight where
bullet-holed stars bolster it up.
I smell like blood tonight,
as if I've killed someone;
the sinner, alive, the victim
nailed to wood. This is the hour
for earnest prayer. Here is
the stone handed to me, the first
to wield it. As for my soul,
it has no hands, it has no weight,
it has no immunity.
.

He Slept

When he died, they said
"He had a sense of humour.
He enjoyed the holidays."

So do insects.

I wanted them to say
"We won't survive this.
The world will end today."

And so he slept
and slept, no matter
what they said.

Loathing

No one knew that I had died,
the dead are not so obvious.
I may have left my heart in Eden,
my body cast onto the stones.
For you, I've searched and wasted
grief like serpents do, writhing
through the ash. Such a creature
surely coils, turns against itself,
all bite and venom.

Motormouth

A man who uses too many words
is like a vapor in strong wind,
every molecule dissipates into
a whole lot of nothing.

Writer's Block

I write to forget.
With an ink-colored mask,
I camouflage the flesh
unable to hear, or see
or feel. When words
escape me, suddenly the sky
is falling heavily, dismally
on its wounded author.

Linnaeus's Butterfly

The butterfly so
frilly, nervous. Is it
capable of worry or
are its frenzied
fleeting joy?

An Alternate Ending

Were you just looking
for a good time? Like
the trojan horse but set on fire;
I destroyed you first.

A Full Heart

After years of knowing,
what is left? What do we
know? Everything we can.
As for me, what I have-
one small wing, this pebble
for a heart, a burning
house, a particular star
I look for every night,
a blueprint of the sky-
fills me up completely.

Summer Torpor

Green bones. Silver sunlight
spitting blue. Cattle lazy
in their pasture, brown and tawny
horses standing still. Now, the world
is nothing but a flower,
simple, colorful and pure.
Even shadows in their hideout
close their eyes, rest until
evening brings its frosty cure.

Sentinel

When I say, the cruel are flawed,
I mean the needle is honed but often
misses its mark. The eyes of sheep
recognize the wolf waiting in darkness;
huddling together, only one of them
will die.

We search for safety everywhere,
into the woods, behind a door,
the deepest grotto of our hearts,
keeping the predator always in
the scabbard of our sentient nerve
with one clear goal- to stay alive.

Shifting

Because we think the spirit
cannot dream, we keep it hidden.

The body, helpless in its sleep
allows the soul to stretch its wings

like adolescent birds will trial
and totter in their fetid nest

eventually leap into the nothingness,
leaves the body cold and stupid in

its wooden bed surrounded by the tree
and flower, dreaming futilely.

The Book of Wolves

Somewhere a blizzard
of single-filed wolves.
You can make out their eyes
yellow, snake-like. Wind,
a motherless child howls
around their nervous ears.
That, in an instant, the tundra
blank and white as wordless pages
closes her book.

Are You There?

Star, the heart
bent towards
the light, dead
before the wish
was made. Small
shafts of brightness
traveled through
the dark and someone
saw it.

Fear of Heights

Our affinity
was like a circus;
monkeys to the gaudy
leader. Imagine if
there were no one
to tell the dancers
when it's time to dance.
We were young like every
early morning, tents go up,
the warlike lions sleeping,
clowns serious and wretched
without their foolish costumes.
My fear of heights, trapeze act
when hand to hand the fingers
freeze and slip, one of us
fell harder than the other,
completely missed the net.

Give Back the Night

Today, the ground on which I walk
stranger, quaking, damaged. Last night,
the bed on which I lay, my sleep- a slow
half-finished suicide. How false the world
appears extruding from shadows of the dark
its fabric ripped and pulled like veins
detached from muscle. And so I tire of
sunlight, singing birds, uncoiling flowers,
the ordinary streets that twist and turn
one into the other.

Never Winter

Here I am. Often, how
I miss you. It never snows
in southern california.
And this is how we yearn
for what we've never known.

To My Only Desire

The light was
not enough.

However briefly,
love was not enough.

What delights
my soul, sometimes

for no reason,
is the sleeping wolf.

When Death so Beautifully Clothes

If silently, all tenderly
the roses open,despite the choke
of wispy vines, then perfectly
its spiral thorny arm, its sheath
safeguards imponderable beauty.

Most absolutely, as rapidly
the petals blacken, crumbling so
like feather-dust of moths, then blows
its salmon colored specks, its cloth
onto the nakedness of autumn fields.

The House Within

When no one is watching
we become what we are.
See how the heart winds
down, the blind spot in
the eyes widen? Don't
worry, the house within,
where you live your life
will teach you discipline.

The Message

Does night have a heart?
Is there an epistle in
blood-red stars? Are we all
alone in this life; are we
worth saving? Whose reverberating
message says we are?

Bone Collector

Because the face betrays
the body's dread, no shadow
dark enough to veil the flesh.
O child! death comes surely
even to those who refuse it.

How long will your ephemeral
room surround you, defend you,
a disintegrating shell?

Who will gather your bones
like fallen flowers and
lay them in the earth?

When fog comes heavily
on grey-white feet, obliterates
carvings on the man-made stones;
now, my heart, your secrets are
eternally your own.

What the Wolves Leave

The birds will eat. Even in full sun
among hyenas. There are some things
in life, so small, they are overlooked.

Fear of God

Grey morning, rain held
in blankets, the cliff
I stand on, above the ocean,
wounded as a raging beast.

So here is where my God is hiding;
steel blue-eyed, teeth, jagged rock,
breathing in and out the clouds,
His body silver, gorgeous, large.

Does He see me small and random
some wild blossom clinging to
the ribs of mountain? Or does my spirit
lit and glowing remind Him of

His favorite star? The rains break
loose from heaven's pores, the sound
a million liquid singing voices.
A red-backed hawk plummets through

crackling skies, searches for a place
to light. Lands beside me fastens to
a boulder shrub, majestic as a king,
more in fear of God than me.

Alive and Dead

A man's love
can be self-hatred.
A father's rage
is a passage to
abandonment. Each night
I bury the man
to forgive the father.

To Love or Not to Love (What the Hell is Love?)

Is it stone, heavy, round
as so it goes round and round,
or can it be an errant string
pulls the heart into a kink?

And who comes home inside
an empty room to dance,
the rain outside, the dog
sleeping by the fire?

When the moon rises to her shelf
one creature who is satisfied
completely by herself, who loves
silence like a warm, familiar bed

or as the ocean loves its obeisant shores.
What is love? Even nature is perplexed.
Although it is the sun who rises filled
with gifts for every living beast.

To Be Singing

There are so many of you. So many
cubicles of life. I cannot know
what you are thinking but I know
all of you are capable of dying.

Once, I saved a homeless man who
fell asleep on Santa Monica Blvd.
He spit on me because he said
I woke him from a lovely dream.

Often now, I understand the birds,
anonymous, nameless flocks who spend
their time hunting worms and spiders
no other joy than singing to be heard.

Midas

You have found a way to stay
young; I cannot envy you.
Your age will hunt you down.

When you tell your children
prepare for death, they will
pull you down into their grave.

Every organ fills itself with
loneliness. What you touch turns
to gold and kills your pleasure.

Late at night surrounded by sharp
things, no sleep and flawless skin
you watch the arc of dying stars

with desperate longing.

The Crippled Swan

I will forgive the circumstances
of my fate, the crippled swan
who sinks. Our catastrophic bodies
distort all purpose; the weak will learn
to float atop the lake propelled by
other's water rings. And beauty has
no function but to kick the heart,
to haunt the mind, to wrack the senses.
In a clear pool, the match of evening
strikes the surface, the mutant swan erupts
in feathered white and orange flame.

What Things are Worth

I'd choose love over bread;
a room filled with candles
with wolves scratching at
my door. Why pretend we
cannot be all we want to be?
My favorite things are not
gold coins or ornate jewelery,
the coins are spent, the rings
cut off your circulation.
For example, I really like
my feet. They take me out
for walks in rain, dance
even when the music dies,
they look good in mud
and love the feel of grasses.
How much are my feet worth
on the open market?

My Bed Waits, Though

Night came, first on violet feet.
No clothes, but skin, bone-white,
then blue and green. Watch the mountains
slowly curl for sleep like boats rolling
with the respirations of the sea.
Now moths, small heads grinding
at the screens, their split-wings
frenzied, addicted to the artificial light.
At last, the moon late to keep her post,
a silver halo twined into her graying hair
throws supernatural shine on dormant fields,
knits crystal blankets for the hills.
My bed waits though, I am reluctant to leave
the night will burn its way to morning
and I might miss the splendor of its passing.

The Tree

Old man, you are older than me.
Older than the shadows falling through
the purple evening, cascading down
your twisted, wooden shoes.

Old man, are you tired of the secrets
held forevor in your cavernous throat,
the seclusion of your cracked and brittle
bark or does beauty of the endless sky

fortify your ageless love?

If I could be like you, constant,
lucid, planted firm and proud,
I would not be unsettled, indecisive,
fickle as the dimming light.

The Meek

What is this sadness that steals my sleep,
when even the owl is morose, despondent
in a season of rabbits and beetles?

A band of crows burrowed in oak trees
stare through heat, their hollowed bones
cracking and burning. Tonight,the moth

clings to worm-eaten wood, ignores the flame,
flightless, heartbroken. Heaven's stairway,
each rung made of star withdraws its glittering

feet from its mountain platform.

Then, like a solo guitar, intuitively beautiful,
a single cricket his shivering song emulating joy
twists my heart into a smile, confirms the parable:

the meek shall inherit the earth.

Look Out Any Window

The moon is high, blue-blood trailing
like a gunshot wound; my heart is not
for sale, nor beauty... no matter where
we find it. A great, black crow
a witness to the mystery of silence
clings to twisted branches, the one
dark hole in moon's smooth complexion.
Look out any window. Who said nature
is forgiving, always gorgeous? A fox
slinks by, a church mouse quivers in his jaw.
His irridescent eyes reflect the moon;
red liquid stained his flame-orange fur.
Don't be disappointed by the violence,
the desperate sparrow jabbing for a worm,
a pack of wolves ripping through the deer
whose calf was nearly born, the unsympathetic
meteors rushing towards collision.

The Importance of Numbers

One thought today. The bell
rings briefly, then rests.

One rock in the surf. There
must be more.

In the ocean's shallow nest,
a dead seal. A billion flies.

Prodigal Daughter

There is nothing you can give me
that will change the universe;
I am forgotten, the only daughter,
the wild, albino blackbird.

Over time the heart stiffens
torqued within its boney chest
like roots grown deep, too twisted
in its soil to ever be unraveled.

And though I kneel and weep
and cling to land I never left
but missed, a paradise of flame
and blossom cannot repair this.

All these years of tragedy
in fear of death, its trap
of blackness, traveling from
light to deeper paths of darkness

searching for acquittal.