Resistance

We all lived in the same house.  Some of us
recuperating the way sand is nudged
towards the brush or the way things
are hardly noticeable.

It didn't matter how we loved
eachother, the nights were always
colder in Kansas.  The voices
of birds frozen in their mouths

like death sentences;

red and black snakes tightening
in their skein the way
a fist tightens.   Father
hunched over the stove

feeding its oval belly, its mouth
vomiting sparks of blood.

Those nights and howling
wind scraping its long sharp
fingernails across the windows

as if it wanted in.

Dark Hands

There is a woman singing
like a bird and a wolf stares
like a wolf will stare.  Incredibly
unnerving.

The power of being hunted
by something creepy, ugly
and eerily powerful, inherently
haunting.

White flesh, dark hands and
admiration.

Box in the Attic

My heart says Princess Doll.  My eyes
say pony.  No wrapping paper just
a package with no name.

A box of baby clothes and mothballs,
a coloring book and a paintbrush.

Sometimes all you need is a red
crayon and a black pencil.

The Settling

As you get older you make the world
what it should be.  You lower the expectations
by just walking in the room.  See how beautiful
the sky is before the mucous in your eyes
falls away?

You're gonna think what you're gonna
think.  Never blame someone else
for that.

Passion.  The settling.  The very morning
you overslept you dreamed you were
a good man in a mask and a grey hoodie.

No residue.  Just a bright white
light traveling in an upward trajectory.

The Shooter

I'm afraid I've damaged everyone
around me.  The gun always had
more answers than questions.

Upon closer examination
I would say:  Fatal

through and through exiting
the chest causing massive
damage to the organs.

This concerns me.

The tearing, the burns, close
contact.  I'm saying the shot
was fired from less than
2 feet away.

If you're going to do some running,
you'd better run fast.  Did you

get a good look at the one
who shot you?

In the Moment

Waiting for the "aha" moment,
good predators always turn
to look.  As if they know

not knowing is dangerous.

Rising up from abnormal, a body
where a body shouldn't be-  a parasitic twin.

Light in the eyes or a tremulous shadow
too dark to trust

or death moments where all things
float to surface speeding
towards unseen.  A bruise

where a bruise shouldn't be
and an enemy.

To Please You

No page goes unturned.  No bird
sings its song without forgetting.
Blackbird, what you bring
is death!

Did you think I had forgotten?

All green things, majestic high
sleeping mountains could not
move you;  who am I

to teach you?

Greater still, how difficult
to please you.

Gambling Man

This was the first time God
woke up with a hangover.  Who
are these creatures that I've made
and how they suffer.

You can bet a gambling man
would've cut his losses.

See what waste the fields,
sapphire waters, the gorgeous woods.

In Las Vegas a man in
in a black suit and Armani tie
leans over the Fire Lounge Bar

and orders another one.

Finding Nefertiti

Her name means beauty.  To a stranger,
effortless. To history, the x rays
showed otherwise. Internal organs
in an ivory box-  liver, kidneys,
abscessed teeth.

You would have waited
in line with the rest of us
to get into the nightclub or
stayed Saturday night alone

watching Desperate Housewife
re-runs with a tub of ice cream
without assessing calories

before popping ambien.

Of course you'd dream of
ruling a country,  becoming
a supermodel, a celebrity

or maybe, just maybe
winning the lottery.

The Melon Scoop-er

Early meets late between now
and then.  A clock's face, a frown,
a stern mockery of how-long-it-is
to wherever you inevitably end.

I'm done with time.  Silly man-made
tool like a metal, melon scoop-  is it really
necessary when all you need is

a fistful of fingers?

No Thunder

If you stand in the middle
of four corners, they say
you can hear the wind blow
even when you're dead.

Some people hear nothing
even when they're sober.

Submerged in water, the sound
of water resembles the sound
of floating or sliding slowly

into silence.

No waterfalls, no screaming
birds, no thunder.