The Old Dog Leads the Way

Everyday I gave you
meat & water, oiled
your wings, pruned
your fan-like fur.

Don't worry creature
you weren't meant for
this world.  I've been
where your going;

follow me there.

Loss

Gathered, kept, tightly
clutched.  There are things
fingers or heart

can't hold.

This is my version of grief:

snow falling, a glimpse
of wildness moving
quickly across the hill.

In the weakening light,
my eyes fail.

Maternal Instinct

A small boy passes in front
of a window in his striped pajamas,
in his slippers and spiderman
underwear.  Looking for,

dreaming
of becoming a man.

The lights click out, the dark
figure of his mother turns
like a whale nudging
her offspring in the deep

murky waters-
to find him.

Confession

Radiant, holy.  Think
of yellow bursts of flame.

A summer day so clear
it burns.  The soul

a wild-fire spreading
tree to tree

like absolution.

What Sleeps

By my side he laid,
folded wings, wild sphinx,
the color of clay.  Where

are your snow-covered hills,
your awful hunger?  Somewhere

God is sleeping and dreaming
and making.  The task is

not to wake Him.

Nightfall

A man of few words
is the evening blackened
tongue drinks light, chokes
on its dysmorphic body,
poops blood.

A seizure of assets,
a thief wiping fingerprints
from the scene of a crime,
a forceful sodomy.  Then

finally darkness.

The Heart Consumes Itself

For gluttony, love like a skinless
sow hanging naked, obscene from
the rafters. We feed, we kill, we eat
but refuse to watch the slaughter.

How it troubles the philosopher
the cruel, sharp knife, the fleshy throat,
the violent twisted neck, a final
deathly sigh. And what is left,

the ugly limp body. 

On a Road

Not just any road but
the one earth, lined
with quiet, sweet violets,
a levitating mist whose eyes
are moist and white.

The road a child crossed
to the field at night to catch
fireflies and low-hanging stars
in a mason jar she found
in the underground cellar.

The road her father galloped
on a horse named Andy
bareback, bouncing, sliding
down a barrel shaped chest
squeezing with strength and pride

to stay upright.  Upright like
the saints and martyrs.

The road whose endpoint is
a glowing light, whose spine
is broken and troubled, whose hands
reach out, whose voice mimics
the cry of a mother calling

her only daughter, the prodigal
daughter whose feet wandered
down the road to the field filled
burning fireflies, cold blue-white stars
and sharp, little pieces of glass.

Vision

Small field cushioned,
a cave between the woods.
Here I sit years ago; years
that seem sharp as blades
of grass, high as cedars.

Life filled with dark water,
lighter shades of red and green.

Still, I sit in that same spot
drinking from the shadows,
sunlight moves behind the trees,
the sound of birds who now
long dead remain inside my ears.

I hear them. I hear them still.

Governed By the Speed of Atoms

In this large space made small
by your hands, your face there are
shadows and blueprints.  I touch

anything that comes too close
to miss.  Governed by the speed
of atoms, what I've truly lost

isn't real.

You pray in silence.  I too
have mouthed the words
O come all ye Faithful, O come

secretly to the energy that
burns the wood.

Perhaps Some Peace

If what sleeps is beautiful then
why not death?  On dark days
the body rises slower, its strings
and hooks taut against the soul.

I am not sleeping.  I have never slept.

Lying down, the milky mist hangs
low.  Somewhere in the night
a woman searches for her father
beneath the waves of blue & green

a stranger to the ocean, a restless rolling.

Here, beneath the sky, the same
still sky they all will see, what flies
over brings perspective, peace
perhaps.  Perhaps some peace.

Invention

 

Two pair of binoculars, both are broken,
chewed by the dog. I want to see
the furthest focused point- the last time
I believed. What glass sees inward...

that far inward?

Inventions men make like stain removers,
bag-less vacuums, alcohol free wine,
antidepressants and good fathers
often disappoint. I envy cavemen, simply

hungry predators who use their hands.

That's all- two hands to take what
they are missing. No instructions needed,
no adjustments, no disclaimers,

no false advertisements.

Did you know, the naked eye
can visualize a star so far away,
a little fuzzy. Like love.

Invent that.