In Layers

Lies smooth, dark
emptied, sleeping.

Not seed or stone
or dream.

Like all things
hidden, its black cord
snapped rigging,

a lacerating scar
between two bodies;

grown stubborn
in its fossilized bed
forgets the bleeding

hands that buried
it there.

Falling Into Heaven

They invite you in, 
the whale's omen voices,

a grey congregation

drifting down
to the bottom

of Eternity, 

the depth
of Heaven.

Waiting for the Burn

Every evening, 
a foreign sermon, 

footsteps towards
a distant shore, 

a mournful flute
whose throat tightens

and cries "mend
my heart!"

The burning
songbird's ashes

rise in spirals,
a dark tug pulls

the soul up
out of its bottle.

Where I crouch
in the back fields,

a simple brown bird
with broken bones

and old scars, 
anonymous eyes,

waiting for another
dream-filled night

where mortal fires
burst into flower. 

We Will Be Judged

I am governed 
by thunder, invisible

relentless, prophetic.

The shadow of sound, 
its dark voice, first voice 

whose song
a perfect knife 

cuts through layers
in rapid-fire succession.

It has words
for you, for the deaf

but not yet dead.

It says "Salvation
is mine to give."

The lake, black
and shaken reflects

its torn, ravaged victims
in a posture of shame.

What Is Left of My Heart

Creation carved you
from earth disguised
you as darkness

moving

in our midst.

How can something
be both beautiful
and disfigured,

so unnatural in
a natural world?

In morning's wild
light I watch you
shrink and sway

hypnotic, afraid,

a mouth of fang
without potency

or poison.

Some images are
shadows, some shadows
visions of another

world;

when evening comes
I tie you to my bed
to keep you

vulnerable
and pure.

Paul

It moved around you fast
and furious capturing its own
wings flapping; in the middle
of flight, sewn to steel 

and silenced
before the crash

in an audience of deleted
faces, you stood still as if
you secretly survived.

I know you will.  I know
you did.