Two Foreign Objects Almost Collide in Space

For her part, she let it
end though the divine
reassured her, it might
return.

How many tongues
do you think God's mouth
contains and would you

believe each
foreign promise if

you couldn't
decipher the symbols?

Some connections
are too close, others
were never meant

for dreams-

as for her, she kept
going.

Sometimes You Don't Even Feel The Bullet

if only
I could revive you but
you have been with
the disappeared for
far too long;

I think you
like it.

Futile Admiration

Strange sorrow, burnt bean,
dark yet perfectly singed;

a single black ant
marching the porch bannister
obsessed with destination.

Not like us who move
in many directions
on the way in

or out of heaven.

Watch the lonely bird,
again and again he rises,
each ascent his eyes
shooting fire,

his lovely wings crack
and bend like an old
woman's back or

a broken mast
in a pirate's battle

splinter in half. 

Futile, yes, but
admired.

White Chalk and Scars

The body talks to itself
wound to wound, flesh to scar
clawed deep by

the black-ghost wolf
trapped in my heart.

Skin or cave, my canvas
flattened cardboard marked
with images rendered so fragile

they decompose
at the speed of quiet .

Here where I thought
terrible darkness was God
and it is

inconceivably brighter
than lightness

where it's not
enough to know what's hidden
is in danger of dissolve,

what lies uncut grows
wildly.

Consider the dead outlined
in smoke, they wear no clothes,
no hats or scarves, naked

bleached and faded
white chalk.

Non-Reactive Properties

This comes from my own life, this
flea hugging its blood-filled host,
the point of nail leading the flat
silver head down into wood;

the seemingly dark empty
space between all that could
but maybe shouldn't

torture or thrill.

There is so much overlap
evil and good, how my faith
enveloped your fear like a plastic
bubble filled with limitless air

which is to say you needed
what I needed and

I willed myself to be satisfied
very much like stones keep
their molecules tight to
their chests, their bodies

so motionless they seem
dead.

Do Not Spare Me

These are not words but
perfectly oval corpuscles
iridescent (red)

given birth, a map-less tunnel,
accruing weight and matter,

twice the venom to kill
before they are killed.

Beauty is imagination;
the blade of delight

is real.

Let joy, its stubborn edge,
its pearl-coated throat and
winged animal body

find me.

Act of Forgiveness

The small boy said "it's time to go home"
with an adult serious stride he guided me
down the hall to a door that was warped
by a network of veins coursing

with wine or poison.  "This was the way in"
he turned with a cruel smile, "but now, you
have to cut your way out."

On the other side, the voice of a woman
like the sound of two rivers rushing together
in a storm, somewhat buffering spine-cracking
booms, she whispered "Remember, she too
was once white cloud"

and she cried for me like thunder.

Now the boy, a man, sits quiet beside me
on a park bench feeding pigeons to seed,
his hand swaying methodic like a clock
ticking, his eyes counting each speckled,
gray bird... as if one were missing.

[Nef-ri-tee-tee]

For crushing Nefertiti
I condemn you to
the wire, oiled wood,
confined to darkness,

your organs stored
in pewter boxes where

demon children keep
their stolen plastic toys.

For shattered bones
your skin to memorize, record
each nerve to burn,

explode like
firecrackers.  Then

a goodbye kiss
for what is left
before it

fractures.

In Any Direction

How unlikely my heart
to find its bearings
in this dark world,

its shiftings
a rogue wave in
a night's storm,

an uneven swell
for a blinded ear;

small hairs
in the shell's bone

broken.

Mojave Rain

Fine, sweet rain
on dessicated earth.  The juice
of birth, its first breath

passing through
its chiseled, withered
tunnel.

This land is sacred
like afterbirth
drying on

its cord.

Depth and Dimension

It was not my intention
to stay with you;  a grain
of sand or rice would
understand.

A final look back
at jagged-white mountains
a homeland,

the lone wolf understands.

Time is not gravity's pull
but shapes of journey,
the curvature of dream

with its unplanned
arrivals and sudden
departure.

The dead rabbit on
the road, the burrowing
mole, the bird with its hollow
bones and webbed fingers,

the mother of my thorns-

wherever they go,
they go

briefly.