OUTLASTING MOTHS

Poetry or Happenstance?

2011-11-15T16:52:00.000-08:00

Blindness said to Darkness: without gravity, it is coincidence
we've met here. And of sight, forgive me if I say: not all birds
can sing, some can't even fly. Do you suppose they know
what they are missing?

When we close our eyes, we know what color
blood is, how warm the sun, how deep the night,
how unfathomable the sky. By chance, we touch
the wings of morning as it's rising only

to mistake its thousand voices as a prayer.

As gift, the light bestows shadow to the body
so it might shade the sweetness of its sorrow
from the world, repair the scars that burn
its hidden soul. Is it circumstance

that brings us hope?

And of the dead, their clay-brown eyes
and melting hearts, each one dreamt
they might be you or you them without
pause or concern or regret. Not all dreams

are dreams; how can we trust them?

In every unknowable knowing-ness,
what passes ends, what grieves forgets,
what watches helpless learns to lift,
what fails reverts to finishing a thought,

a word, a question, perhaps, a poem.

Stealing Away

2011-11-13T14:36:00.000-08:00

Now more often against its nature,
the heart separates itself from light
like a wooded creature black-mane
peppered gray, crooked boned, its head
hinged down looking for that dark place

to rest awhile or die.

Some things of beauty hide themselves
or what is left of beauty- not to save the eye
or mind but to shame it, to chastise it, to remind it
of what is lost, perhaps of what may come-

always the heart beats soundly
until it stops.

We were made for this: patience, leaning away,
how the beautiful keep looking for a darker
corner to slip into. See the fibrous edges
of the heart blur and soften. See what once

hardened us, strips away.

A Heart-full of Flower

2011-09-22T18:50:00.000-07:00

For you, each night the wing-shaped flower
green claws filled with earth, round unblinking
eyes and purple forehead wrinkled veils of kiss-

how they worry you will miss them.

I, too every morning gratitude and fear he is
here beside me still. Desperately, the heart
swims slowly to its darkened bottom, jagged like

a pebble in the soot.

Let grief remind me of the light-filled surface
when light is gone. Let me be amazed the world
may touch, admire every flower then turn

its admiration to the stars whose fiery blossoms
illuminate the road to God, thrill and burst, a thousand
tiny fires fall to earth like winged-shaped flowers...

flowers you will miss.

Forgetting the Forgotten

2011-09-22T17:44:00.000-07:00

It's not enough to know; you must tell
the story of unopened boxes stuffed

with unopened treasures. The smell
of everything new but forgotten like

the secret lives of wolves on some old
mountain. They have been living there

for years without being seen or known.
I am telling you now because I hear them

crying in foreign tongues- how fiercely
they love and kill as if their jaws have

tricked them, as if loving and killing
were the same beautiful becoming,

as if their secret desire to be understood
will somehow save them.

An Argument Between Lovers

2011-08-05T20:56:00.000-07:00

When someone else
can say something better
best let them. Those that eat
are no less than those who
spit it out.

In a corner of an empty
room a man listens, his ear
recognizes the beauty of silence,
the lips of a woman moving
soundless or the slow song

of shadows and hearts.

And darkness, its throat-less promises:
I will not deceive you. I will not
abandon you. The man in his corner
smiles... his tongue cut out.

Less clearly, from a distance came
the small white ears of light
that hear everything-

a child crying, an argument
between lovers, a woman falling down,
a man setting his body on fire.

An Early Breakfast

2011-06-20T18:51:00.000-07:00

When we started- as in the beginning
the hour between darkness and gentle
comings of light, the kind of light that
rises sweetly, a piano's hesitant fingers
inconfidently practiced, a room full
of virgins who see love through an open
window and shyly approach or smiles
driven from their shadow-

we were ignorant and beautiful.

And as I've shared this bread, this fresh
vase of tulips cut precariously, imprecise
at breakfast how many years I've turned
your eggs just as you've liked them,
my slightly weathered hands, flour on my apron
I should so forgive your vanity as you have

forgiven mine.

Transcension

2011-06-20T17:34:00.000-07:00

To be human is to forget the body, to leave
behind those you love, those you hate,
to drag the unwilling soul through its white dust
with an invisible hand whose bones resist
forces of heat, of water, of wind

to a place no one returns recognizable.

To abandon the mother who made your bed, gave
you to your father, the father, in his search for
perfect light, who caused your death, buried you
in darkness, a cloud of brown moths gathering-

this too, you must forget.

Consider light, how it sits unbroken, quiet
on a summer leaf illuminating form and color,
the way it disappears completely without
shape or judgement. How it gives its life

to save another.

Miracles and Logic

2011-06-12T19:10:00.000-07:00

Today, the gathering of clouds. Tomorrow,
the small, black umbrella in its sheath.
I am prepared. I am waiting.

What hearts are made for.

And you stepped out of darkness the way
a bird lands, blind but precise, holding on
to the last strong branch

as if you planned it.

We know how it works, the physics of it,
the wing span, the tiny, hollow bones, how
miracle disguises itself as logic;

a forest of birds taken for granted.

Then rains come, you swept up by wind,
a reason to expect the world will turn
on its sterling axis, the same dark storm

to guide you home.

His Father's World

2011-06-10T20:33:00.000-07:00

For your father, I forgive you, his spiders
made your webs. On a cloudy day, head bent
back, black boughs obscure the sky, a tangled
trap; how you weep when they hold you.

Water never was enough, I forgive you still
for swimming in the drink or deeper through
the veins. Yes, his arms were large enough
to save you but they never reached you.

This is not a eulogy for your father or your
helplessness; every secret too is beautiful
and cursed. Some see light where light has never
set a foot or shadow in the brightest world.

How do I know I can forgive you; can you
hear me, these few well-chosen words? Within
my heart a space as wilde as mountains, there
among the rocks and flowers is a saddened boy

burying his father.

Point of Reference

2011-06-10T19:53:00.000-07:00

Time and the myth
of time, here and gone,
small, then large;

so close, the soul confuses
geography with heart.

From a window
near the bed, the sky
is caught.

In the middle
of a field, the stars
are countless.

In the room
of a world, the light
is curved

but disappears
once opened. Who
could blame it?

The Paper and Its Hour

2011-06-10T19:15:00.000-07:00

I'm where I wanted to be, this little desk,
a vase of flower. In these moments, the voice
is weak, the pen, loud and lively.

The relationship of ink to paper all feathery
tailed and eyes, a busy heart, a wind
in the dress of an owl; the one

that watches always.

Here night's cloudy spirals converge into
a tower on the sea, a flock of bird dispersed
like powder in the floodlights.

This is where I want to be, most beautiful
and helpless hour, the invisible bone
of word, white skeins of dream

and so the story.

.

The Man Who Cried

2011-06-09T19:55:00.000-07:00

I've considered your point. Your dark
synagogue, I've studied its corners,
how beautifully the shadows crawl
into metaphor; a sorrowful man
is a good man, a window covered.

You used to be of light, your absence
touched me, carried me to sleep's large bed
where fires shrink, burn out, freeze
the image of your body on my heart.
My eyes were made for darkness, how

they pull you towards me.

In this graveyard we call night, your secrets
are the midnight flower whose purpled
petaled faces consummate our final hours
in lightless-ness.

Rehab

2011-06-09T18:27:00.000-07:00

The crazy lies, the incredible detail
of faerytales. I keep a record of
each assertion;

would we live differently if apples
were apples, not enchanted fruit
laced with poison?

I'm tired of magic; it's a lovely thing
to die at the end of a story. This is
exactly when we know

we've grown tired, insist on closing
the book before the treacherous
win everything and everything

is lost.

Creases

2011-06-09T18:13:00.000-07:00

It's too early to tell, once folded,
how deeply the heart will wrinkle.

I'm going to visit my mother
in a dress too large for dancing,

the anonymous body hiding
a small child in its creases.

I know the mind remembers
where it came from, broken twigs

retain the shape of trees that
made them; winds or squirrels

to blame. Who never taught
the girl to dance or fall gracefully,

to lie beneath the feet that bend her?

In a dress too large for folding,
her hands curled lightly resting

like a blanket on an unmade bed,
the daughter's bones a perfect copy

of a prayer, the kind you whisper.

Dorothy's Opinion

2011-06-07T19:40:00.000-07:00

Poor girl, you're stuck with him. That spring
I dreamt of midwest tornadoes; I'm sure
I was one of them. Do you think my twisting
hips were forgiving? And a ring spinning

like a top, sparkling on the surface of
sea... a gift or warning. I've heard
no one in Kansas has seen the ocean
or would choose to die in it.

I would. In the rain and wind, wheat
stalks, in the motion of bodies of water
bend and turn in the distance like a
California storm.

Practice Sleep

2011-06-07T18:27:00.000-07:00

These levels of seductive
thoroughness, sleep and the meaning
of sleep. How I wanted to say
"this smooth, round stone is mine"

Kiss, the way a bird will rise,
sweet, weightless art, the leaving
of the world for cloud, for sky
for nothing-ness. I love

the journey up, the closing
wolf-like bite of love snapping
flesh and wings. Sleep,
hungry sleep

swallow me.

Surely

2011-06-07T17:59:00.000-07:00

No one wants to believe
their silly lives are planned
or borrowed. In truth, the shattered
pull themselves together
surely.

Imagine the risk of love,
a falling body, a thing of doubt,
a creature burning in its darkness.

More carefully, the crude tool
carves its symbol on the heart,
a primitive word that speaks
uncertainly of light,
surely

express yourself or die.

All Things Invisible

2011-06-07T16:55:00.000-07:00

In wide open spaces
I confess my love
for all things missing.

I have no secrets,
no wounds, no burning
destiny, no sacred tablets
to deliver me

from invisible.

There is a story
about a boy who
swallowed light;
it ate him from the inside,

until he became light.

On the subway,
a woman cried out
"Jesus!" and burst
into flames.

No one noticed
the fire of her skin.

Fate Loses Its Grip

2011-06-03T21:46:00.000-07:00

Suddenly like a rib
caught up in its muscle,
the door slams shut.

Natural the instinct
to release it, to pry
it open. Perhaps,

life is nothing but
a habit afterall.

A Piece of It

2011-06-01T21:39:00.000-07:00

No one should talk about stars
as if they had hearts or ever felt
envy or pleasure or love.

How many people in this world
expect the light to last as if
they ever owned it?

Some nights, the moments pass
right in front of us like a pocket mirror
that catches someone else's smile-

just a piece of it.

The Gesture

2011-05-27T19:21:00.000-07:00

The mouth bites the hand's fingers
leisurely bent, exhausted. Those lips
tired but glamorous, pensive, attractive
dangerous. Like a plump, bruised bird
resting on the boughs, just as beautiful.

The hand against the face, secret
thoughts passing through deceptively
subdued; naturally, the heart connects
its arteries, connects the stories, remembers
kisses and bleeding. How the skin

catches light then returns it
in a quiet, circular fashion
like swallowing water
to its dark origon.

To Unbury

2011-04-22T15:51:00.000-07:00

Well-dressed in dust,
they repair your hands
as if you were sleeping; rarely beauty

survives the teeth of time.

As for me, these tear-filled eyes
steeped in dreaming recognize
the rhythm of the final dance.

Could it be this cold, dead insect
whose wings are made of ice
are mine?

Quietly, the Inconsequential

2011-04-22T13:52:00.000-07:00

Three broken bones and still
I comfort the fearful; cracked stone
among stones supporting the mortar.

It's not often now I think of dying.
I'm busy awakening flowers,
their small mouths opening, startled;

slowly the inconstant light, how it
turns from joy to sorrow.

In the natural world, all things
fear the unknown, how it swallows
the living, disassembles the bones,

rearranges the overturned fields
into meadows of grasses. Yet just

on the other side of what matters,
the seemingly inconsequential life of a stone
stays riveted in a constant state of denial,

quiet, hopeful and strong.

The Heroine

2011-02-15T16:56:00.000-08:00

Now the last hero plants her foot
in the ruined field like a small bird
falls into the ocean's story- a victim.

Who wrote this book in a language
of sadness? I think it was my father.

Now she stands, her heart cut out,
a coupon in the daily paper. How
desperately she shops for love like

vampires do. But only from the dead.

The middle of the faery tale: the child
lost in tangled shadows of herself,
a blue dress soaked in blood or dying

light, the kind that resurrects itself
the following morning. Few parables

end well. But this is her gift, the last
few lines of a lifetime narration-
the ones that save the heroine.

Yet Lovely

2011-02-07T17:46:00.000-08:00

There's a kind of intimacy born
to horses, oceans, wolves and fire;
their muscled bodies stand between
this life and death, strangely protective.

All that wildness saying wildness
doesn't mean detachment, aloneness,
survival; only stars occupy
these purest forms of isolation.

For the lonely: you are merely broken.
For the mysterious: authenticate your beauty.
For the wretched: move slowly into light.
For the weightless: rise.

And then, a kind of truth subjugates
the instinct, the way a hawk will follow
feral horses, the tiger study packs of wolf
or oceans imitate fires burning brightly,

doomed yet lovely.

Where Have You Been All These Years?

2011-02-02T19:01:00.000-08:00

Hardly touchable. What they say
about cold things- marble or
the emotionally wounded.

How does winter burn the soul?

I bought a house, hardly liveable.
A sad dog showed up on the porch
missing an eye. He seemed to ask
"does anyone live here?"

We waited, the one-eyed dog
by the door, me by the fire, the night
with its pensive dreams and fantasies
of summer. The truth is

not much has changed from
one year to the other. Maybe
God is sleeping, maybe dogs
only need one eye and I

will never need to touch
anything more startling.

An Invitation

2011-02-02T17:43:00.000-08:00

A little instability like satisfaction
comes, an obedient unflinching
fullness. As wishing, a small
half-reluctant hand reaching
from blackness into eternity.

I am learning how to live like
wind first moves its head, takes
its first steps over the world,
the power of wandering, a thrill.

You could come with me.

A Flash of Light

2011-02-02T17:15:00.000-08:00

Here a confession: the moth detests
the flame, trying to obliterate its shining
sacrifices furry wings, a short, questionable life
to protect its foolish offspring.

We are pieces of nature. Marvelous rescuers
of strangers and flowers and love.
Silly bleeding animals whose eyes
remain inspired even though

the fire blinds us.

The Fifth Commandment

2011-02-02T16:48:00.000-08:00

I am tired
of fathers and mothers
and sorrows.

I'll take the barren night,
the thirsty, endless ocean,
the red stars exploding;

their dead pieces flung
apart like tiny, burning
arrows.

But then, I lie
even to myself. See
how reluctantly light

leaves its body
to the dark or

wolves release
the screaming hare
to inevitable silence.

Everyone must be born
somewhere: in a small cup,
a narrow tunnel, a blood-filled sky.

What or who we belong to,
from where the cord was scratched
and chewed away, the heart despite

its origons, indecisive
daily, shifts its weight.

Critical Mass

2011-02-02T16:44:00.000-08:00

While the snow, its roof struggles
to bear the weight of your weight,

the body of you, the head of you,
the tail of you. While one small

feather of me on you
crashes through.

The Sound

2011-01-31T21:18:00.001-08:00

Does it matter in an empty room
what is said or to the loveless
lovely things that speak of beauty?

Does anyone have any idea
what the message is?

Look at silence, how clear
it sings to those who need it;
I know your future. Do you want
to hear it?

I'm afraid the only sound,
the wild fluttering beating
might cause us to disappear

completely.

Of Worms

2011-01-31T18:56:00.000-08:00

The sky and moon; these two an empire,
a mystic house. Beneath them, a constant field
where I live homeless;

where men in dusty clothes move
in and out, leisure shadows, strangers,
trespassers.

Often I forget the light, the way
it thrusts downward, plying against
the stubborn pearl.

Night, before ascending
persuades the mist, the stars,
the naked girl, to leave

the misery of reason
to the twisting worms.

O To Be Darkness

2011-01-31T16:32:00.000-08:00

Given the consequences
of instinct, the insistence of flesh
to wound or heal, what we are made of,
the pattern of our dreams-

who can hold us accountable?

O to be darkness and hate darkness
or shy stars who know their deaths
are matters of chance and fortune,

shine or blacken habitually.

O what are contrite hearts
compared to ambition?

Whatever is, whatever was,
even God, certain of His beauty
remains as lovely.

Judgement Day

2011-01-26T17:29:00.000-08:00

Of course the world
is large enough
for dirty laundry;

some spill over
the basket's edge.

Blouses, pantyhose,
egos, sins and souls,
stained and wrinkled

awaiting wash-day.

A Black Robe

2011-01-22T19:35:00.000-08:00

Against the night, the color of fire
ruins the purity of darkness,
an unsettling blemish.

Much like desire.

In the last few years, I've grown
into a piece of wood, the kind
that keeps the fire burning.

Once you loved me.

A kind of invisibility serves
the soul, a black robe, a drawn
curtain. In an instant light

disturbs it. O! what is painlessness
compared to beauty?

The Illusionist

2011-01-18T21:18:00.000-08:00

Given my propensity towards dying,
my voice with equal force unheard,
I must believe I am alive long enough
to see it.

Suppose the soul remembers what
it dreamt or roses leave their imprint
on the sky or wolves ingest the carcass
of the egret, feathers lying on the ground.

I'm not opposed to resurrection, how
the worm constructs its glass-winged ride.
Be sure that I am working on a blueprint
to leave a copy of my love.

The Once-ness of Once Upon a Time

2011-01-18T20:45:00.000-08:00

When a fetish meets fetish
there is serendipity like
nightness afraid of the dark

or faery's affinity
towards tales.

I'm returning the story
about you and me meeting
on the train in a snowstorm,

the one about the boy
who saves the day.

How beautiful the sound of
winter winds uninhibited.

Sometimes a brief encounter
survives a summer or twenty years.
Often a child represses the dream
of one-horned horses, choosing instead

the speeding train, the long dark
tunnel without you.

Surely, something sad, majestic
expects me on the other side.

Cold From a Distance

2011-01-18T19:07:00.000-08:00

I try to remember
the uniqueness, the pleasure
of salt and solitude.

How can I hypothesis
about what is real?

This too, the emotionless stars
struggle to accomplish. The difference
between us and them

is simply light.

From a distance, their hearts
are cold as mine with but
the illusion of fire.

Eating Blood Sausage

2011-01-18T17:07:00.000-08:00

Imagine the saltiest wound. Taste it.
Squeeze its greasy-sandy texture between
two fingers. Appreciate that love & life
do mix- a strange consistency.

This is therapeutic.

Notice the color; the way black and red
compliment eachother. The way pain
and joy exist, ground up inside
the same transparent skein.

The smell of blood, the acrid odor
of iron. Who can tell the difference
between death and strength?

Whose mother serves it knowing
you will learn to like it?

While It Lasted

2011-01-04T01:38:00.000-08:00

These things I had forgotten- Sadness only
while it rested briefly, Glory how purple while
it lasted, Love although it never left me closer

than a body to its bone. The sun coming up,
the sun going down. Night with its familiar face
and hands of silver. They all come back distinctly

stronger for their wear. And when I'm old
(now I'm older) the tents of gold surrounded
by this evening's mist, I'll recognize nothing lost
is ever worth its keeper.

Kingdom Come

2010-12-30T15:34:00.000-08:00

Stories that begin with in the beginning always
have an ending. The mouth vomits the worm
while swallowing its tail.

We are not holy before we are unholy.

However, consider the world that begins
and begins with nowhere to go. Could there be
an outlet somewhere, a place

that holds the dead? Otherwise these

wild winged creatures we call spirit,
that oily film resting on the river, those
tapered rays of random light stay still,

unchanged and unholy.

Worried soul who thought her questions
opened up the void; she dreamt of home,
isn't that enough? Silly woman, see how

wind reverses its direction... endlessly.

What Stars & Rocks Do Best

2010-12-28T16:53:00.000-08:00

Remember the names of stars-
Diadem, Sirius, Vega; the way
a body remembers its life in sleep
or the wolf whose braille heart

leads him West. Did you know
the stone is a slave to no one?

So perfectly blind and un-knowing,
living in darkness among stars & rocks
with nothing to do but wait.

Who Will Save What I Have Made?

2010-12-20T16:51:00.000-08:00

Their disappointment is mine. But I have
made this- the weight of what they are,
how I've changed them. They've become
what I am; they will not forgive me.

Exiled from our beds, tonight reciting
our worries- the way light detaches from
our faces , how strongly darkness desires
our bodies, whose image shapes us.

O Maker of Stars, when we burst and die,
will you miss us?

When violent hands part the skies,
whose fingers turn its violet pages,
our bellies tight against the fires
crawling skin to earth, lips to prayer-

will you save us?

The Calling

2010-11-01T19:56:00.000-07:00

What kind of name is Seth
or Adam or Rachel? I can't tell you
who but I can tell you when.

Trust this: we are called
precisely what we answer to.

Look at the blackening field
acknowledging winter winds as if
it understands the emptiness

or the heart, nameless
and beautiful suffering
its unheard pain because

it wants to.

What Floats

2010-11-01T19:20:00.000-07:00

Another story about a man
rowing down the black river,
his back bent, shifting, a tree
settling into its earth,

resist-less. I routinely forget,
everyday every-man rising
from a bed that holds his body up
while he's sleeping like water

holds its breath, effortless.

Our dreams begin this way,
in shadow first, then delivered
into light-filled waves, rippling
circles of wish & wondering;

all of it makeshift, untranslatable,
reckless. The story of building
a boat, carving its ribs, sanding
its bones, confusing its hollowed

body with hope is almost
believable.

Compassion

2010-11-01T17:10:00.000-07:00

Like so many of you,
there are stars, each one
a silver flame strangely
burning.

How terrible immersed
in such beauty and hidden;
the perishable darkness a hood
over our heads.

Dear small lights, sweet
cold bringers-of-joy,
the journey is brief,
the void endless and still

the eyes that catch
your latent brightness
glow.

Till We Part

2010-10-27T18:38:00.000-07:00

If sleep is good then
death is better. Years
of light and daffodils defy
the fate of human nature-

unreachable peace, to lie
perfectly still in darkness.

To be: the laws of physics,
nothing wasted, disappeared.

Despite sympathies & anguish
true to form, today someone will
wake up missing, fail this world

interminably broken.

Objects That Appear Real

2010-10-27T18:03:00.000-07:00

The disguise is there to fool
the non-believers; those who
buy cigarettes instead of food,
who curse in place of prayer,

the dark exceptions to the rule.

The mouth, perceiving sweetness,
though bitter seeds poison those
who eat them, sweats for more.

The rest, a plausible distinction
between bright light, its seeming
weightlessness- the question being

are magic tricks reliable?

On quiet nights, shadows of
the spotted moth move across
a window, the size of birds.

Whose Dark Home is This?

2010-10-24T09:53:00.000-07:00

Open the door: I want to see
why. How can I change what
I've not known?

Beatiful animal clawing wood,
whimpering: what are you
asking for?

Why can't we be sad
without knowing?

The Damaging Darkness

2010-10-21T18:06:00.000-07:00

Exquisite, the relationship of God
and those who suffer; the loss of beauty
haunts the collector of dark things.

I told you several times don't go
there, my blind lover, my shadowed
sorrowful child. If blood is life,

the darkness, a place of sacrifice
and resurrection. I'm ready now
to move my mouth in prayer-

a silent, secret heart attack.

Queens of Night

2010-10-21T17:39:00.000-07:00

I know you've been late
all of your life. You've had
good reason. The ends of vines
grow slowly together- arranged
lovers on their first night.

Accurately pieces fit together;
you should be satisfied. In the wild,
fulfillment comes at a greater price-
ask the bat or moth who feed on
trumpet queens of night, then die.

Better stayed the royal feast
than sweet forever.

What We Hold

2010-10-06T18:03:00.000-07:00

It's been there awhile,
the half filled hole,

carefully carved insinuating
purpose, a handless glove.

How perfectly it holds
in its velvet curves, silence-

a cushion, a muzzle, space
in folds of a mouthless cloth.

Strange, its patience
mimics the heart as it

waits for something,
anything at all.

Once Eaten

2010-09-14T21:12:00.000-07:00

I loved your dark eyes like
thunderclouds, the sky filled
with them. The way a rose
bleeds salmon-colored fluids,
the same way a child might
cry for milk when the dry tit
shrinks and folds. You were
beautiful once, unknowable like
the pleasures of the world or
the sea-storm place when no one
is watching. You were the last
gift, the strange star shining,
the morning-winged bird who
flew into the mouth of darkness
improbably swallowed.

Letting Go

2010-09-08T19:12:00.000-07:00

Like a robe or rose opened/the light
detached muscle rubbing under skin.

I say/I release you/betray myself.
Think of burning/thorns/a desert.

The heart is nothing but sand/if not
beautiful and shifting arches of sky/

an emptied cathedral.

Here's where I take your hand/
let it go/the way I promised.

Adopted Author

2010-09-07T19:24:00.000-07:00

Most the time he sat like this:
soft pectorals leaning over paper,
hardened eyes inward and down.

"I have been robbed" he said,
his room no more empty than
his heart as if he owned

something once before.

Counting, counting words
and random specks of dust
like orphans do, always groping

for a ledge, a hold, a family.

The cloth, its threads irreparably
broken, a favorite toy forgotten
beneath his adopted bed

its countless plastic parts
already missing.

What Sadness Looks Like In the Dark

2010-09-06T20:11:00.000-07:00

Night sky, black factory
of stars. Its cold moon
like a father. How perfectly
its parasitic clouds resemble
the lifeless parts of sorrow.

Just at the tree line,
a silhouette of owl like
a small hand reaching
slowly through the dark,
its skin on fire.

From Nothing

2010-08-31T20:07:00.000-07:00

Sky to ocean, perfectly pieced apart,
a beautiful casket hid in perfect darkness.

Things we left unsaid "whosoever speaks of
knowing breaks the contract of the dead"

We knew but couldn't understand how deep
the disappointment. Did I mention roses

or the anchored stones that bind them?

Our shabby lives, the ackward silence;
this too is how we rise from nothing

to more of nothing.

Dragging the Bone

2010-08-20T17:10:00.000-07:00

This is my long, narrow day,
heavy life, a sponge soaked
with water, salt & blood.

I drag my bones towards
dusty night; how dead
is dead enough?

Let those who understand
the phantom soul captured
in its shadowed house accept

its sadness. True, it's doors
are made of glass and we
of bodies, of darkness.

And I, a little horse and cart,
a road of whitened bones with
no end in sight.

Faith

2010-08-18T19:14:00.000-07:00

Partial night, evening, outlines
of its coat the size of sky, the fur
of some dark animal, a blanket
on fire.

Careless, impatient wolves gather
from the woods, crouching knives
unsheathed and pointed.

There in clovered green, unsure,
impossibly fragile a spotted deer.

And God, standing on His hill
counts every black & purpled
feather of the bird.

The Measurement of Halves

2010-08-16T18:53:00.000-07:00

Of course I know if love had eyes, your face
surrounds it. Why then, are rocks used
for violence or often truths morph into lie?

What does it mean to be half-broken
like interrupted light?

Yes, the hand draws back from fire, the heart
speaks less of words like hold or letting go
than hiding what its borrowed.

Half-intense, isn't pain essentially
a measure of desire?

Earthbound Lovely

2010-08-16T18:13:00.000-07:00

Sounds of life, the groaning
superficial wounds whose origons

start deeper. The last thoughts
sunk into the dream while falling,

what animal's teeth make wounds-
maybe yours. Most certainly mine.

Not being how to save ourselves
but how to be the darkness,

how to quell our instincts
on the long way down or

where we go in shadow.

Watch the leaf, its doom-like spiral,
earthbound lovely, helpless fragile,

the mid-flight bird whose ruptured
heart breaks its final promise.

The Blind, Sad Girl

2010-08-12T22:42:00.000-07:00

Foraging sadness, the final drop
in summer's bucket, not enough
to drink or spill.

Sleep, a form of dying; a state
of sadness, an empty basket
filled with nothing.

The dream about a quiet girl
whose senses promised blindness,
later in a separate world,

her eyes on fire, glowing moths
flutter towards nirvana.

Disclosure

2010-08-08T11:38:00.000-07:00

I want to write of what is sealed:

names of the nameless, stories of
the dying, what's inside the heart-shaped
box before its opened, the meaning,

the meaning, the meaning

of everything.

I want to undress into light,
hold the uncovered wrist to its mark,
my mouth to the fire.

There are words for opening:
rupture, break out, disclosure.

In a bowl, the size of an egg,
I dip my wings and write-

the ink flows over.

Disaster

2010-08-07T11:12:00.000-07:00

Saved, not safe, living
an inch from chaos, miles
from happiness.

These hands labor
building a fence
easily toppled

like false pain from
the amputed limb,
we struggle to deny it.

Sky fills with cloud,
expecting rain. Seeds fall
like missiles convinced

their futures are set
in stone, on earth beneath
their mother's bodies.

A journey embarked is
a trek towards maybe,
perhaps or possibly.

Those who survive it
will claim their destiny-

a never-ending tryst
with disaster.

That Was Then

2010-08-05T21:38:00.000-07:00

Quiet now, alert yet calm; the hour
of shiver & stars. Each of us violent
before the finished night, now satisfied.

What reminds us- bite marks from
either love or fighting.

See how darkness conquers light
by following it. How invisibly faith
occupies emptiness, changing it.

Not unlike the spaces in a heart
that seemed so crowded.

Killing Living Creatures to Absorb Life Essence

2010-08-02T19:47:00.000-07:00

I'll kill a fly but not a moth
or spider. I know the bird
in the wolf's strong mouth
belongs there.

Fate is a predictable tool,
a bridle or saw or heart
whose work is obvious;

the soul's teeth chewing
its food thoughtfully-

pieces becoming parcel.

Abyss

2010-08-01T16:54:00.001-07:00

Fearing mediocrity, the star
sank deeper into darkness
without moving, the way
grief makes an ordinary man
seem exceptional.

So many bodies, no discernible light.

If love is an ocean, the abyss
it fills is heart. And sky,
with all its beauty can only
touch it.

A Fugue State

2010-07-31T20:17:00.000-07:00

Devastatingly lethargic.
Sleeping fog, a film of dust.

The tension of water holding up
an old dream. A familiar dream-

the one about a father who
poisoned his daughter.

He couldn't love her even
if she loved. A little.

Beautifully vague- how she
learned to leave the world as

lonely as she found it.

We Do What Is Expected

2010-07-26T21:17:00.000-07:00

The child was taken care of,
dinner made. Why does the
snowman in the yard
stand so still? The dead

won't cry at midnight
even if they could.

That one single bird, so
feathered, so wild sings
to absent ears because it must.

It must.

Retro Walk

2010-07-18T02:50:00.000-07:00

Later, we should return
to what we were

erasing pity or grief;

follow our footsteps back
without a body, without

disfiguring the past.

I wonder if the world
will recognize who
we are or believe

we belonged here
in the first place.

Blessed Are the Obvious

2010-07-15T21:52:00.000-07:00

Covered from head
to toe, the tribal mindset
of removing the face
from its body or rage
from love, defines sanctum-

a place reserved for darkness.

See the perfect likeness
of the cypress, the mirrored
wings of hawks and owl,
the indistinguishable river
of rushing waters.

Here, the shapeless form
assumes distinction only by
its deepest flaw.

The Missing Link

2010-07-09T19:14:00.000-07:00

The lessons began that first evening
before damage was understood or brightness
peeled from its dark husk revealed nobility.

When did wing become flame
burning itself mid-flight?

What sign stands for sacrifice
and who will give it freely?

Then prayer, learned or gift
drove the child from Eden out
into the thoughtful night.

Immunity

2010-06-09T19:03:00.000-07:00

Taking in: water, meat,
darkness, light.

Falling down: body, rain,
heart.

Immunity: no one.

I too saw the white hand
lifting to its open mouth
a piece of brightness;

tasting it.

Chasing Down

2010-06-05T15:57:00.000-07:00

We won't stay young and wait
for love; who has time to linger
for a crippled dog, the passing snail?

While everyone is dreaming there
are quick wolves chasing down
the slow deer, the unsuspecting bull.

Noiseless night, a pillow for the head,
has schedules to keep, cages to leave
as shadows shorten toward the woods.

The Absentee Father

2010-06-04T21:12:00.000-07:00

Blindness from smoke,
mist and fog, rather than light
the heart moved forward
into the wall. Where else
could a daughter go
to find her father?

Giving Up the Ghost

2010-06-04T19:41:00.000-07:00

I promised fidelity, briefly
wearing nothing at all. In my garden,
there are thorns that prick the soul.

How true are flowers? False
as rivers straighten then coil;
nature being the perfect whore. Lovely
for a season, then, winter-dead.

You've known of treachery before:
your earnest prayers unanswered
or the body fails before it wants to.

The Heart Softens

2010-06-04T18:53:00.000-07:00

A girl resting
on a sofa or shoes
worn out like boats.

An old man sleeping
in the sun like a body
of water.

Zippers released,
a shirt unbuttoned;
how our eyes fall

flameless into closed.

Light rowing into darkness,
horses stepping through
first snow. Slowly,

hinges open, softening
the heart; all things follow,
willingly.

Libations

2010-06-04T18:32:00.000-07:00

The drinking glass is cold; sometimes
life is like that. Wine, cranberry liquid,
rich as blood. Often, we lose them both.

Bread and butter for the soul. Toasted.

A tiny bit of spinach caught between
the teeth, unattractive. Death should be
so lovely. Where's the meat? Still roasting
on the grill.

What Wolves Swallow

2010-06-03T18:45:00.000-07:00

The way is taken. I am becoming
the broken bone regurgitated;

each sharp piece cuts the throat,
the septic belly bloating. This is

the way of interruption, the path
that turns the most; careful what

you eat, where you choose to go.
By which I mean, specifically

the skeleton without its coat.

The Killing Season is Over

2010-06-01T18:54:00.000-07:00

As if instinctive, retreats
in blue, submerged,
the unlucky. Soon lifeless.

Then, red night; the inside
of a devil's veil. Cold arrests
resistance. Accepts an end

to violence, a shift,
dismounting of the rider
from the wreckage.

Eventually

2010-05-30T20:58:00.000-07:00

Some people have to be pushed
into a new life, others create one.

Speaking of renewal, the sun
does it everyday: a single path

lit only by its body. Wolf-like,
night follows on steady feet.

What does this mean? Those who
see the world as dark, imperfect,

immovable are mistaken.

Black Swan Theory

2010-05-30T16:35:00.000-07:00

The Chinese Udumbara tree
blooms once every 3000 years;
as rare, a black swan finds its mate.

And the heart asks "What is the purpose
of patience, who can endure it?"

In a Chinese village, the unlikely
bloom was found flowering
beneath a washing machine.

Dead Lovely

2010-05-29T21:20:00.000-07:00

I bled faint pink rose; I've been
dead for years. Few believe in ghosts
and still, you married me. Now love,
the pivoting elbow of reason, separates
you from me. In the cold, back room
where the deceased are displayed, how
pungently sweet the bunches of jasmine;
how bitter the body.

Stillness

2010-05-29T17:12:00.000-07:00

Constant motion is a curse;
ask the sea or heart.

The purest form of peace,
the soul and how it stands

perfectly quiet.

Allotment

2010-05-29T16:05:00.000-07:00

Where is the missing joy?
Who has peeled it, swallowed
the soft, orange pulp
left a hard, wrinkled core?

Always one last clover
poking through snow; the problem,
if we pluck it we cultivate
solitude, deprive the sparrow

its final fare.

Crypsis

2010-05-29T11:40:00.000-07:00

Maybe I want to know
what happens to the wolf
disappearing into woods
or beetles camaflouged
on freckled rock.

Often what is noticeable
is deceiving: the moon
how near it floats,
the weight of water,
the poison buttercup.

Perhaps, it's wiser to abandon
the search, let mysteries live.
In a language rarely heard,
the night agrees.

Experience Has Changed Me

2010-05-29T00:54:00.000-07:00

Eternity and sky; I don't know
how long it's hung there. A small bird
and its tree, dragonflies humming
like people often do.

What could be more desirable?

It's not for us to find metaphors
for simplicity. Let the world speak
for itself. As for me, I have no idea
what makes it so beautiful.

Come of Age

2010-05-28T22:53:00.000-07:00

The boy leaves the house,
walks by the tricycle in the yard,
abandons his mother. Where is he
going? Why are you asking?
The gate swings open like
a sprung trap. A man latches it
quickly behind him.

A Spider In the Mouth

2010-05-26T20:35:00.000-07:00

She is the master
of invisible, the shadow
of diminutive. A spider
in the mouth of a bear.

No white coat, silver ring
or strong rope. There is
no one who will save her.

Like fog that waits
exactly where it formed
until a small wind
removes it.

In The Basement of My Body

2010-05-25T23:59:00.000-07:00

In the downstairs world,
the inner universe, slow

like cold moths resting on
a basement wall, darkness

is the room that kills love
before it becomes a burden.

I mean to say, my heart grows
black and stale; a crack in

the concrete floor stumbling
towards its own grief.

Do you know what moves
upstairs? A cloud, the color

of grey eyes with bones
that glitter.

The Things That Hurt Us

2010-05-13T20:15:00.000-07:00

All night, the diamond curls
in the secret hollow of my palm,
knuckles shining bone. One by one,
the fingers open, giving up
the beveled jewel.

Sometimes we hold the things
that hurt us, burning through
the fist-like heart; other times,
in pain, we let them go.

Prepare yourself to lose the blessed
gifts you've treasured, to miss
the beauty of their joy. Tonight,
I sleep with both hands clenched,

to keep them for myself.

Prideful Extinction

2010-05-11T19:49:00.000-07:00

What do you know of God? A scrap
of matted wool stuck in the door-frame,
too small to trick the silver latch.

But mostly, the invisible steam
trapped in its glass pot, bubbling water
struggling to the surface; although,

your punishment will be the burn
when the lid is lifted.

So spout your proud extinction, the always
of what-frightens-you does not exist,
the what-lies-hidden-beautiful-mysterious

could merely be a dream.

Intolerable Season

2010-05-11T18:39:00.000-07:00

We were born to create,
rising from mud, wild flowers
different as fingerprints or
the bodies of trees.

And our names roll sweetly
unfolding- tongues of butterfly
eating sweetness, clutching the stamen
with our frail, hooked fingers.

What travels on wind, aimlessly,
settles in cracks of stones or
carried downstream to new ground
re-creates where it came from.

Meanwhile, no amount of oblivion
or intolerable season can stop us
from making or being everything
we seem.

Heart

2010-05-09T19:45:00.000-07:00

Big and it's broken.
Whatever has fallen, lies here.
So careful, it holds out its tongue
like a cracked tin bucket catching rain.

Predation

2010-05-07T21:13:00.000-07:00

The fire burns out; its heat
receding. A cold night and
its shadows turn wildly
to the hills- a pack of wolves
rushing a deer. Further out
in the woods, a small dead bird,
flies make their way down to bone,
wind plays in its feathers. See how
fiercely beauty eats what it loves.
See the stars who know the darkness
will certainly preserve them.

Goodbye To Flesh

2010-05-07T20:53:00.000-07:00

Disturbing, the ease at which
he said goodbye to her flesh.
Life is short but not that easy
to forget. Or else, his lack
of passion, something else as if
he'd done it before. Like sight
to braille, unecessary. Perhaps,
there should be more blood, the way
an artery opens up, the rush of red
before falling flat and still. Now,
she is more than flesh, less than
flesh, too large for grieving,
too small for tears.

Tethered to Shadow

2010-05-05T22:21:00.000-07:00

Only those who expect blue skies
are saddened by the storm; paradoxically,
we grow toward light, our bodies
creating shadow. In truth, the spirit
is a winged creature whose feet are
chained to flesh. Deprived yet hopeful.

Luscious Life

2010-05-05T22:14:00.000-07:00

Berry-colored
juice. Hairy fruit.
Mixed and baked
with sugar, flour, milk.
It's hard to eat
just one.

A Song of Darkness

2010-05-04T18:24:00.000-07:00

When we speak of
the abyss, oh! we sing
when least expected,

a dark, sweet song, a sound
of sorrow.

In the night, uncertain singing,
a nameless voice, a finely
sculptured throat.

With faithful passion,
unconscious hope, we sing,
we sing like quickened birds

and leap into the pit.

The Twitching

2010-05-02T18:25:00.000-07:00

One could pass
from this light
into another,

out of smoke and
into grace;

has never seen clearer
than this, the soul.

It has no end
or gap or shudder
like water spills,

its soft, white spine.

Already, memory endures
the distance, a splinter
of nothingness glitters.

Only sadness dying
twisted, twitching

is left behind.