Absence

Any small thing
that outlives
its happiness

must learn
to keep
from freezing.

Slowly, the dying
flame quietly
tells its story...

"while there was
some warmth
left of morning,

she described
her dream-
the last one,

the lost one,
the one about
her absent lover".

Now, in the cold
trees, a vision,
a frozen bird-

stiff and white
and empty
as these words.

Deliverance

A note to God: here
is the history I promised-

the center of my city,
the mouth of my belonging,

the secret, serious invisible
longing, the stolen jewel.

Bless the younger life
that borrows its body,

returns- dissected
and touched and broken.

Bless the pages I have
torn and crushed

and thrown away-
imagine

the mistakes I've made.
In a long letter, I question

"deliverance?"

Haiku - Water and Sand (draft)

I am familiar with water. Walk
and the sand will walk
with you; water will only
run away. At night,

the blackness
spills

and the water
spills

with it.

A Simple Quest

Everywhere, light
fills itself with itself-

I have not knelt
down
in years or

watched the shore
with earth-colored
eyes, understood

the simple quest
of sky, the grey
complexion of sea,

the startling line
that divides them
completely.

How is it possible
to leave this
unanswered?

I should have
looked more often
for reconciliation-

the long gull,
tipped wing
that could

so fragilely
connect them.

The Stone Collector

I collect stones. My hands renew
the curves, the secret trauma
of treasured bones-
how nature's chisel, her strong,
relentless mallet
shaped them.

One, is like the belly
of a pregnant girl,
sandblasted egg-
a birth-button,
filled with foam and scent
of sea, folds inward-

almost human.

Another, sacred tablet
scrolled by gods
and dropped against
the sand- read now
by insect-crabs and feeding
white gulls.

Balsa wood, ochre
twisted sculptures filled
with broken, pearly shells-
strange and pretty dolls
of tide's children stranded
on the shore.

The sound of moving
water in the pebbles,
remnants of fireworks,
softly fizzle back and forth
fashioning the art, my hands
so pleasurably explore.

The Edible Part

My search is an old one.
I crack the seeds
with careful deliberation;

inside their skulls
are makings of flower.

I've ruined that now,
by exposing the sweet,

fleshy, edible part.

Passage

The last house in town,
a bridge, not the sturdy kind,
railroad tracks
no one has traveled
in a long time;

the sky shoved back by
a dark, invisible hand,
the only moon, a lamp
slow burned, three colored,

one in each eye-

a man must learn
to recognize what
lies within him.

A country, huddled stones,
the smell of it- raw earth,
gun-powdered loins,
dirty oiled streets,

serum gold, neon
tumored stars,
a river made of heat,
twisted veins-

a man
must wrestle with
his tangled nature.

Duty

Every so often, I make
an instant, infinitely

making

in spite of myself,
a memorable circle

(etern-fully)

How lucky to laugh
in this most-fear;

have you

questioned the immense
advantage of the fool?

Somewhere, while
the thought-less

breath...

slow, hushed,
slenderly

the blossom,

(a metaphor
for duty)

opens air.

A Graceful Addiction *(First Steps in Snow)

I bring with me-
(remember, I have lived
harder and harder,
complete and impossible)
I bring with me
a beautiful planet.

For my light, somewhere
in this room, I give
my eyes to science, all
exiled, dreaming, secret
and unfinished- a perpetual infant.

I understand (one brief,
necessary moment) the heart,
the land, this steaming
island as if I, once
belonged here.

In a lifetime, once or twice
the soul moves gently
in its shell.

I leave (a graceful addiction
to this world) unspoken words,
the language of my prayers-
who remembers in springtime
the first steps in snow?

*I bring with me
a beautiful planet,

for my light, somewhere
and unfinished- always
a perpetual infant,

I understand, as if
I once belonged here

the sadness of the feet
that made them,
those first few steps
in snow.

Un-Life

"What are dark things?"
not, strangely, the middle
of a fire, but... cold

black-seeded life, the small
uneven dots on the back
of feathered moths,

the dusty night-flower,
charcoal-satin clothed
beneath our window.

And other thoughts...
midnight grass, shy
purple green, dried leaves

fingered by the brown vine,
the earthen cracks it streams from-
immeasurably deepening.

Un-life, frail dark myth (despite)
a corpeslike gleam arising
from the center of our fires.

Companion

No one
will believe us...

our paths intersect
without moving-

moving, now
dense as grass

with its thousand
dancing legs.

Of Journey

Each man thinks
of distance,

white, strolling
patches of light

grown quiet,
stronger,

different.

The body is
a foot, a shoe

the length
of darkness,

the lungs
of night

filled with
"entering" -

a mouth
a door,

a crack
within

the stone;

my warm breath
on a window...

a small
instrument

of journey.

Turning (draft)

Examine the tree-
a man stands
tall yet bending,

always bending
towards sky
to ground and all

his little leaves
trembling
like children

in such wind,
such wind whose
hands pull down

and ripping,
dancing, skipping
over hills... escape.

Look at stars-
a woman drinking
light, becoming

near morning,
a bird
whose eyes propose

to poppies
wildly
growing...

whose tongues
swallow
"brightness"

like shell
built around
the belly.

See the night-
dark, young
and knowing

the wings
of moth,
soft

sails
folded
under-

moving.

Red

Somehow
I knew God

wore red-

a sunset,
scarlet-cloaked

liquid
thread

that flows

in and through
the rose,

its blood-

berried
twilight

seamed.

Agnostic Interruptus

The weight of,
pressing on
an artery-

scarcely
beating.

There is no
proof of,
as it slips

away.

This
is not
what was

intended-

death by
knowing of

sense-less.

Lessons Of (An Eye)

Here, sylph-like
syllables of being

silver stained,
snow-tipped

and mist
too bright

for eyes
to fasten; this

blinding sight
which passes

over rims
of sky-

brilliant white-ness
traveling.

Xylem

How wood ages-
degenerates
to sepia; leaves
dropping.

When the body
erodes, burnt down,
molts gilding...
platelike.

After the canary
sings, its chorus
peeled slowly
like a dream.

That Black Dress (draft)

That black dress
made your breasts
penitent magnolias

(mouths praying)

and your hips curved
wide like the sea where
dolphins are born,

the zipper against
your back- an ingress
to secret roads

(few men have traveled)

the waist, tight as
throat when the eye
sees far-too fragile things

(imagine a hand
around a small bird)

the skirt, the sky
within which lies
burning clouds at sunset

(God's fiery face)

when you take it off-
moon's gold flesh against
the dark cloth of night.

Two Things

Of two things
I am certain...

"I am"

and

"brevity".

Earthward (draft)

Far fell white sheets
of thunder like severed wings
made heavy by their free-ing

in such a storm, we stand
weighted by our reason
(thick as moist soil)

the journey earthward
wiser than resisting
(study the rain)

Thief

No one knew I
had advised you
that stealing

bread was forgiveable-

we are designed
to feed on stars
not to conceal them.

And what you offer
to the hungry night

your crumb-filled hands,
your lasting faith,
your monumental thirsting

bears witness to
your only crime-

existence.

To Puncture (draft)

Ignoble one- to you
I leave a needle
(sliver as thin)

pray that you use it
when it's still
(shiny)

sew expertly
from pulse to point
the jagged (life)

prick your fingers,
press the night
and (mend)

a leper's coat,
the bitter skin,
(the open vein)

remember the unfinished
things- the heart,
the breath (departing).

Black and Grey

Red, the color of roses
beneath faded blue, the color
of a german boy's eyes

around the white organs
of a novel I wrote when
I had nothing to say;

a dirty street sign with
the word "run" spray painted
by some ruffian over a command

STOP

is my confusion common?
and we run as if we could
ever catch "ourselves"

in colors or words or
symbols. It is no mistake,
we are moving through even as

the book is closed, even as
our best stories dissolve
into black and grey.

Here We Dwell

We are not perhaps
a face reading

poor, sad and infinitely
terrified

in dusk-light;

now, eyes confess
you have imagined fog

when sky, clear
and mind approached

transparency of sight

as equally bruised
moon stretches towards

tongues of flame
and night

for no reason but
to touch

the wings of flight-

here we dwell and
here we're bound.

Promising (draft)

We would be vain to
compromise (my little
hand in your loose pocket)

The light has stripped
me blind- even so
I see you

bright and heavy,
lightening in its
dullest form-

comfortable as pocket.

I saved the smallest space
for you, the only one
that holds you

tight and promising.