Royalty

There were four wolves.  Only one
ruled.  Structure is a part of nature,
its cruel order, insensitive survival rates.

Yet order saves us;  how we struggle
against chaos, why we entertain the King,
how low we hold our bodies beneath His. 

Voluntary submission. Worship.

On the tail of each wolf, a unique
pattern of fur, like a fingerprint,
like the odor of self.  Recognition.

One theory is interesting:  if you're searching
for distinctive signs of royalty 
look to those who serve Him.

The Garden

Devastating, the wild world, its visible light,
its forbidden unhappiness, unholiness;
a transitional passage to the other side.

In the same way, I forgive my father, I forgive
myself.  Absolutely. The doorway holds
two faiths.  Entrance, exit.

There is a God.  For each blonde-white star,
each radiant end, every wilted heart there
is a beginning, a middle, a finish.

And then return
to the garden
we were made for.

Fighting Gravity

Each night, she must be watered
as if she were a flower.  She is not
a flower.  The needle placed just between
skin and muscle;  sometimes pain
is love.

Sometimes pain becomes a skill
like falling gracefully or slowly
just like things-that-fall-slowly.

Gravity.  Sin or Grace.  Punishment
or relief.  The only surviving victim
learns acceptance then chooses:
drink or choke.

You too will lean into that heavy
flow and flow.  Like a petal
on a river current

floats.

The Trap

From a place above the mud,
a bird fell and struck, a force
pressed down to slow spilled blood.  

Sometimes the safest spaces
are the ones that hold you 
indefinitely.  You learn to love
what traps you.

So say the stars whose bird-like bones
sewn tightly to its thick, black fabric
frozen stiff and still like photographs 
of falling snow-

stagnant, light-filled, beautiful. 

Until you know the meaning
of forever,

stay here.

Terrible Distance

However disappointed or impatient,
the moon rising round, silver painted
its terrible distance minimized by a crescent
shadow-  the world's body

not its tiny bees and lakes or wolves
absorbed in the shape of a cupped hand
held over a quiet light as if to say

"these are the secrets
we cannot share".

Who knows the size of a thousand
evenings woven loosely like a sweater
whose red hood hides a witness, what
she covets from who she fears. Why

does she live in darkness, when
what she feels is fire?

This night, many nights, so many
wounds have healed by luck or
prayer or preparation.  Perhaps
the moon will slip or slide to its destruction
before she disappears.

Perpetually Interesting

This is not how they told me
this would happen:  how things
would change without changing:

each beautiful smile a warning
to observe closely, to interpret, 
to entrust.  

Don't forget to believe thus
you will become a part of
perpetual deception.  

See how pure and clear the bell
rings, like the heart struggles
to keep up.  I know the name
of each flower, bird and bee;

they won't save us.

But they will remember that
clear, blue day which in your world
is but another turned page

as if the book is short, sweet
and interesting.

One Heat Hides The Other

Artifice of fire on stones, the cold
surrounding that which burns it
like myelin sheath around
the core of its nerve.  

I won't remind you again of 
what you've struggled to forget
since you were ten years old.

I believe we came into this world
to rectify the falseness.  Like a swarm
of locust hides the sky or devastates
the crop, clears the field.

When the flame dies down, the odor
of charred meat and wood, ash 
fine as our bewilderment, the color
of our hair, the mystery solved

we can hide each other.  

Sometimes I'm Thinking

How often comes thunder
where there are no storms?  That
black and white rippling slowly
peeling back the water's skin;

what is its purpose?

Or the deepening voice of 
the beast rising to splendid
singing changes the patterns
of dreaming

like a perfect wheel rolls
down the smoothest hill.

By Itself

Loneliness.  One testicle, a missing
finger.  A small, black bird in a leafless
tree.  No clouds, a pitch-black night,
a sweater without any sleeves. 

The whooshing sound from the end
of a long, dark tunnel.

Or me.

The Message

They can say what they need to say
more efficiently.  Over the sound of cars
or the ocean, very distinct if you're noticing,
another sound:  

like a shoe being pulled off a foot
or the monochromatic hum of bees
whose DNA is precisely magnificent.

One hole is enough.  What falls in it
isn't particularly important.  The act
of catching the wary off guard, shooting
a bullet just missing the heart

or pulling the string that unravels
the ball is far more interesting.

Fools won't hear the message over
the noise of their mouths.  Nor the singing.

A Few More Shouldn'ts

Shouldn't drag the beast
when it's mouth is open.  Shouldn't
shoot the owl;  it's twin will hunt you.
If you're made of paper, you shouldn't
dance in the rain;  its very messy.

Shouldn't look for ghosts
they might find you.  Shouldn't
break the bread before the bells
have spoken.  Shouldn't be afraid
unless you've lost your footing.

Shouldn't scratch the surface;
what lies beneath may be unleashed.
Shouldn't talk too loud when saying
your confession;  your enemies are listening.
Shouldn't tease the hungry wolf or
wake it when it's sleeping.

Shouldn't take to heart
another's hearts rejection; two like
objects are always boring. Shouldn't
wait too long to be in love;  there are
a finite number of buses.  

Accidental Autopsy

The time comes.  The cleaver falls
to target.  Have I dreaded this moment
longer than I've enjoyed it?

Don't judge yourself.  There is
a greater love who knows this better.
This life, the air that moved it;  where
it landed.

When it goes, something goes
with it. On four feet with jaws that crack
the bone.  That cuts the whole
into two unmatched pieces

that were organized accidentally.

As Once It Stood

Today the wind said "now these
forgotten walls remember sky".
An old building flattened to rubble
dreams of its disconnected bones.

So too, the needle of a compass
young, long,whitened fingers point
to what had been as its heart
loses all sense of direction.

On the way through the hills
one stops often to rest even
falling to knee where doubt
becomes a root, green bleeds

as once it stood in full blossom.

Where Are They Now?

Here is the key, the weight
of an anvil.  The door too is heavy
as if every cell of its wood infused
with gravity presses in on itself.

Implosion is a form of escape;
the question is where?

Things that were once free
are locked away.  The more I know,
the tighter I hold;  the stronger
the body, weaker the soul.

But what do I really know
about leaving?  Those who have
gone will never tell.

The Unseen

walk this road,  black hood down
while somewhere in the universe
the golden Galapa-Clackits mate
inside their molten fiery egg.

Every point in this world
has an alternate stain, every soul
a separate set of strings.

Have you seen the square-shaped
moon, velvet purple veined like
spiders poised in a milky web?

In a room made of voices,
these walls have heard strange
pulses like drums or heavy boots
the sound of lead and bells 
dancing across the neon arches.

I'm not crazy but we are together
twisted, two hearts whose mouths
have never kissed, whose fallen lives
two separate dreams. I know who
you are.  I wish I could have met you.

I've seen the unseen-

have you?

Claw-Shaped Stars

What about the terrible
incongruent existence
of stars and wolves?

To a certain degree
what shines prowls.

What crouches glows
inside itself
within shadows.

How can you love what's cruel?

Under the vigilant night,
her saw-toothed babies cry
with cavernous throats like

deep pools of oily water.

See the pinpoint lights,
strangely attractive, small
diamonds in their eyes

reflect sky.

Do you fear beauty made
of darkness, of sorrow?

The tender heart
is no match
for the claw.

What Rests

Why do you want to speak
so clearly when softly mystery
sounds of wispy, silvering things
swimming through darkness?

Come, sit awhile beside me
your eyes sewn shut, your mouth
still water in a cup, feel the night
and how it vibrates.  Us.

Them.  The missing ones who
hide the light, the sound, whose
bodies guard it. Swallowing
what rests beside it. 

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.