Lead

I cannot hold
the weight of
my own heart. Grey
metal. Heavy chalice.
At last, the hands
let go.

Carried Away

The old, healthy mouse
will die in its burrow;
the poisoned one in the middle
of the living room floor.
Losing its struggle against
entropy, its furry molecules
pulled & separate before
a year's worth of ants
and spiders carry it away.

Symbiosis

Though this place
is said to be healthy,
all I can see are its bones,
flashes of light through its holes,
a sad, white skeleton.

There are days when
I want to pluck my eyes out,
dream in blindness, see
what is missing before
I forget or deny it.

In the background,
there is always
a vanishing point,
as if heaven and hell
share the same plane.

As if life & death
are co-existing.

Farewell

This is where
the beginning
meets after.

Here, in the throes
of gravity and flight,
our feathers fall,

the body lost
on its path to God.

We are all walking
slower now, crawling
lower to the ground,

hardly making
a shadow; one hand
held over the heart,

as if bidding farewell.

The Wakening

Morning's eye is opening. Yellow,
the color of light; its mouth
a glass of water as it fills.
Secret, stolen kisses from
the drowsy sleepers.

The Properties of Lovers

Two shadows merge, obliterate
the light. Melds one into the other
like water from a spout. They meet,
tenuous as the lower lip folding
against the upper, rain sliding
down glass or thorns through flesh.

Boomerang

Your enemies heel tight against
the neck; you are the one who shows
the most fear. Half of life and
half of death, your long hair caught
between the branches. I don't know
what to call your spirit; when I hold it
in my hand it crumbles, when I toss
it in the air it disappears. And
always returns to she who threw it.

Owning It

I own the moth as moth
owns flame. Its furry body
lit on fire; its small head
quivering, no signs of pain.
And so, the next with flecks
of ash, leaps faster, no wiser
than its smoldering carbon copy.

The Stick

There is no wrong end of a stick,
both ends are useful. Nature is wiser
than that. Better to curse you own
head and feet, your spoon and fork.

At sunset, even the horizon bleeds
from each of its sides. The top of
your heart pushes out fluid, the bottom
takes it in. And then there's the matter

of heaven or hell, the sky and earth,
goodness and evil, the ego and soul.
Of this I'm sure: Life isn't a highway
but its always a trip to somewhere.

The Life of Leaves

The winds may sigh
but the trees lament
every fallen leaf.

The snow-stained leaves
are tethered to the ground
like cake-icing.

The winds are cold and strong,
the leaves are traveling
as if they live again.

Midwest Haiku

Day after day
she was reminded
of peas and corn.

From the Shell

I was born alone, on the beach,
in a shell. Or so I'd like to think.
In the mist, there is water. On a clear
day, there is water. Sometimes there
are baby sharks feeding at the shore.
Shiny plastic-brown seals whose faces
are never surprised or disrupted. The surly
cries of gulls fighting amongst themselves.
Then, there is the sound of sand rubbing
against itself, the same sound an infant
body makes when emerging from its mother.

The Cage

With me, your body, the cage
in which you live, is safe.

Though your dark bird desires
freedom, it will not leave

its opened gate, your wings
black and twisted. And when

the night slips between us,
like a glove between the trees,

I will be the one to sing
to you of sleep.

What We Lose

No matter what they tell you,
we have lost nothing. Every evening,
they say: we are deprived of light,
even though the stars kneel before them.
In the morning, they raise their heads
with anguish for the night. Even as
the roses are outside blazing in sun,
they weep. Is it the nature of man
to slice the throats out of birds
and expect them to sing?

Shipwrecked

I cannot sleep. Like a coat
without its buttons, the cold keeps
creeping in. But I can say "I love you"
if I don't really mean it. When
I was young, I thought I knew
what love was. Now that I'm older,
my vision is poor, my heart is
freezing and what I thought I knew,
I know I don't. I walk on another
plane as if the light is fading,
as if the only fire is distant stars.
Now, I'm more like a cracked chipped
boat who sits alone on the same beach
it used to bravely launch from.

You're Beautiful Today

Someone wrote: I'm tired
of being human. Do you think
the wind wants to be inconstant,
dying down to nothing but a breeze?
Does the swan appreciate its two
black eyes or being white? And wolves,
always hungry, thin and lonely?
Who tells the trees: you're beautiful
today or stars: I like your shiny jackets?
I'd rather be human than a jackal.

The Hammer

Before you bring light
into this house, there must
be a window. In the evening,
a moth dreams of flame, a horse,
another pasture, a child of
a sweet and giving father.
Someone waits behind a wall
of sleep, afraid to use her hammer.

The Law of Things

Night, filled with black sludge,
oppressive only if you see it
that way. Not so, the chocolate
brown shadows dancing barefoot
on the granite graves.

Decomposing

Fast decaying,
eroding down;

what is left?

The part of
fire that crackles
like particles

of dust. Like

wheat husks, useless
as they seem, retain

the shape of what
they held, turning

in the shadows to
gold and mottled green.

Humility

In a world made of angels,
there's little room for
the most-important people.

When we get up from a chair,
there is only space. A space
that waits for someone-else

to sit.

Cantata

Life, what have you brought me
today? Like the shallow recesses
of a shell, a speechless whisper
in the ear: redemption.

In Sinu Abraham

Steep slope of mountain, snow
perfect as the bosom of a saint

but colder, secretive, silent.

I must learn to forget myself,
to be untouched, quietly joyful

like morning's light, slipping
between glittering ridges,

who has suddenly forgotten
where it came from.

Phantom Pains

A troubled father begets
a child with no arms. See
how the sockets reach to
touch the damaged.

The Plummet

O come, my heart, quick
and easy slipping down,
your unsteady footing;

I left you to the ghosts.

You are cruel to speed
my fall with your noble
beating. It is only with

my desperate claws, I save
myself from hurtling
towards destruction.

Too Much Love

Hard, where the light
stands still; so long
the shadows have neglected
the flower. Too much love
burns the petal.