Iris

Whose eyeballs have you gouged out
today, you old, hoary tree branch,
hairy hands scratching the delicate
orbits? These are not my people,
these tender irised creatures, but
I know them. They were born in
my garden.

Night

Still, to this day, the sun sets
red, purple, yellow. Venerable light,
the way it drags across water, skin
peeled back across a muscle, the speed
it falls into the pit. Then darkness
wanders through the hills, its footprints
dark & bloody, heartbeat slow & cold
breathes mist across the faceless soil,
claims its vast & wasted territory.

Of A World

If there is touch or heart
instead of dust-balls beneath

the bed or leaves pressed under
foot & boot or splinters wedged

like glass into the flesh, there
will be love and loss and spirit.

Of love, sometimes the dread,
a place of restlessness, of nerve

the quiet dust-balls collecting
hair, lint, fibers beneath the bed.

Of loss, always despair, helpless
despair, the sound of leaves cracking

under weight. And spirit, tiny
sharpened wood, its trillion jagged

pieces, burrows in, disappears
into the body of a world.

Where All Things Living

Everything seems to go
wrong in this place; the blackness
is escalating. I can't explain

where the ink is coming from.

As a ghost in its self-weaved web,
whose emptiness is trapped, whose
vacuous nature is spreading, I am

beginning to be here less and less.

I am afraid to go to sleep where
all things living fall through cracks
in uneven, silvered threads.

Bird Song

Don't go back to tears
and wine, to the diseases

of our childhood;

for we have eyes and bones,
small birds in the rafters

expecting dawn.

The world, bestowed on us
without our asking, the songs

we sing, not our own,

we know so often not to hold
our breath, even when it burns.

Bullet in the Shadows

Look how easily
we can be killed.

Night is not a season,
not a dark horse neighing

but lurking like a thief
waiting in the shadows.

I wanted to sustain this,
my young veins pulsing, drop

and roll across the battlefield,
hold the bullet in my mouth.

But that was years ago. Now
I have given up and old,

resign myself.

What Comes After?

Every cell
in a body dreams

of survival while
the heart winds down-

a ballerina jewelry box.

We've been given words
and names and lips for

prayer but we don't know
how to use them. What do you call

a tree who has forgotten
the purpose of seeds or

how to sow them?

Symbolic Act

Violently, the throat-less bird
attempts to sing. Its tiny breath
forced between a cartileged tongue
and sharpened beak, makes no sound.

What is a bird if it cannot master
melody? A doorknob, a stringless
violin,a silent movie to the blind,
a winged and useless effigy.

Faithful Corpuscle

Every day is our birthday;
each night we're dying.

The kingdom of God is
a blank page unwritten,

a cut in the palm that
made us. See fresh blood

seeping thickly into sand,
its purple heart bleeding.

Anemic, we practice religion,
one corpuscle at a time.

Armageddon

Giant sheets of ice the size
of heaven. The angel spilled
his vial across the sun
scorching every creature

and still I loved you.

Your cryptic violence bringing
back my childhood memory; my body
a natural disaster. Ravaged by
super-storms, leaving bruises;

the final battle continues.

Buoyancy

What we empty out
fills up again

absolutely.

Put everything
in drawers whose bottoms

missing.

Learn to walk on
air or water, escaping

density.

Always a first time
but never an ending.

The Things You Never Said

Your voice, the rain,
the thunder, a black weed
in the ear. To grow
silent is to be hidden.

Where are you now at 2 a.m.?
Lying in your box, your tongue
injected with lidocaine,
numb and useless.

Depression

His head on the pillow,
a dying bird. His body,
terrified to move, limp
and heavy trembles through
its bones. The evening light,
a warm breath cooling touches
his skin, a sad & worried lover,
then slowly withdraws.

S.O.S.

I want to write
"my life is purposeful".
To take my finger, etch words
in the sand; giving the sand
a silent voice that echoes mine.
And God, up in the sky, looking
down, will somehow find me.

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.