Kingdom Come

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.