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.

Vision

Small field cushioned,
a cave between the woods.
Here I sit years ago; years
that seem sharp as blades
of grass, high as cedars.

Life filled with dark water,
lighter shades of red and green.

Still, I sit in that same spot
drinking from the shadows,
sunlight moves behind the trees,
the sound of birds who now
long dead remain inside my ears.

I hear them. I hear them still.

Governed By the Speed of Atoms

In this large space made small
by your hands, your face there are
shadows and blueprints.  I touch

anything that comes too close
to miss.  Governed by the speed
of atoms, what I've truly lost

isn't real.

You pray in silence.  I too
have mouthed the words
O come all ye Faithful, O come

secretly to the energy that
burns the wood.

Perhaps Some Peace

If what sleeps is beautiful then
why not death?  On dark days
the body rises slower, its strings
and hooks taut against the soul.

I am not sleeping.  I have never slept.

Lying down, the milky mist hangs
low.  Somewhere in the night
a woman searches for her father
beneath the waves of blue & green

a stranger to the ocean, a restless rolling.

Here, beneath the sky, the same
still sky they all will see, what flies
over brings perspective, peace
perhaps.  Perhaps some peace.

Invention

 

Two pair of binoculars, both are broken,
chewed by the dog. I want to see
the furthest focused point- the last time
I believed. What glass sees inward...

that far inward?

Inventions men make like stain removers,
bag-less vacuums, alcohol free wine,
antidepressants and good fathers
often disappoint. I envy cavemen, simply

hungry predators who use their hands.

That's all- two hands to take what
they are missing. No instructions needed,
no adjustments, no disclaimers,

no false advertisements.

Did you know, the naked eye
can visualize a star so far away,
a little fuzzy. Like love.

Invent that.

The Last Time, Love

A warning, the first sound
like the first light, the only light.

A knock on wood or stone,
a muffled rumble; slow, prepared,

the way a prayer starts
from an old mouth.  I am afraid

to love.  There is always night,
the constant pulse of thunder.

All around the eye, the frenzy
shakes and howls. A seasonal storm,

this is no surprise.  Far in the distance
a horizontal crack of white between

the rain, the clouds,
widens.

September 11

And heavy like a hand of steel
death slammed down on the heads
of its chosen.  Every skull a clap
of bone and light.  Every soul
a ribbon twisting around the other

reaching up and out.

And sound, not like sound
a brilliant star exploding into many
pieces- singing, crying, shouting,
breathing.  Remembering who
they'd been and what their hearts

had given.

Then dry, fine dust was all
they left for those they loved-
a cloud of dream and hope
and freedom.

How Quickly Love

Deceive me, heart
and weep as if the world
will pity what we've lost.

How vulnerable are the stars
whose eyes cut out, whose
feet are bleeding.  Now

who will feed them?

And the frozen wolf
whose silver hair a nest
of ice and mud, compare

his hunger to our love,
the cold, the fear, the constant
hunting.  How quickly

he grabs the throat
and kills.

The Struggle

Every year there is a new winner; the prize
for bathing in light is light.  The losers
continue to struggle towards an open window,
a crack in a door, a small hole in the ceiling.

Struggle to escape, to find joy.

Those who capture joy for awhile
become drunk with happiness.  Their words
like weak cracks of thunder while
around them clouds gathering thick

and black, prepare lightening.

Resistance

We all lived in the same house.  Some of us
recuperating the way sand is nudged
towards the brush or the way things
are hardly noticeable.

It didn't matter how we loved
eachother, the nights were always
colder in Kansas.  The voices
of birds frozen in their mouths

like death sentences;

red and black snakes tightening
in their skein the way
a fist tightens.   Father
hunched over the stove

feeding its oval belly, its mouth
vomiting sparks of blood.

Those nights and howling
wind scraping its long sharp
fingernails across the windows

as if it wanted in.

Dark Hands

There is a woman singing
like a bird and a wolf stares
like a wolf will stare.  Incredibly
unnerving.

The power of being hunted
by something creepy, ugly
and eerily powerful, inherently
haunting.

White flesh, dark hands and
admiration.

Box in the Attic

My heart says Princess Doll.  My eyes
say pony.  No wrapping paper just
a package with no name.

A box of baby clothes and mothballs,
a coloring book and a paintbrush.

Sometimes all you need is a red
crayon and a black pencil.

The Settling

As you get older you make the world
what it should be.  You lower the expectations
by just walking in the room.  See how beautiful
the sky is before the mucous in your eyes
falls away?

You're gonna think what you're gonna
think.  Never blame someone else
for that.

Passion.  The settling.  The very morning
you overslept you dreamed you were
a good man in a mask and a grey hoodie.

No residue.  Just a bright white
light traveling in an upward trajectory.

The Shooter

I'm afraid I've damaged everyone
around me.  The gun always had
more answers than questions.

Upon closer examination
I would say:  Fatal

through and through exiting
the chest causing massive
damage to the organs.

This concerns me.

The tearing, the burns, close
contact.  I'm saying the shot
was fired from less than
2 feet away.

If you're going to do some running,
you'd better run fast.  Did you

get a good look at the one
who shot you?