The thing will burst, that nothing, that gray bubble doubling back
I am sure of it
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Category Archives: Poetry & Prose
Bi-polar Bears
Monday, March 16th, 2009
Sigh Language
Thursday, February 26th, 2009
Finally
! The sprinklers
Clear their throats
and hurl their rain
Across the
unlit steps
, Some days
the translators
Only understand
the sound
of falling wet.
Let’s Not Because The Crows Are Here
Tuesday, February 24th, 2009
Let’s not think too much. Let’s not think of why the sky makes waves or crashes down in spray on all the roofing tops, the makeshift mops that our eye sops up with all the flailing floes beside our glacial coves. It’s not night outside, there’s no threat, no whetted knife to rend our end. No clover dove, no brittle bend. In a spiting dusk, there’s a trimming tree spitting musk. Its branches barer than the future bleaks. Let’s not think too much. The crows have performed their plays of thought. They call out in rhapsic caws, their claws grasping wheated blight and clinquant clay. They come from corners, round and white, argyle beaks gripped by cans. They gargoyle atop the tree and give it guarded leaves. Faces torn by darning scraps, they come and give. The new arms grow from where the old limbs fell: metal hands sleeved in cloth. The crows have come. Let’s not think too much. The crows have come, and they are building back the tree they loved.
Resurrection Fantasies
Saturday, February 14th, 2009
In the non-existent valley
I met my shadow and strangled him bare,
Shook my hands from his violet throat
And buried him there.
See, Saw
Saturday, February 14th, 2009
What of the clouds
that form rapacious-like
along the long horizon
of our city;
over the sea,
thin cobwebs have settled
as the moon scuttles towards
its hapless prey:
the thousand knots
wrapped in silk that become
the unnamed stars.
We smoke in thoughtless
silence. Two plumes
lift away.
There is nothing left
to give now
as the orange belly
descends upon us,
a spotted maw to welcome
our disaster
as we swing entranced,
as far off ships
lose their bearings,
sailing upwards by cover
of darkness,
ensnared by wild dreams
and reasonless fog,
the lights
that become faces
that become
the unclaimed stars.
We are made to
feel indistinct then.
You tell me: the clouds
shroud more than light
they steal our souls,
and this is how we live —
with traffic jams
in our hearts
and our throats always
catching, as if
on the verge of tears.
Goodnight, Always Goodnight
Monday, January 12th, 2009
The cat sleeps and dreams
of green sickles in a field,
tiny blades twitching, itching
as cilia does, for want of a
breeze between the eyes.
Then I am a ballad, one of
sneezes, a piece punctuated
by coughs as the pills go
down, hot on the trail of
whiskey. I remember when
whiskey had killed me once,
I had shouted: I’ll kill you!
Raised those words white
knuckled for the hard star
between your eyes. Yet still,
you fell in love with her.
But I am tired now. I never
said those words; killing is
only for small insects,
because what is woman,
because what is man, there
is no truth in either song,
This sneeze finally manifests.
It blows me wayside for
another day, another weak
away from peace. The end
is never easy when I am sick,
ears ringing now. The cat
staring and wide awake
New Year’s Revolutions
Monday, January 12th, 2009
A minor upheaval, upturning
the indiscretions of a poet,
And out of all the heavens
I like this one
best:
The one where the hero goes
by sunset, triumphant
as Bellerophon
just before the gadfly
No More Poems To The Dead
Sunday, December 28th, 2008
Be still for a moment.
In the year that I lost you
I drank more than I ate,
roads stank of curbs
which reeked of red
and peered over looming space.
I said: hear now,
in the hour of my undoing,
I reject you,
oh my dead friend,
your fearful symmetry cannot fold me
into the syllogism of paper cranes.
we are done,
finally.
There is nothing left of us,
not even a memory,
not even love,
this evening is just another crest
against the chest
while the heart still beats
to be broken.
* * *
That’s it.
Not By Naught
Sunday, December 14th, 2008
Even as chastity lifts her skirt and
Holds the length of her thigh against my waist
I am at loss,
How can I say it:
I cannot claim the leg
I cannot claim the heart,
These words do not belong to me
While my mouth is still a macron over (woah)
Her smile, too close, osculable and warm
And leaning into mine, but there it goes;
She returns to her hollow of light
I clamber into my burrow of dark
So even as I tilt towards bedlam
For the length of a season with a tin cup
In my hand, a crutch, arriving at the end of
The world alone, slouched and gray
And wordless
Her breath mizzles just a breath away
And my mouth a macron over woe.
* * *
Apparently macron is not a word people are familiar with. It is (noun) the little line used to mark or denote a long vowel.
Finite
Friday, December 12th, 2008
Watching reflections on a window at a stoplight’s red,
the world passes all in pauses and lingering waits.
I walk out in search of human voices
but the night is fair and full of wraiths,
in the falling leaves their footsteps linger by my door.
I speak to the wind,
to cold metallic ears of phones,
to myself beneath oaks and languorous skies,
but I haven’t spoken, not really,
no, not at all.
Like a loaded gun without a trigger:
Through dew and mist, reflections blur
and the window asks my name.
I tell her winter has come;
that it came as if a line to be crossed,
a dark usurper decreeing end to song and flight.
Do we dare rise against this woven prince?
Desolation comes too complete.
It comes from alleyways untouched by eyes or love,
beneath toolsheds festering without light,
monstrous shadows gorging on summer’s emptier nights.
It comes tiptoeing on silver feet of mice,
skittering through pantries of your chest
and down your back like ice.
In abandoned garages,
it rustles half-awake in boxes set aside,
scents long after summer banquets
whispering in refrigerators moaning of murky mimes,
arctic memories swirling endlessly for want of human eyes.
The coldness invades the bones;
it enters the heart brooding of unmapped wilderness,
bad news on good days,
hearing bleating dreams blazing down
stars on moonless lullabyes.
Winter comes, even here, this desert land;
there’s a shuffle and a bow,
it’s outside your door, on the porch, in the trees.
There’s a howl and a slink,
it rises from dead ravines and falls from living fog.
And red paint in every stoplight staring out,
waiting for a greenlit go.
Only a song, and the changing of seasons.
What will December bring
but your voice from far away?
No, not you nor your voice;
echo and echo,
snowflakes down a long and lonely line.
[Original Post Date: 11/14/2003]
* * *
Found this old piece and converted it into a poem. Ex-girlfriend at the time was setting off to traipse through Europe for winter break. And I wrote this thinking about missing her and waiting for a red light green. Somewhat lame.