Melt with me in dry rivers
against saguaro lined trails
until night slices in slivers;
fractals of sage and coyote tails
howl against saguaros and Hohokam trails
where a fingernailed eclipse
fractures an image of sage brushed tails
in a rhythmic tune stoked on melodious lips.
A fingernail moon splinters an arid eclipse
as stars and clay erode, fading to dust
circles in hummed tunes on July-desert lips.
Pink-purple fingers stretch across dusk
until the parched night crescendos in slivers
and melts away in me, filling beds and dry rivers
with the stars and burnt clay, eroding to dust
as pink-purple fingers strum out a song in the dusk.
Oct 11, 2010
Oct 11, 2010 at 5:37 AM UTC
****** on a bun
or bean-curd-veggie-burger?
The cows win—and lose.
Oct 11, 2010
Oct 11, 2010 at 5:35 AM UTC
You ask for my name
as I call you Grandfather—
Alzheimer’s stole it.
Oct 11, 2010
Oct 11, 2010 at 5:34 AM UTC
My feet have callused
cracks, so I worry about
my immortal sole.
Oct 11, 2010
Oct 11, 2010 at 5:32 AM UTC
Inspired by “The Burning Giraffe” by Salvador Dali
I am defined by what clutters my drawers:
• Aortic—a tattered matchbook with a phone number I never called
scrawled to the inside cover as an inscription to everything
I never wanted. A half-empty can of butane with a missing
cap alongside a dollar’s worth of pennies that weight a scrap
torn from a newspaper tragedy: four killed, faulty smoke
detectors to blame.
• Ankle—a charred picture, curled in upon itself and kept as a reminder
of what I could become; a blackened nest as an omen of
losing all I’ve ever known and an ointment tube, squeezed
in the middle as a talisman against blistering tempers.
• Thigh—an empty Zippo with a scarred case, dull and pointless; a coiled
stove element with an ashen haze that could testify that water
doesn’t douse all flames; and an oily fuse, plucked from the top
of my head to serve as a yardstick of minutes, seconds, then
nothing.
• Knee—a fine layer of charcoal dust and half of a briquette from last
summer’s backyard barbecue when the wind kicked up to spray
red embers into the air like a meteor shower, streaking in bright
sparks and fluttering to shrieks and stop-drop-rolls along dry grass
until the itching ceased and the bubbles formed in small foamy
patches along arms and strapless backs and sun-red cheeks.
Oct 11, 2010
Oct 11, 2010 at 5:30 AM UTC
May I borrow your wing on the wind;
I’d like a different perspective, a little yesterday,
because the selection I have is too personal.
Earth-bound and clumsy, freedom is feathered
black against cotton and clairvoyance.
To rat-a-tat messages with a Morse code beak
along walls and windows
maybe even a chamber door just to send
paranoid delusions swarming into skies
filled with blue and bruise and sleek glossy
plumes beating the breeze with death
or the life of your choosing.
I long for that and all that comes tapping
in sugary sprinkles lined with silver,
turn eyes overhead at the forecast; no luck,
no rain, no superfluous visions from above
and still, I’m sprawling blind—nested too close
to be rusty at eating seeds or worms
(whichever is easier to swallow)
any suggestion as to the preparation is welcome.
Are you still there, my fire,
still bleating under floorboards
and making me sweat? Confess all,
that I have murdered a bird, swept
under rug way too many lint ***** to justify
or whatever the crime. May it haunt me
in pencil shavings or you in hand cramps—
both get curled up in the end
on the last page: you, me
and all that ****** squawking.
Can we just start over again, again, again
because I’m just not getting it right.
It looks like French curves swerving
around the Corvus, fan-tailed or not.
Please, help. Even if it means
pecking my carrion fingers. Please.
Let me bleed away the pulp
and alight imagination.
Oct 11, 2010
Oct 11, 2010 at 5:27 AM UTC
Dawn stretches and yawns
in yellow, poking fingers
through vertical blind slats;
into my horizontal eyes.
Startling
like an ice cube slipping down spine,
painful and exhilarating
at the same time and maybe
I’m not ready to shove myself out.
Let me be metamorphic for awhile,
lie back in this brightness
and soak it in; let me radiate
warm throughout the morning,
cheerfully light at noon
and erode to dust in the night
so that it all may cycle again
like moon chasing sun,
serpent slurping tail
or a dog whirling circles in the dirt.
I want to swirl, right here
in comfortable cotton, nighttime
peace and the wreath that early Dawn
weaves into me. Let me be centered
in the centrifuge: the stone in the storm.
Sep 10, 2010
Sep 10, 2010 at 2:36 AM UTC
Crocheted into a chain stitch to capture the unruly;
I believe the French
translated this to make it more suitable
for movement.
Pins and knitting needles roll up inedible buns;
one, serious and severe
from its top perch—a force worthy of Lucas flicks
in oppositional pairs.
Heated cylinders of ceramic or metal
mold a shock of springs;
bringing bounce where limp boredom
once ruled. Make it permanent
with foul activation.
Science’s compound approach: application,
timing, rinse. Every hue known to Eve,
but beware brass;
fading and sprouting needy roots, common downfalls.
Too much of any of these renders
7-10 splits in the end—no
hope to be spared. Maybe start entirely
over: the bowling ball might be “in” for summer, at best.
At worst, a way to break a six-to-eight week chemical habit—
Habit: nuns have it easy.
Sep 8, 2010
Sep 8, 2010 at 2:28 AM UTC
Skewer a bleak piece of meat, bruising
rhythmic hips bumped up
against Formica while stirring
slow, marinating salty—still angry
about yesterday and lemons.
It’s morning
and you’re sorry, subtly flavored
savory with a Worcestershire bite.
Nibbling juicy,
like lime flesh lolling open
to peel my onion layers
one by one to the floor;
petaled out until
just the rawness remains.
Teasing taste buds
into taut lines, forgiven rows
rolled over
tongue. Delicious.
Peppered red and seedy-sore now,
but satisfied
that we won’t forget our manners
at the dinner table. Folded
tee *** napkins,
folded hands and don’t
touch the silverware. Yet.
Eat it bare or not at all.
Swallow. Whole.
Ask for seconds,
maybe thirds
if you’re vulnerable.
And I think
from the throb in your throat,
(a tender, exposed slope)
that you’re stirring to be.
Sep 8, 2010
Sep 8, 2010 at 2:25 AM UTC
Dim, the stagnant booze-air clears;
thick velvety curtain lifts,
reveals
a not-so-grand
piano, scarred and dilapidated
under a single, cutting beam.
On the bench, the wrung-out crust
of a moth-eaten man
slumps habitually, his spine in a “C”
from the shouldered shackles
of negative meaning. Void.
He weighs the crackled keys
with weathered fingers; arthritically
knobbled notes float into the open air
hung with single malt fumes,
contained in vacuous walls.
Each hobbled finger-stroke and hammer-fall
morphs
melts
molds into agonizing chords, aching arpeggios.
Audible heaviness.
His oddly-angled fingers
abstain from all accountability
for the throb in his injured melody,
punctuated now and again by a dead note
on that neglect-yellow keyboard.
Longing plunks minored
on a downbeat, a song woven with
losing the blue of cloudless mornings
in her velvet passions. The her that’s missing,
that’s gone and packed the dog
and any solace against the pervasive storms
graying his vision, his beard, his hand—
mangled with grief and apologies—his hand
ever grasping for that lost shade
and the irony of intonating the only hue
his notes will ever know.
.
Sep 8, 2010
Sep 8, 2010 at 2:23 AM UTC