The material was stretched tight
deep furrows in the red and black
pulled across your shoulder blades so severely
but you were all soft edges.
The blunt edge of a 2B pencil
gently shadowing in the crease
where stomach met hip bones
and warm.
It was lovingly done.
Mar 30, 2016
Mar 30, 2016 at 4:10 PM UTC
nobody loses all the time
i had an uncle named
Sol who was a born failure and
nearly everybody said he should have gone
into vaudeville perhaps because my Uncle Sol could
sing McCann He Was A Diver on Xmas Eve like Hell Itself which
may or may not account for the fact that my Uncle
Sol indulged in that possibly most inexcusable
of all to use a highfalootin phrase
luxuries that is or to
wit farming and be
it needlessly
added
my Uncle Sol’s farm
failed because the chickens
ate the vegetables so
my Uncle Sol had a
chicken farm till the
skunks ate the chickens when
my Uncle Sol
had a skunk farm but
the skunks caught cold and
died and so
my Uncle Sol imitated the
skunks in a subtle manner
or by drowning himself in the watertank
but somebody who’d given my Uncle Sol a Victor
Victrola and records while he lived presented to
him upon the auspicious occasion of his decease a
scruptious not to mention splendiferous funeral with
tall boys in black gloves and flowers and everything and
i remember we all cried like the Missouri
when my Uncle Sol’s coffin lurched because
somebody pressed a button
(and down went
my Uncle
Sol
and started a worm farm)
Nov 14, 2015
Nov 14, 2015 at 1:01 PM UTC
How could you do it?
How could you
bathe in the red of others
watch their selfness drain from them
and say
that it is all in the name of religion?
You disgust me
that you could display such hate
and say it is all for love
and you do the word a gross disservice.
I hope you are safe in the knowledge
that this cruel deity who revels in lack of breath
has provided a future for you;
there is no place for you here.
Nov 13, 2015
Nov 13, 2015 at 7:32 PM UTC
This mind,
I bemoan it so,
that it cannot seamlessly
retain,
replay,
all of the words you have given me
so that I may overthink them endlessly
and hold them close
in lieu of an embrace
Nov 12, 2015
Nov 12, 2015 at 3:19 PM UTC
I cannot help but feel
that we are not meant to contain this
that we are but shallow vessels,
because it hurts me so to look at you.
It hurts to see you run both hands through your hair
to see those crooked bottom teeth
to be in the gaze of eyes that change colour on the hour.
A deep ache
that resides in place
I could not hope to reach
in order to remove any thoughts of you
and I do not think I would wish to.
Nov 12, 2015
Nov 12, 2015 at 3:06 PM UTC
I am the architect of my own bell-jar.
I designed it myself,
took away the edges
to leave only smooth curves.
Meticulous work,
done almost lovingly
but not quite.
Here, one could get comfortable,
immune to the waves that crash around you.
Of course you can see them, those great walls of water,
yet you are defended in your fortress of glass
borne not of sand
but of life's consequences;
biological quirks.
I saw my bell-jar rise around me
and now can almost call it home.
I frequent it so often;
I know every inch of it,
all of its reflected imperfections,
and while it may hollow,
cold,
I understand it.
Both shelter and prison
to begin and to end
with me.
Nov 8, 2015
Nov 8, 2015 at 5:37 PM UTC
What a thing it is to claim a smile.
To grant command
to ranks of muscles ever-ready,
but rarely used,
to produce such radiance
that means I must turn away lest I be blinded.
Regardless of all other commitments
I lay claim to that smile of yours
if only unofficially
if only just for now.
Nov 8, 2015
Nov 8, 2015 at 4:42 PM UTC
How can I?
How could I even attempt to try?
The truth of the matter is
there are not enough words,
and fewer still of beauty,
to allow me to paint your portrait with any sense of justice
and I cannot communicate such depth of feeling,
that deep heart pull
that resonance within my chest and soul itself
with eyes alone,
though I try
every day.
Nov 8, 2015
Nov 8, 2015 at 4:23 PM UTC
Something I've observed
and maybe you've noticed it too
that your dance is always the same
with steps well-tread, familiar;
a frown,
a concerted effort to hold that cigarette in place
before the resolution;
you sit back,
always one ankle resisting on the opposite knee,
contented.
Nov 8, 2015
Nov 8, 2015 at 4:17 PM UTC
Nothing serves to fumble with your heartstrings
quite so well as a ceremony of the dead
(and nearly so)
where a tall man,
with black tie draped across broken heart,
wrestled with his voice;
in order not to display
what we are so practiced at hiding.
Nov 8, 2015
Nov 8, 2015 at 4:11 PM UTC