X is dragging the body of the
dead history professor, a man of
enormous girth and monstrous
height, through the empty

landscape, then the vast ocean
appears and X drops the body
into the water, where a shark
whose ancestry is four hundred

million years old, eats it, as X
recalls the professor’s sleepy
eyes, artificial smile, and
remarkably unreliable memory.

Employ science,
the way a poet
employs words.

Employ belief,
the way a
mathematician  
employs arithmetic.

Or, be the eye
that sees, and be
employed by death,
the way life is
employed by time.

I used to think blue eyes were pretty,
his were not.
his were not cornflower, sapphire, baby, indigo, azure,
or cloudy sky blue.
His were midnight where the light pollution from the city blocks the stars.
Iceberg, squall, hypothermia, eventual death

Shriek

Throw this flesh into wind for to be tattered.

Flense & flay me; sprayed hot onto cold asphalt. Ribbon shred.

This isn't loving Summer, no. Springtime is
planting-
     gestation--
          gasping births---
                violence.
The invasion that is existing.

The Green of April is no gleaming emerald;
It is fury. It is ravenous hunger. It is manic desperation to be
It is the razor's edge of bleeding insistence.

Remove these bones. Festoon your thoughts with the sting and the ache. These verbs are command form. It is Spring.

That ripping. That fibrous, fluid tear. You hear it, yes?

Tilt me over and spill my ******* guts out.
Clouds of grey and bright red rain--squall of ichor. Knife wind.

Let us weep thunderstorms. Chagrin these Gods of Drought.

Howl

Scream for us both. Wail until the throat bleeds. Blood decanter.
Pour us out of you until the sidewalk hides from the cold.

Chilly today! Should've brought an anorak, eh?

Gale force wind. Tear me up. Spare no expense, accept no substitutes.
Leave no intact iota. Return me to my component parts. Atomize me.
Untangle us, we are a tragedy.
...And, after all, this is a slasher, yeah?

I mean. At least distract me. Ya know?

For many years,
I didn't own a
television.
I didn't want one.
The news gave me
anxiety, and most of
the movies were
horrible.
Bad actors,
terrible acting
and predictable plots.

I wasn't buying any
of it.

My Dad loved
watching movies.
He often used the word,
contrived
when summarizing them.

I remember watching
The Grapes of Wrath
with him.
After the movie, Dad talked
about leaving in his will,
a list of his ten favorite
movies for his seven kids
to watch sometime.
He wanted us to know
him better.

He forgot about it and died
a few years later.
I always thought Dad had
too much faith in mankind.
But, after watching The Grapes
of Wrath again, maybe he
didn't.
I hope we all live until
we die.

walk the high wire without a net.

the poem is life all else is waiting.

it has been storming so often

in the evenings he rolls over the city

so come down and meet me;
in the rain if you must--

I am too raw to do much else

most things ***** and push

but if this is the dust of your feet
then I'd lie in your wake

i'm finally sleeping through the night--

and for a couple days I'll wake up and
not think of you at all--
people say your name and it sounds like an old prayer
each syllable a funny amen

I've been shadowboxing myself, my old friend
i've been been relearning to to be comfortable with silence in the end
neither of us kept our promises but that's no unforgivable sin

i've considered a hundred thank yous
all lined up  on the lawn, white pickets to make a nice fence
and sometimes I've stood in my kitchen and stared at the mugs
whispered i don't know myself but that's why
i left, wasn't it?

i'll admit to being jealous of your happiness,
i've only so many faces to keep, and i only want one

it's taken a while to own the fault,
i see  every shameful thing and dust off the
way i used to hold myself

I'm finally sleeping through the night
a little bit heavy, no less able to dream
and i hear part of you like i might
the soft hurt i left in your bed
so, please forgive me
when you get the chance.


please forgive me
when you get the chance.

I don’t think you understand —

Of course I  want to travel—

But I want to do it in Moab
where the mountains crumble and
Rebuild in a day, and the red dust is
Alive with the spirit of a child
leading me here and there
the land marked by ornate tree lizards who
praise the lord

And when I lay down for the night
in the streets of Pakistan, the birds
singing softly in Punjabi, the crisp white of
snowdrops sprouting between my fingers
Not a soul will seek to harm me—
Nor the sun to scorch me,

When I drink from the Atlantic and am sustained—
When its waters take me in,
down to the den of leviathan
where the seabed gave up its dead long ago
And I breathe in the deep green algae,
Anglers like stars in the night

My fingers in the mouth of a lion
pulling nesting stellulas from their jaws—
I want to travel then—

In a world that knows me.

A world that knows me.

And we meet outside the gate—

In the balmy evening with
the sonance of happy voices in the distance,
a dusky star softly gleaming through
The ever-open portcullis
casting damask
patterns upon us;

We there, barefoot, breathing.

A simple life, in cream linen
beneath the foliate ivy
in the brisk morning I am
out In The Garden—
Lying in the dewy grass
Perennial hymns on my lips
reaching into bee hives

Calling lord,

Lord.