Your hummingbird heart keeps panicked time;
a quick-step march of hollow beats that bruise
the arching breadth of your ribs

                    (ribs caged by cellophane layers
                    of capillaries and fever hot skin-
                    don't you worry that those bones will
                    someday burst into fresh air, make their mark on
                    the rigid landscape?)

It would escape if not for my weight
pressed down like stones;
my body locked between shivering limbs,
come in from January's cold to clutch at your fire.
You are only slow
When sleeping;
When your sugar water has run low.

I drilled a hole in your dish
And drained it away.

glass slippers shatter.
i asked my godmother for
a four-oh-one-kay.

I have not heard the siren's song
in quite some time.

In its absence I
have taken up knitting; socks and hats, scarves
of dubious color and shape.
I would give you one, if you knocked on my door.
I'd open with mock surprise,
and, snow covering your messy hair,
you'd smile at me, open that sweet mouth
and say –

But, as I said:
I have not heard the siren’s song
in quite some time.

Curiosity killed the cat but I brought her back. Isn't that what they all say? They say its madness, too, that it eats you up inside and spits you back out, but I don't believe them. I only believe the salt and the earth running through my hands, the way it turns into mud when the rain falls or one of the old boys spits. They all have terrible aim. Often their spit is black, like pitch or tar, and when it falls it there's a little plop sound. Plop, plop, plop, it falls on the ground and gets churned up in the dust and makes mud. Disgusting. I wish I had a shovel, so's I could turn up that mud and see what lies beneath. There are roots in the ground like we have roots in the trees, bugs and rocks and more dirt to remind us of what we're made of. We were all dirt once, and we'll be dirt again, just as soon as they get done burnin what's left of our bodies.  Mud to mud, dirt to dirt. I'm tired, I'm so tired and this load is so ****** heavy, but I can't let go. And who are you to say I should? You didn't even see that rock there, yeah, that one you're tripping on. You can't carry ****. You got no idea what it's like to carry a load like this. Keep walking, keep walking, back on the road, eyes down. He's nothing. He don't know nothing. I wish I had some water in me to spit. It's gonna be mud. We're all gonna end up mud.

In the summer
on the sidewalk
I will drink water
filled with matches
while ******* a copper penny
between tongue and front teeth
When my sister calls my name from
across the street
I'll look up, startled;
bite down
and it will hurt
more than that time I
cut my cheek while chewing
bits of shattered peach pit
from the blender
where you make smoothies
in the summer

Where has brother bird gone?

Asks dog to sly fox

He is tempted in shadows

caught in twisting maze

cuckold with clover honey

and horns of thorny bramble

He has left us to sway

in dead breeze

our faces loosened

grins too tight

We'll feed our bellies

offal and

dead grass

Stiff bodies to greet the

dawning of day

when brother bird returns too late

to sing blood back to royal throne

Come, all trace buries now

in dead light and heavy stone

Hide madness with me

friend dog

To earth and rooted cellar; there

burning pyre

smolders in the dark -

Goblin King will soon be by.

it is dark, and in the center of the dark

is a white spotlight

and a box as if on the floor

of a stage



a hand enters the light

it is lifting the box and holding it up for display

but what is the box

is it pandora’s dowry

or

a collection of nails and screws from my father’s garage

does it drip with old motor oil

are rust flakes clinging to the hand

is it covered in mud and clinging roots

inside a tin robot, ripped playing cards, a length of string

and a box of matches

is it tin or wood is it light or heavy

and if it’s heavy will the thing inside blind me

is it the ark of the covenant

or an old wedding ring

or a penny, or a dead worm



the hand retreats with the box

pulls back into the dark

there is only the spotlight

and the light is gone

Here is a truth:

We may draw lines around a thing,
but they will never be more
than tricks of the eye.

The shapes of things are blurred
and shift too often
to properly map.

Relax.

Rules and nomenclature
ain't no fun, and
bean counting leads to  
indigestion.

the last time i flew
it was daylight
i didn’t look out the window.

now
i look outside and see
a thousand lights;
and each light is
a thousand souls
burning against
the
gaslamp yellow nightscape.

clouds provide a familiar metaphor
yet those nightshade souls still glimmer through
where the cotton grey
is weakest
shining
as i like to imagine they will always shine
even though i know
that always is a relative term.

once in Tokyo i had the perfect drink
like electric moonbeams
and violets
and secrets soaked in gin.

i taste it here
in the recycled air above the nightscape
while viewing the souls
that may or may not be
the remnants of fevered dreams.

listen with me
if we’re very quiet, we can hear
the faint strains of
tokyo jazz
filtering through the soft thrum
of wheels and
motorized air
and a crying baby that’s never tasted
the smoky sweet burn of gin and juniper.

Hushed whisper through

sylvan leaves

Cast swift through brook

past hoary fur

and chitter-chatter claws

Blue Jay names it

to the sky:

'Trouble! Trouble! Trouble!'

Heat shakes the cup shakes the skin of my hand
along your neck between your thighs against
the small of your back;
lips never touch but burn when
my molecules shake up yours.
They say that atoms never truly meet
but if they could
mine would nestle inside your particles
break through negative fields and brush against
protons and neutrons to create something
entirely new.
Compound molecules.
One need not shake
to move the other.
Breast to breast.
Lip to lip.
Atom to atom
and below that, even:
we will touch where only strings
dare go.
We are fused as the universe before the first bang. Another, and
bits of You/Me go flying into the wind.
New galaxies spring forth.
You and I are the heart of them all.

The sun has gone down behind the great hills

Where were you, tiny herald

when heaved the dying breath

molten gold through the air

that echoed mourning

in lost tender notes

They paused to listen

laid down hoes and sickle blades

returned final tremble tones

Slipped away through shadows

purple shapes that clung shifting

grew stronger as sun king fell

and all the world sunk back, hidden to

night goblins, creaked branches hung low

Tiny herald, your song was empty chords

taunted hollow through aching ears

post abandoned

You have banished royal host

to dark nights

shrinking days

Cold winds are blowing

all doors stopped up tight.

Heartache spiderwebs
across the landscape; the glass,
cracked, weakens.

The air of summer is

cotton cooling in the house

sweet grasses

and

a friend napping in the sun

while yellow bee crawls unnoticed

across pillowed arms

Once, after a long summer and a few too many draughts
of harvest ale,
Father Time overslept.  
While he ignored his massive
grandfather alarm clock,
the world’s population stood frozen
impatiently checking their watches and muttering to each other
“whatever could have happened?” and
“he’s always been such a reliable employee.”

He only woke when time flew into his bedroom
and nipped him on the ear
once
twice
the third bite was charmed.
Father Time woke to see Baby New Year
glaring and tapping his plump little wrist
from the end of the bed.

Father Time used a number of words that cannot be repeated.
They all had four letters.
Some of them were learned in France.

Afterwards time had to be hastened to make up for when it lost itself.
Leaves fell overnight and animals dropped into hibernation where they stood.
Thanksgiving and Christmas ran into each other, so that
people were eating turkey legs while they shopped for
presents.
None of the Christmas trees had been cut down. Instead,
on cold evenings across the world, people stumbled into the woods
lit a single candle
and opened their presents in the snow.
This of course was very messy and that year squirrels and birds had nests made of
wrapping paper and tinsel.

Poor Father Time never heard the end of his slip up.
Years later, he was still getting
alarm clocks and
roosters for his birthday.
He took them and slid them in his voluminous sleeves;
expression grave, as ever, but the slight blush
on the edge of his cheeks gave his embarrassment away.

You are not rudderless
but your oars are too small.

(You will not make it across the lake.)


You trail gold stars like promise (potential)(unfilled)(they didn’t say it would be so hard)
a thin trail marks your passage
soon gone
floating (impotent) on the water.
It’s a bit like a funeral; those burning stars
were dead the moment you
stepped into the boat.

(You will not)
(I’m sorry)
(but you will not make it)

What Might Have Been is a salesman
that perches on your shoulders.
He is heavy; he weighs you down.
The boat sinks further into the surface.

You glance at him, he is only shadow;
but you are shadow too.

(No)
(The boat sinks deeper)
(You stopped rowing long ago)

Together you paddle across the lake.

You spilled incarnadine

across dirt floor

grainy crystals and flecks of

stone that turned to mud

sunk deep to worms

and roots of trees

that drank your stain

and

turned thin-veined leaf

shy pink until rain

came and

saturated dew

carried you away to

white clouds lost

in the perfect sky.

Picture in me the ravening beast
and you’ll have a sketch of my character;
though I’ll warn you
it is not I who stalks deadly in the night,
looking for soft flesh on fleeing feet
and the taste of fear.
I save my prowling
for the scullery door and
the elusive glow of the hot oven.
I am the Thing That Scuttles,
the Devourer of Grains,
a card carrying member of the Cheese Sanctification Society.
(Progenitor of Pestilence, too, if you want to get fancy).
Stop up your cracks and close your cellar doors.
Anything less than a full lock down
I consider an invitation.
There are no spells to keep me away for long.
No beauty dares kiss my lips
and try to change me.
Isn’t that grand?
I know of no creature more comforted
by their own monstrosity than I.

Shifting red-wine shadows
pinioned against your hand.
This will end badly.

i am a creature of inconvenient lumps and angles trying to fit into the suit i thought i would wear when i was young enough to think thoughts like that.

but the suit doesn’t fit and if i try
if i try to force it on

if i pull it over my head squeeze it over the swelling of my thighs and sharp joints of elbows and the jutting points where the bones of my wrist perch like islands beneath my skin
if i let it smooth the bumps and soften the the angles into something more palatable to the eye
will i ever take it off again?

or will it be a permanent fixture impaled
on the spikes of my own personality

will they say on my tombstone
“she lived. she
was ugly grey but not so hideous
that you would notice her in a crowd,
or across a chasm.”

is it better to be naked in all my deformity
finding no comfort from the cold but a life more
spectacularly violently lived

i would be depraved they would scorn me ridicule me
pity me my foolishness

(but i would feel every glorious rash of the wind. the cold would snap against my skin and raise small bumps and when i breathed the air would seem sharp and clear and real).

the suit is waiting on the back of my closet door.
i turn over.
the mattress holds no comfort for a body
so marred with crooks and cusps and declines.

Smile, little bird, in blue feathers

and glassy crown

Sing for gold-drop sun,

swaying wheat in

sweet flowered breeze

Hushed breath held

as little heart thrashes wild

in down tender breast

that flits at angles with

the twitch of right wing,

left feather

Thin pebbled legs that would snap

in pressure's hold

splayed thin against

rough branches and heavy barked trees

Flit free, little bird,

hide royal behind  

brilliant plumage standing bold

against honey fronds

and waving green

Unbound by

fetters iron and cold

Spirit formless and holy,

rocked gentle by sighs

and low notes of growing things

It is you that cries

cuckoo in the early dawn

heralding new days

twisting long ages

that wind endless into the night

Sing, little bird, for pulsing sunlight

tomorrow unfurling,

seeds floating  memory light

through dusty sun

gossamer air

Poor fly.
He taps at the window
longing for his home
but he is stuck inside with me
and my swatter.

Summer's air sinks somnolent into

bones of arm and leg

They drag along like honey's gold

through currents soft and wet

with dew, graced by breeze and

dappled cool by shade of trees-

and those climbing giants

burst to sky from garden's walls;

Form verdant sanctuary for

August sleep walkers lost in highest heat

and waking dreams.

I want to make love to my buried self.


I want to draw her up.


I want to kiss her on the lips,
put her head against my *******.


I want to say
“It’s safe to come out now,”
fingers uncrossed, inviting.


Then
If she’ll let me
I want to press her so close
that atoms merge,
flesh swells;


The afterimages will float before my eyes
And she will stitch into my surface
like a second skin-
a shift in posture,
in the angle of my jaw.

When God sings
the birds fall silent;
to listen,
then boast how
they would have sung it
better.

Morpheus dreams of
empty cities
and well made beds.

I once showed
the letters
of my heart
to a miscreant
(a *******)
then watched as he
jotted them down
on college lined paper;

he threw them to the wind like
brown candy wrappers.

(it was winter
we had not yet broken
grandma’s gravy boat)

A-Y landed on
empty ground, one letter
for each square foot
of naked topsoil.



I found Z in the Spring.
It had caught on a chain-link fence
and lost most of its color.

DEAR DEAREST:

Do you remember?
You had dreams once,
When time lived forever
And phosphorescent burning trees
Carried you
Through landscapes floating beyond
The places you called Home

You jumped, entwined
And broiling
While suns died
In the livid sky-
Followed the wavering form
That called to heart strings
And shifted the inner tides

Dearest, do you remember?

The beating bright
Left burning, dim,
In the dark spaces you forgot
Waiting in the back
Of your mind

The music
That strains wild
Across eons and
Spaces and pages of notebooks you used to keep
When thoughts were thought
Worth the saving

It brightened the hazy edge
Of every waking desire

And oh,
The Colors-
Jewel tone wings
tipped birds cast in
Gold and crystal-
Green veins
Opened, oozed sweet and
Waxy and clean-
Blues dripped from the sky into
Bleeding fires, molten lights-
Broke you down and
Filled you up
With flames

They had texture,
The colors you have no name for

Nothing is so brilliant anymore


Do not forget,
Dearest;

The blinding light,
The final song;
The fire in your blood
That roars against the quiet
Moments of the day

Your light is fading now
Empty is filling you up.

So cling-
To tangled passions
And wicked dreams,
The heaving cacophony
Exploding immortal
At the edges of bliss-

Cling, cling, cling-


Before reality is all you have to hold
Against the dimming candle that
Lights your world

atoms cried for
"home, home, home."
you came. brought
the rains that fell
on blessed fields
and wet the dirt
and crushed the
petals. listen: "ah,"
they gasp, and "here
it is," and "home
is the thing that
hides in the rain."

As a child time creeps forth

Too slow

Now we gallop faster and faster-

I could feel tomorrow slipping into me

Before today would be done.

(Close my eyes and I was there; the empty places are collapsing
when nothing held them up)

Years are piled at my door

Endings tapping at the back of my shoulder

As futures finish before they will be born.

Bring back the line, time

Or send it forward;

I don’t like this jumbled mess,

This shifting mass of yesterday and tomorrow

And pointless todays clumping about me in one

Seething muddle.

A little geometric order would be nice.

When dawn was new

King's first ascent

he called you

Little bird, he called you

Your clarion cry

his trumpet

thin and brilliant

Your notes to fill

the silent awe

wake the sleepers

locked stony in the dirt

who knew no sound

until your song



They call you back

Beast and stone and air

Call you and you

don't come

Words drip like diamonds
from your lips; but I love the
frogs and maggots too.

My crossroads is a lonely place.

I know the question
but not the answer for the
brave heart.

Jack Kerouac claimed that he would always choose the mad ones, but
which is better: to flare bright and see the light die all the sooner,
or to bank the embers and welcome the long, slow burn?
Either flame could catch the house alight; more likely that
both will fade cold into the dark.

Am I the sun, or the hearth?

And what better test than this,
the heart’s old desire against a new
and potent love.
Which is the dream?
Which is the shadow?
Go forth and the road becomes stone;
but the soul cannot be torn forever between two paths, lest
it grow mad, or dull.
The future is hidden by thick fog
and the smoke from an old fire *******.
Alone, I move unto the precipice and fall...



(But later- much, much later-)
Heart’s path grows clear.
Soon, a step.

Don't come over here,
flower in hand,
heart blazing on your sleeve.

All you need to know is that
I am made of sticks
left in the January snow.

For you, I will not catch alight.

Spring’s first breath stirs through February winds.

Her quick tongue finds purchase in soft peaks and hollows,

brushing skin grown sweet from cooling sweat and  

lingering traces of sunlight.

Where she presses, she stirs up fires banked down by the cold.

Embers shift, sparks fly

to greet the night now filled with the cinders of January festivals,

those long nights where the bare hearth wouldn’t warm you and

an empty bed was all that would take you in from the cold.

It was safe as long as the ashes lay thick upon the coals.

But now the painful longing rises once more, an ache of bones

and ligaments stretching in ungainly growth.

Though you would turn your face away

it is too late, her breath too quick.

Your skin will pebble;

desire will thrum its presence in blood

quickened to the pace of the ice flow cracking along the river.

My dog carries

the chill of winter

beaded on her coat.

He took a step off the concrete and onto frozen dirt. Grass stiff with

frost shattered beneath his feet. He took another step, turned, and the

city was gone- only fields stretching, stretching- left right back front

up and down. Dirt and dead grass as far as the eye could see, and

above that the dangerous blue sky, the one that seemed to invite

hallucinations and crush down like a prison, except instead of walls

this place had space; an endless, empty world, free for you to wander

until your feet dropped off or your mind melted from the sheer size of

it all. An endless space worse than no space at all. His breath puffed

out in damp, warm clouds, and when it came back the ice went into his

lungs and pierced him from the inside out. It hurt. His face was cold

and the sky was too blue, and all that blue would drive him mad. Too

much. No choice but to step toward the horizon, the endless

stretching line that did not change from east to west to south. No sun,

no clouds; the fields dead at his feet. He knows he has to find the city

again, he'll die without the city, but he doesn't know where it went or

where he should begin to look.

I still remember
the wind through the fur across your back
like ripples in a field of grass.

You were soaked in the sun;
in perpetual summer.

The dawn is breaking over the hills.
I sit, poorly managed, on the edge of my porch
to watch the sun climb. The first edge, now.
Just a hint against the lowest curves of the horizon.
Silence around, before the birds begin to call
for love and lost children. Light is piercing my pearl-grey sky,
dawn's mist fading away.
Soon the sun will warm dark hair, soft skin
but not the bones;
no, not my bones,
where wet has sunk cold and shivering
to damp the marrow heart of them.
The birds start to sing. I sip my coffee
hot enough to scald.

a snake visited.
he brought an apple, but i
know that fairytale.

i took the laces.
i can't breath but good god
do i look skinny!

My tongue is charred
on the planes of your chest;
fingers seared from tracing the
patterns in your skin.
Forest-fires spark between us.
The hairs on my arms are long burnt away.

You exhale.
Your breath is smoke and I gladly breathe it in.
My lungs survive.
Later the doctors will be amazed that I
lived as long as I did.

We leave no ashes.
The flames are too high.

And yet–

Nothing matches the fires inside,
where new suns are born
every time you speak.
Words drip like diamonds from your lips,
but I love the frogs and maggots too.

My plates are shifting.
The internal landscape speaks for itself:
I listen
to seismograph readouts,
details of soil composition and
tidal patterns,
and hear your breath
in every charted line.

Dreams: you are always
warm/soft in my hand. I gasp.
You pull me closer.

this one time i lived
in the garden of eden.
it wasn’t that great.