In the dark velvet lining of a humid gilded box
is a little china doll:
a delicate charm for her grandmother's gold bracelet.
She lies languid. Her sinews are chains and her bones glass.
Light swarms through her: a mess of wispy snakes.
At noon
it bounces wildly like the pinball game
she's heard so enthusiastically described
in a wildly raucous rock and roll song.
Tentatively she reaches for the stars painted through her hair
raised a bit like brail and hot to the touch.
They're made of fire billions of miles away.
They have halos radiant at midnight.
At midnight
the humid gilded box
is damp and muggy and she twists and wakes
sullen with panic and covered in stardust.
The grime of the moon coats her gingham dress,
collected as she skidded to home plate.
Precious Darling,
Bless her heart,
for unbeknownst to her the humid gilded box
is within a teapot,
upon a shelf,
within a cupboard,
beside a grandfather clock
that chimes at each curly hour and rattles the gilding
so that as the hours pass - as the days disappear:
her darling little precious box
dims like the tapestry her grandmother hung
to mourn the grandfather clock.

sometimes I think,
sitting in the sad girl seat.
sometimes staring into clouds
into pebbled, light-footed blush
upon the abundant tortured sands -
there whistles hope through hair
and love past whorled ear.
Fate be not proud for thou art wicked expectation.
sometimes I think that thinking is too much.
**** me it will. like the buzzing of filmy insect wings
as if the pressure of that spectral pregnant light -
were the candlestick in the dining room
with Madame Sosostris.  and april is the cruelest month
and depraved may and june and july. and august is just too hot
and september is lonely.
the snake gray seat and the sad girl eyes.
when the pine trees pass
in hundreds in thousands,
along miles and years
and sometimes thinking stops
and sometimes circles back
and I feel small and young.
There was a time,
when legs akimbo and arms
snaked soft, shelled tight, and snailed with hunger
were satisfied and glory held tight
all the multiples of content.
I was old with the heroism of
a mine-filled maze and melting wings.
the temptress, the knave, and the ******
I drew parallels with watery finger paint,
and words fell as if monsoon season
were rescheduled for february -
the cruelest month.
and I rode toward the land of adults,  
the promised land for the moderately free,
triumphant in the high girl seat.
and sometimes I think
that truth is sad
like the day after Christmas.
is sad like the lost boys and
the glory never satisfied
and the sad girl eyes
mocked for their youth
forever dried to  
the sad girl seat.

Raw is the word of the day. Got it kids?
Kids, what’s raw? Roiling mass of grabby skyward hands.
What’s meat? What’s vegetables?
What’s vulnerability? What’s red and broken and softly, wetish pink?
That thing you feel and touch but mostly feel.
It’s edges and rough. It’s war spelled backwards.
Pummeled hearts and purple kidneys aren’t cooked. They’re raw.
That dusty light that filters, spectral and beyond any grasp.
What’s the sinews of the world?
Raw is blue and pink and red
And coarse and irregular and lovely.
The loveliest sort of striking

Tiny red pins slip under my skin
Angry and sullen and precocious and settled.
Don’t wake them, they have my blessing.
Like a postmodernist painting
You could analyze them to
death.
But don’t.
Just let them be
They mean more that way.

little button eyes
little wrinkled burlap skin.
limp string hair
and matching flaccid smile.
a simple dress,
in triangle style.
a simple heart,
full of holes.

You dragged me tensed and hyped from my winter's cave
I was jittery
and giddy
and ready for spring greens.
Frightening black evening precipices came and went
smoothing themselves and smothering frown lines.
There was ringing in my head when it was empty of you.
I prayed this would stay. My warmest of winter coats.
Never my boldest and bulkiest of thorniest  fright.

and days passed.

Belligerence met our tepid introduction.
Red, and raw, and worrisome were their reactions.
Holding tighter you began to
f
a
l
l
I fought (no longer scared).
Fought to keep a warm January day turned to February, to springing mid 70s.
To keep out of my long musty cave,
but whipping wind from their mouths pulled eagerly backwards.

and days passed

silent. steady. always ready. no demands. only wishes. only fondest hopes.
and it was all yellow
and everything hurt.

and someday passed

When it was warm, when you were ready
you let go
and held me tighter
weak/faint/smoggy/dust to ashes to life/dawned understanding
at the mouth of a blooming cave
I thought perhaps you were mine
for somewhere along the way
I became helplessly
[entrapped]

Let me show you
Let me hold this tangled hair full of insecurities for you to study
Let me shove in more doubts, perhaps then you'll see.
Fondness.
Cherry coke.
Learn to be
to be hale and hearty
and love with only what you know when you hold me.

Tongueless
Breathless
Restless
In this
Lightless
Nightless day

There's numbness.
Fingerless,
Stifling coughing
Ageless, noiseless crying

Witless, Senseless
.Lost.
But not for
Lack of trying.

Listless.
Falling.
Deeply Sightless
Devoutly faithless
Evenly devoid
And purely dying.
For wet whimpers
Through thickest walls.