The wind stopped
choking its last whispers
through the pine branches

The wind stopped
pirouetting softly
into asphyxiation

The wind stopped
strangling my shoulders
of their strength

The wind stopped
smothering the sail
I keep across my chest

These people are so thankful,
these thankful people

and when they have all passed away,
every plate of cranberry-lacerated stuffing
and bowl of marshmallow-strangled yams
and that dish you always forget,
swearing not to next year:

I'll sit again the oaken throne, alone
face distorted threefold in mirrors
held in the trembling hands
of empty plates, yours most of all,
laughter pealing down
down
down
striking into an orb of blooded wine

home. again. still. never.

We draped ourselves in the failures of others
we hung ourselves on youth

in all the small places the people whispered
"there go they, pariahs of the dead faith,
stumblers in the dark...
watchers of bruised and battered hearts"

the news of it flowed swiftly from the cities
coursed through towns and markets
to eddie in the wild hills
and seep into the living hollows

there go we, alone

the last true believers of one another,
and an intoxicating madness we could not hold

she laid her hand
upon my leg
that mating dance
that fingertips
sometimes do
was this
a house of spirits
a house of music
or just another house,
no, just another night
that breeds regret

a voice
she practiced
in the mirror at home
predatory
in its trappings
that ebony banner of intent
gripping her tightly
showing off the perfect amount,
all the parts she hated most

tilted thoughts
that swung on pendulums
of midday,
or was it midnight?
it doesnt matter
nothing matters here
where we are all drowning
just to stay above the surface

shes back again
tugging at me softly
a shark
testing its catch
or a child
crying for attention
breath acrid from the water
shes been drinking
to wash away the trash
of men who littered
her life

we all lose ourselves
somewhere
in that slurred translation
swearing we're ourselves
but friend, you know
were really not
we never were
as only those parched recall

I am one such
numbered man
I reach for her hand
but my fingers meet glass
swirling crimson
a color for secrets
my other hand draws her
close, draws her
how she was as a child
before the world killed her

she pushes her face near
only scent and hot breath
deeper under the water

But, with a finger to her lips,
I whisper


"I'm sorry darling, I'm just here for the wine."

Full of life
the fire surged through the glade
hips swayed, lips splayed
pushing up leaves and leaving
a smile that found a better home
at forty than at twenty

those castaway eyes
glistened with hopes
two Lost might cling to,
broken flotsam
on the heaving chests
of hurt youth

We met our end,
eyes shut as tightly
as a loving mothers tuck,
burnt in the glade

Indigo spilled through the arid cradle

across scabbed lakebeds
their life long ago robbed
by errant dust devils
sniggering back to their grottoes
in the barren foothills

through seemingly dead hands
eternally arthritic
arched up, and into
the earth-filled wind of creation
scouring the impurities from the land

past the aeon-old titans
clinging to thier final mountainous footholds
weary from their trek from the Tide
ready to descend into the valley
to die with the dawn

in every hidden oasis of life
every subtle warren and clandestine nest
where the small things, with every painful breath
prove that existence
is worth struggling for

and out, under the broken edges of the sky
whose shattered glass fell ages ago
a septillion points of light
ground by the endless cycle
back into the loam


but where Indigo goes so too goes her keeper
mounting the cradle, flooding the valley
hidden in their woven coffins, their buried crypts
the small things bowed thier heads,
and the land fell silent


the malevolent sentinel had come


monarch of the pit, lord of the ******
soaring to his azure font of judgement
culling by flame those creatures found most wanting
for this is his domain, it's denizens whisper: fed by the Hell-born river

until he dies once more
his dirt choked blood spilling into the horizon
trickling down the desert's spine
followed by the silent chime of stars,
and a resurgence of life,


waiting for thier own lord to rise


it's here you will find him
atop the granite seat that breaks the basin floor
the man with evergreen eyes

having found when facing North

the Moon is always at his back

I wish you were here
to grab my soul
between your palms
with that force you carried

to press it to yours,

to show me the beauty,

of a momentary loss of control

It happens under a clear but crying sky

frosted fingers tracing lines
interfaced to the void

another image, clawed
scrabbling it's way past your eyelids
a numerical movement, venomous
winding it's body across your scalp

you cannot unsee them
paradigm shifts
situational perception overhauls
in an already chaotic nothingness

It happens under a clear but crying sky, realization

you are not the predator
watching, waiting
but remain the prey

Blood wrote your name
on white orchid petals

Love carried them to the Seat
sure and swift of foot

Time pulled them
out onto the sky's edge.

I left them for the Monarch to devour

Time is finding a way

To lose itself


Out there in the space



Between the stars




Time is finding a way





Without me

I died like an American Spirit

in a torrent of sparks
choking on the exhaust
of her hot red little s.u.v.

bearing: North North-West

on the highway where I died

all broken skin
and burned up insides
smothered against the asphalt

by the rain I'd loved so much

on the highway where I died

"Don't come any closer" she said
pulling a sliver from her heart,
the one she kept on her filament wrist

hand upraised, shaking but sure
a pinprick of light glinting in her fist
matching the spark shining through the hole
once filled with an object sharper than her pain

pull them out so you can forget
so you can remember
what it's like to breathe
what it's like to cast yourself
like the night sky

she lunged, a streak in the dark

everything roiled in a chaotic ink
except a twinkle one could balance
on the tip of a needle

Love is countless lonely cigarettes
littering a passage to the grave

a cadaver just drained of its life

its heat slipping away

like a cup of Japanese Sencha

on the railing of a porch.

Humanity is...

seven point two billion spiders
creeping towards the light

not because

it provides comforting warmth
nor
any measure of illumination

but because

like those
silent
patient
lethal
denizens of the dark

we know

in the light,
where life is brightest,

the prey is thickest.

I am winter's shadow across the desert
wandering in the back alleys and ravines
where the tumbleweeds go when the Monarch slumbers
to drink the last of the hiding frost

I am winter's shadow across the desert
a funeral-gaze across the Pit
to the titans that clutch the edge of my world
where, this year, Father draped no mantles

I am winter's shadow across the desert
greeted in silence by a broken landscape
whose children watch with clandestine eyes
awaiting my death in the spring

I am winter's shadow across the desert
the last grain of sand in the hourglass
the last muffled roar of Limantour
the last ray of moonlight on the horizon


the last of my kind.

"I love you the planet full," she said.

******* the hem of her cloak
all fur, feather, sinew, and bone
with a scent of the wild and prey

"I will carry your best parts with me"

drawing the hem to veil her face
a single dark eye gathering in the light
to peer through a ragged hole

a hole shaped like myself

"Don't you find me beautiful?"

I hear the roar of the Wild Hunt
         the forest is no bar to your call
                   the Spine cannot hold me from the North
                             I stalk the path to the Emerald Hall

not on my back, or behind the knife driven into it
but with weathered hands in harder, harsher lands
lessons learned, the color of blood and sweat
cast down upon the granite altars of the Monarch

could you feel me there?
         as I have eternally followed in the distance
                   I have never lost your trail
                           you have never lost your tail

the time has not been kind, and for your beauty
I have grown older, colder, bolder, and harsher in my ways
yet still blooming for your touch, for my reason to live on
for a warmth that only northern gods whisper isn't gone


I see the path, stretching through the Pit
         aflame in the light of countless dying moons
                   pawprints your love still leaves
                             filled with salt-water and sentiment

and this place is sediment, cold blood running in it's hot streets
and with ***** feet, I will stumble past it's northern reach
to the edge of your fingertips, to the bridge that leads to you,
to the scent of evergreens, and the end that holds my death


                      but I will not die before I can tell,
                                the path to paradise
                        doesn't begin and end in hell

                                       call to me
                               I have not been idle
                                       call to me
                         she for whom the arrow breaks
                                       call to me
                       my life's one and only endless love
                                        call to me
                                       I'll be there

                                 Tidewalker, call to me