There is a
tenuous beauty
in apocalypse, I imagine.

A whole world laid out beneath you
like a mother's arms,
you stood in infancy facing the stars,
and I remember thinking as I watched you
that I shouldn't speak,
that those million little suns
will teach you everything you need.

A girl was selling flowers,
white orchids she had clipped.
I found them rather lovely
and placed one on your crypt.

Like a bygone love, it wilted.
Its petals dried and fell.
You're long gone, I know,
but I hope you're doing well.

Today I watched an eagle fly into the sun,
swallowed by a sea of yellow and red.
It's feathers caught light and burned and
fell from the sky above my head.

Down they drifted to my feet,
twisting like a lovely flaming helix.
And when, through the smoke, I squinted my eyes,
I thought I saw a phoenix.

When our page was white and empty
words came easy, I was smitten.
But now you're someone else's poem
and a line I wish I'd written.

and so the moon weeps

for the millionth time

as it is the millionth night

far too few souls

are willing

to dance in her light

come find me in the lurch
with the dogs beneath the avenues
on barefeet and scars on my knees
arms extended in hypothesis into the
sultry sky, bridging the gulf
between god and myself

i am a prisoner who
spends restless nights staring into the void
my wounds, to all appearances healed-over
open themselves inwardly and leak freely
thru the cavernous expanse of my body
absentmindedly retracing my torment with
the callous pads of my fingers in the dark
dancing over my own flesh like a cold stranger
my lips twist into a grimace and my cheeks flash hot
and wet as a bolt of grief sinks itself down deep into me

i am alone here
lost in listlessness gasping
for breath on this tumbled mattress
alone as i've ever been
with the clang of the bars and
the muted squawk of the captain on the radio
when it rains i am alone with it
alone too out in the sun and grass
and concertina wire
alone with the impatience and courage
particular to the condemned
listening to remote nestlings
howl themselves hoarse in the treetops
searching for the motherbird come to
subdue and nourish them as i am hoarse
and i am searching

oh beautiful mother please find my
withered eaten heart discarded like
a cut flower and sanctify it

my heart breaks again and again
under the reiterated gusts of shame
my memory thrusts against me

come and find me
look down here
because some of us will not see
heaven when we die
instead of tasting the delicious picnics
in paradise accompanied by angelic
flute-and-lute bands we will be caked
in layers of fresh **** constantly
raw sewage on our raw skin with
hairy black cellar rats singing the blues
***** by wild beasts dragged by devils
thru the packed streets of hell consumed
by a hopeless desire to start a new life of
chastity but there will be no second chance
just the eternity we deserve