you gave us the sign when you
turned  off  the  porch  light  an
d we swam into that summer n
ight in Holland and we were gh
                           osts which I enjoyed because it
                                             was the closest thing to being
                                                 a person I was ever going
                                                                ­   to be.

his sentence, it was beautiful
for everyone to see him
locked away for years and years
hanging photos on the wall.
he perfected the art in prison,
nailing photos to the cell
and hoping nails were hurting
even though they weren’t.
his stupidity, it was majestic
thinking things he sought offensive
were jokingly forgotten.
Creative, Enticing, ****.
a pity it would seem.

a crow is just
a vice that holds the sky together.

A violent room
Feeling lonesome
A cadance, an essense
Gnashing leaves
Shh, be quiet
A cat shrieks
The bed creaks
A house slams
Silence

my house is a ship & it’s sinking.
there’s water in the cellar, it’s flooding
back into the bog where it came from,
back into the soil where t’was planted
and all the lovely things that happened inside
will soon be consumed, so join for the ride.
no one marks a house with a gravestone,
it’s just a bitterfield battlefield skeleton.
sh, you’re going to blow out our candles
with your coughing & your moaning.
and all the town came to watch us drowning
sputtering, blaspheming, and dying
on a place long ago they were divining
for bedrock by the hedgerows.
the photographers were solemn
beneath branches all but forgotten.

i’m laying down with a
book on my neck
and your ghastly temper shook sarah’s branches.
the way they shook was reminiscent of
a code or some secret recipe
lost in the universe
like the way shafts of light
roll across the dust on a table
or the way the hawk cuts
the sky in half over
the barn
incalculable, it would seem.
your anger, too, shall pass.
so i roll over in bed and wish i was buried.

an entertainer in the empty street.
ghosts fly through the attick, it’s all useless.
guitars play in the chasm of the street.
houses lean like matchsticks, there’s a difference.
you are a thing that never was and i,
i am just a something that won’t will be.
violent room, and i feel lonesome, i
want you to know i am campaigning thee.
a sad song, shut up, be quiet, no one
will hear violins on a sinking ship.
but, if the ship is sinking, sing sad songs.
well here, violins for a sinking ship.
but, the dog was seeing colours, all day.
and when you sleep, you dream, you feel okay.

don't be a poltergeist that goes bump in the night;
can't catch you on film if you put up a fight.
i know ghosts that can scare, but that's about it.
what are you gonna do? frighten me to death?
and quit disappearing. it's very annoying,
especially since you never tell me where you are going.
just stop haunting my head. please start haunting my bed.
or don't even bother haunting at all.

when the sun winks, and
you shut the door
tell the kids to come inside

slithering serpents, a fantastic show
flicker in the twilit sky
like the tongues of Hell

and
everything surges and fries
in the house, for a moment
like a haunted hospital
like in the movies

when the power's out, and in the road
passerby light their candelabras.

when the engines quit their mechanizations;
when the poles settle down for the
big
long
nap;

and the smallest calculated bearings
of your pocket compasses go awry
from that great fire on the sun

and 100 years is lost in 8 minutes.
you are what you left yourself ready for.

i guess it's true you're all the things that i
wish i could have been,
but never quite accomplished,
never quite become.
is it true we mend out clothes with
pieces of our past
and exchange them as gifts?
things made for lasting.
there's a little extra something to your smile,
something stunted in me for years
is now been awakened awhile.
i don't know what it is, but i've feared
i'm becoming something new,
something made of me and you
and what i fear
is fearing what comes near
will hurt me again
so
please don't do that, dear.

there was an interesting
night to roam; to be indoors, and
she knows she'll never be upright,
a nuisance;
i am actually a big difference
between what i have been
a great deal with.
so don't try to get me.
we're just imperfect
and you, a crippled horse.
and if i had the time to get a free
chance
it would not be worthit.
hogwash, like the vista cruiser
forgotten in the kudzu.
and in the brambles do you question?
what does it mean to matter?
if you're no better than what you envision?

i feel the same doom a bee in a jar
feels, an
idol in the path of ivy in the yard
and all
i could think of when you left
is when you entered my car,
and we smashed faces
and you couldn't contain yourself.
but maybe i've contained myself
too much now,
and so i guess i've set out my furrows,
counting the withered stalks
until january
and hoping (in vain?) to smash
faces again, when
you return.