when darkness falls upon my death
this heart is reaped
head laid to rest
do not weep
nor steep regret
you mustn't grieve a hollow chest

the calling of a soul to shed
all mortal sheaths
and specious breath
divinely deemed
a doom beset
by shadows of a hollow chest

as darkness breathes within our breast
our spirit clings
to walls of death
envisioning
a light bereft
imprisoned by a hollow chest

there's a certain song that's wept
within the halls
of sacrament
grief begone
and faith beget
freedom from a hollow chest

© Jason Cole

The fog has an edge today,
gashing buildings in two,
beheading the tree line,
dispersing the relays.
The sun dies in the east,
throttled by an accumulating
grayness that chews.
Watch the rain approach
on its blacked skate,
drowning the ironbound
fence-work that skirts
the blustered apartments.
This neighborhood
is lost to me -
it chokes and retches
under a slip of sick.
The moon is just
a drain plug.
Wherever I go next,
I will paper with you,
your ink-sugar eye,
the unconscious throne of hair
that throws me over.

the mountain speaks
of being anchored
by roots so deep they burn

and this ancient wisdom
is reiterated by tree limbs
groaning against the wind

but light-hearted crows
taunt the stagnant below
as they surf the invisible tide

and having ascended
the golden eagle sees all
in the light of the setting sun

and I find myself torn
between being rock steady
and living while i'm alive

Some poems seem to write
themselves;
I just move the pen.
Others, are like lumps
of clay;
they refuse to be molded;
they need moisture and time.
This one is like
a robin that just learned
to use its wings.
It heads west, on a
gentle breeze, into
a tangerine sky.

there's a trail of my blood
that runs from one of this
town to the other, right
up the steps to my front
door.

this town has seen
all my ugliest moments
and yet I am still here,
sleeping in the same bed
cooking at the same stove,
living in the same house
I have already grieved
so many losses in.

this town is home and hell
and I want to escape just
as much as I never want
to leave and it depends
on the sky and it depends
on the day and it depends
if I see your faces, or my own,
in all the memories it carries.

The earth is hungry for me.
I feel it in every step,
in the way the green
morning sun grabs
at my sleeve on the platform
when the metro train arrives,
in the gnashing maws
of blooded cloud
that conceal the moon
like a mad aunt.
I've kept it waiting so long,
forty years now;
it caught my father
under the wax-window,
& removed him
to a place in the air.
The lithium salts laughed
& laughed when I found
a shadow at the bottom
of the night-bottle.
I no longer lean out
over the sick, slick hands
of the river when
I go to the waterfront bars.  
I'm still a step or two ahead,
but let's face it -
the tree leers in leaf,
the stones are snide,
& my eye looks so dark
in this whisky reflection.