Hounds

The hounds are barking again outside my window.
they are snarling and snapping with teeth of ice
that rips my tears into a tundra of frost.

The indifferent air carries their hunger
under the unhinged door in my head;
a gale is coming, feral and wild.

I am not comfortable in my head right now;
Chain smoke to keep my hands to myself.
I wander through ash and fire: what have I done?


Planets

I am helpless against my misfiring neurons;
numbed against myself and you;
Pills streak like comets across the bed.

In the sky the stars peer in confusion,
planets misalign again, a sun implodes,
Earth groans and shifts, somewhere something dies.

Swirling galaxies light up the synapses
Serotonin battles amphetamine
Orion stalks the twins and unsheathes his sword.

Submersion*

I need some water on my feet, my head;
submerge me in the Lethe and bathe me in forgetfulness
the room grows hot and I swallow another star.

I am swathed in your concern, smothered by your regard.
I need clear air to think,
the night and the susurrus of hibiscus bathed by the moon.

Inside my room in my bed
white noise and white sheets wrap me,
bundle and bind me tighter than panic.

No, I will not go outside tonight.
The hounds are barking outside my window-
they come for me.

We were hiding
- behind the rose bushes -  
red blossoms like blood -
hiding from the blood.
A splatter streaked dripping on the wall in our house
where rose bushes flower behind the walls.

We were hiding
in the thorns and blossoms
because we were small
and the anger raging behind the wall was larger
than we were
we were hiding
        
Behind the blossoms behind the wall she screamed.

We were hiding
behind the rose bushes
thorn-scratched, we bled.
Blood smells sweet  - like red roses.
Where he hit her blood sprayed red painted blossoms
on the walls –
We built our walls strong;
we built our walls between truth -
and what we could bear

We were hiding safe
outside the walls, and we built walls
to be safe inside the walls.

The rose bushes  bleed red -
thorns scratch -  this then is love:
red blood, red rage, red roses, red lust:
love is walls and thorns.
When he hits her, it is love.


When our walls are complete, we will hide
behind the walls and we will survive love.
Thorns, blossoms, blood, and lust;
all the aspects of love will roil vainly
against our walls
and we will stay safe because we know
what love truly is.
What love is.

In the faded light of the laptop screen
I let the green screen shadows lie with me.
Your phone is set to muted; messenger open to enter
But your eyes are shuttered like an empty house.

My lips you kiss once a day do not quiver anymore
Do you see?  Still as stone, cast in iron.
The fire that once raced from your fingers to my frame
Is far distant, searing trails on some other’s skin.

I, the painted fool, jestered in court
Capered for your desire and hoped
This tiny sliver of a heart left yet unbroken
Could hold you against the tides of your indifference.

I am the breath of sorrow and regret
The wineglass smashed beneath the groom’s feet.
The boundary has been demaercated
Whisper your nothings elsewhere darling, my ears are stopped with wax

like Odyseus’ sailors, who knew their will too fragile
to withstand the honeyed call to play
While the hero raged and cursed his bonds
and pined for soulless Sirens singing sweetly on a rock.

The hibiscus is dying
bilked to the hungry maw
of a desert kobold.
Listen to the knell of loss;
screeing of mouse in crushing jaw,
tiny sparrow philistined to a
mammonism of white-
seizing cold and jet trails.
Desert nights mordant,
aestival qualms hurry to
obliterate green orange pink red -
promises of what this dry rock soil
longs for prays for dies for.
Greedy dust -
I suffer no greater blow
than this dead blossom.

Balanced on the grey razor skyline,
the sun is impetuous with licks of flame,
smoldering like old promises
on my paper, white as the bedroom walls.

The crow outside my window
watches me with eyes like ink.
A sparrow spirals against the glass window,
hits with a tiny thump
and falls. The crow barks a laugh.

The demarcations go down;
illusion and flight fuse.

Somewhere between pen and parchment,
I stall, stretch my wings
and find nothing beneath;
melted wax and
the gravity of truth -  
my pen will not bear that weight.