Lines of coal take form, again and again, on this coldbound evening
as blackened fingers and wear reveal prints typically unseen.
Beautiful and unique and hurricane lightning tattooed yellowed paper.
It was untouched, like the charcoal, for ages as it sat in the corner
underneath the easel gathering dust and cobwebs.
It seems that the spiders have had a plentiful harvest this autumn,
what a shame to rid them of their feast this month.
It'll be winter soon and they're going to need it.
What creation is permissible by destruction? Any?
None?

Can I make up for it, I promise:
I'll draw them a web and weave you into it.
You and I and They: we'll all feast.
We on Art and they on flesh.
They'll never miss those material pleasures ever again.
They'll never need to build or wait or **** or eat.
We'll never need to either, not after this,
this momentous occasion of focus and dedication
when my arms and lamplit desk burn from satisfaction
and our faces grimace at the completion
of something so wonderful, on paper.

My compliments are currency
on nights so filled with lunacy
and my billfold's not empty
for this made-up prostitution ring.

So what's the going rate tonight
for such a vivid beauty
'cause I'll haggle like, "You're just so right,"
with million dollar poetry.

What consciousness is it they have
when dressing and perfuming:
Is it I who play a simple game
or they who do the choosing?

And I who lack the self-control
of ending empty mornings
while sleep just turns their heavy dreams
to laughter at my mourning.

So when you see those male-eyed hawks
and pity prey they're chasing,
just know their death is coming swift:
the rabbit's hole chokes innards whole.

Beyond the horizon lies silence:
empty-handed and empty-torsoed.

Home no longer entangles our motions of gold and twirling,
so quickly so that our spins become perception itself.
Our hair, previously matted, now catches on nothing.
It flows freely against a wind blown inward,
vacuumed through open windows
on opposing sides of the kitchen,
though and carrying the smell
of freshly baked apple pie, crisply crusted,
a thing so sweet and tasty
that tongue and nostrils beg for more
whipped cream and palate warmth.

They open their mouths and plead,
panting on their knees,
on edge of upper lip
fearing not the fall
for something that would just,
for Heavens sake,
give them something,
anything,
of indescribable necessity.
"Oh please, just another bite!"
dribbles out of lungs
until even the smallest of morsels
are licked clean from plate,
desperately, empty,
in front of all,
for all to see.

The world is everything that is the case.
When it is all eaten up
yummed and stomached fully,
it will be the next green field,
the next orchard on the horizon
with golden apples ripening at sunset
against orange and purple perfect skies
to fulfill that longing for Next.

I sip on scotch and sit here
and secretly, I hope you'll appear.
At first, you'll glance through the crack in the door frame,
I'll look like the intellectual you were missing all this time.
You'll wonder why you ever left and how it was that you thought
you could do without me.
I'll feel the burning of one eye upon me,
so as to keep your furtiveness, your surprise,
but then a second reveals itself, and then your cosmic third.
The desk lamp will shadow your outline
when I slowly, intuitively, glance over my shoulder
somewhat unexpectedly, to you.
My eyes will pry, if only rhetorically, "Who's there?"
and you'll slowly, almost shyly,
though we were never shy with one another,
creak the door open to unveil your then-lit body.
Your radiant figure will send vibrations
through the wooden floor slats into my feet
and I'll begin to feverishly dance,
right then and there,
as if bitten by the largest of tarantulas.
I'll stare in disbelief
thinking that maybe it's the alcohol
which has created this image of you,
or maybe, in fact, I'm devastatingly sleep-ridden,
and so against my heart's common sense
I'll rub my eyes to clear the vision.

You, who haven't shown up night after night,
through all of my writing and pondering
and talking-to-self and drinking
and questioning and driving
and aimlessly-staring and searching
and forgetting and trying-to-understand
and resenting and hating
and loving and forgiving
and grinding and howling
and loving and missing,
but this one night,
this blue moon event,
I guess you could call it that
though it's already passed,
after consuming too much,
you'll appear.

Then I realize,
I am here
and you are nowhere.
Always I think I hear sounds
similar to returning footsteps
barely audible over the taps on my keyboard,
but it's never you.
And so, I continue on,
peeking over shoulder,
awaiting my cliché,
as I sit here and sip scotch after scotch.

Have you ever noticed
that tail lights reflect
off tire-worn roads
when sun and all
have gone asleep?
A pair of red glow
just seems to float
through space
like a reverse halo
behind and below vehicle
on its 2am way elsewhere.
And how about the fact
that windshield wiper and turn signal
never truly-precisely-
exactly-rhythmically sync?
One clicks and blinks,
the other dryly whaps,
on that first swipe,
of course,
just when light mist
begins to stick
and the exit approaches
at a slick
sixty-five-miles-an-hour.
Turn down the volume now,
it's time to pay attention.

Candle wax doesn't always
melt directly inward.
Sometimes it does dome
perfectly,
which makes it
all the more fun
to push further.
Other times it just bows out,
as if to say,
"There'll be no addition
to the amount of light
I'll be giving you tonight.
You'll just have to bend me in
and pray for a split-less base,"
as hours, seeming like minutes,
in minutiae,
are spent burning our tobacco
and circling our teacups
and laughing effortlessly,
indenting pillows and rugs
and us keeping so, so quiet
as not to awaken ourselves.

Waxing is always
a chance worth risking
because, worst case,
we can inflame another dancer
while we chat
and hope that,
just this once,
God help us,
we realize
our stars align.

We spark
the kindling in ritual
as souls dance around us;
our bonfire keeps them at bay.
They never stray,
hoping to hold us, hug us,
whisper missings and tidings of comfort
to steady our bones for passage.

We wait
on rotting logs, gazing toward dawn,
entranced by flames and huddled together,
closely, with wet-iced eyelashes.
Our silent breathing scuttles away
on paths of pale white and moist,
out and sifted through our watchers' chests.
Their voices go unheard.
Who would hear conversation
from depths during an eve of fright?

We watch
the orange-red idol wane in the wind.
Odd, no? Shouldn't it be growing?
They're breaking though to us
so we embrace more closely,
latching, heartbeats bumping one another
keeping rhythm, keeping our stillness,
and fevered hands massage our shoulders,
erasing tensity, stiff limbs, lightness.

Smoke escapes our eye sockets
and they smile at our blankened faces.
Who are these people celebrating?

The mind is cruel when heart is careless
And when they both act they choir in sadness
So into the past they both go hurling
Without thought of time or sleep or madness

But when one acts its action is burning
As all modes of way keep my marble turning
and thinking and rubbed the cloth of cold dress
That night that fire that feeling the yearning

And down so goes and with it tonight
No more is wanting is needing toward flight
Its scent it drips from golden pines pining
What heart could be careless with mind so cruel?
You fool.