Pink supernovas
call monarchs to crawl;
poison milk drops from
broken green breast.
Fields flicker with rivers
of afternoon latex.
O fluent wound,
this is a poor man's Lethe.
There are better ways
to forget what happened
than the annihilating
milkweed cripples.

"If I cannot bend the will of heaven,
I shall move hell."

Meadows of blood
are sluicing from my arm,

& courts of lithium
are bottled neatly.

This stream within me,
the red subliminal, latent,

needs beating back.
The noon sun kicks uselessly.

Something happened,
it had nothing to do with me,

it had nothing to do with
quiet cancerous woe,

nothing to do with the
underside of my mind.

I am quiet in the chair,
the blood-taker smiles at me

through alcohol bouquet,
compliments a yielding vein;

the blood pours and pours,
aching with subconscious.

I bought you brazil nuts because I know they're your favourite
We usually share everything
but I don't really like these so they're just for you
I thought it might soften the frown on your face but I was probably expecting too much
I bought you a scratch card and a lottery ticket hoping you would be lucky
We live on opposite ends of the house
few words are spoken
our communication broken
When he died we began to mend
I thought, at least it was for something
Maybe he left for us to find meaning
so that we, you and me
would come together again
Now you offer me a faint smile
and I'm not sure if it's sincere
and I cry tears
thinking that we have missed the point, again.

Little chips of evening
hang in air like
laundry on the line;
they bring to mind
the blue slot branch
dissolving in summer,
glimpsed from the roof,
or the way the metro
cascaded the station
in rippling silver armor,
or our little burial
under sterile spruce -
I remember you
in your dress of cherries,
your cola-tinted glasses
reflecting a gold hoof of sun
as you threw sway.
But now it's winter,
you're gone away,
the evening slithers
over battlements
& night wrenches in
with fists of crows,
the dollop of moon
clots by the back,
the heart sheds a skin.
Nothing's like it was
when you were here.

The cloud pulls apart,
a two-headed ripple
in a towering sepulcher
blue as a peacock.
I am a witness,
possibly the only one,
to this bright death.
This, then, is the memorial
of something that lived
as a waver in the upmost field
for just a few minutes,
slain by the unfaithful breeze.

Rude, infant cloud,
stamping east -
will you carry
something for me?
Bleachy lump, shroud,
linen's careless crease
in bloodless aerie,
trawl a lyric to quay.
White-headed, bowed
beneath high fleece,
insolent taffy, ferry
over salt-rutted sea:
Take them, these words -
before I ask the birds.

like the moon
I go through

phases

some of my
lights go out

and I become
dull and distant

give me time
they will come

back on

like the moon
I do not ask

for praise or
forgiveness

it is just a
phase

I am going through