heard a voice as i died
in the cold moonlight
forty phantoms
breathing through me

and this wasted life
holds on too long
like a piano from the dark
and a mystic chord
i froze and woke in tandem
with the underscore

true death and restless spirits
i remember all of their names
like they were mine
and the charity of cold
chimes forever
in a sea of salt

kicked down the cemetery gate
and kissed the ground
forgive me now
for the pain i caused
that night, canis minor wept
and all was dust

i am the one
who fell from dark
into an even greater void

you left your blueish dress
twisted by the pool’s edge
like a cold monument
to every single misstep
and my heart is overwhelmed
with visions of a dancing grave

via crucis in the morning
carry me to our palisade
while these tiny arcs of light
leave my eyes, breaking easily
and your voice keeps me awake
i believe that i need this

you were wrong
i am nothing
but one more familiar face
amid the pageantry

break me on the wheel
while the wheel spins
argentia road
and all i see are crows
gorging in the open field
and severed cornstalks everywhere

this night
i burned your clothes
beneath the palest stars
to cherry embers for my bed
love, i dreamed of empty graves
and the undivided moon

such a fragile thing
to sigh for the sake of breathing
no more, no more
i am claimed by blood-soaked hands
and my resolve is dead

captive audience listening
to the hornets pouring out of me
i was running fingers
listlessly down your face
and dreaming of acid rain
—a picture in my head
that refused to die

ever mindful
of the bedroom door
hinging on your aches
and unborn eyes
the reanimated heart
chimed
with the twisted shape
of what awaits us all

a rising overture
from behind the veil
warm, wet handed
in a bath of blood

before i knew it
you were wearing nothing
but your jewels
and the silver moonlight
like artemis in the wild
oh, just kiss me sometime, softly
dream of where we go
when the body dies

lost sunday
i travelled light on cemetery rd.
flinching at every sound
of the whistling oaks
coming after me

i was sick but i didn't know
hushed by the fire
on the horizon
and the footsteps at my back
through crystal snow

believe me, i was sick
i was a drunken punk
in the soy fields
sleeping giant  
in a ring of salt

at dusk
the lights went out
and never came back
left my earthly husk
through the lips
the whiskey spoke
and it sounded nice
easy party trick
broke into your medicine cabinet
and saw my face
in the bathroom mirror

stay awake
and we'll stare at each other
until we become familiar.

broadview hotel breathing
in the trick mirror
of sunday moonlight
lethe, my dear absolver
you tell me glass only breaks
and never flows

and the river vanishes, too
before my eyes
like ghosts in the morning
and cursed wine
plucking mental pictures
from the jaws of drink

i need you to keep me awake
until the palace band stops playing
and the trapped sand in my hands
turns into sea glass

i'm lit up but so easy to smother
by a wayward breath of wind
or the waxing moon's light temper
the errant smoke will twist forever

the sea was never so still
as the night i spilled my guts
in the sink from vanilla pills
and laughed at my immortality

when i scream underwater
the blue screams back to me
in my maraschino heart
i know one thing to be true:
that the cooing and the howling
will never leave the ocean floor
and fall upon the waiting ears
of those who i meant it for

first the crow came often
with a clump of hair in its beak
its glassy eyes would soften
as its wings weakened and waned
now the crow doesn't come
to my tree anymore
but i still hear wings hum
past the crack of the door

when her ocean sounds
rang the pallid chandelier
i felt my blood cook
and disappear
the pool-house hummed
in the veil of night

i wanted to speak with her
beneath a canopy of lights
i miss her bathroom floor
(the meadow of clothing)
buried like carthage salt
and the hymns she half-sings
into thin air

molten i woke
to your understated
outro song
crowded at the corpse door
with the curtains drawn
and only briefly wishing
phantom pain
on endless vigils
for a swollen soul

sealed the crypt
your moonlit recital ceased
to no applause

black lung whispered
abject terror in my ears
a circle of candles
and closed eyes
made plainly naked
by the thought of you
beneath the rising tide

i poured raw honey
down your abyssal throat
stole a different form
and fell into your arms
only sweet goodbyes
as i grabbed my overcoat

flickering stars fall
and you name every single one
for this, i kiss your rings
and hang my head

tell me about sensations
worse than death
and through your eyes
i’ll see them all tonight

should i make it until morning
to watch the sunlight
dance across your cheek
it will be so much more
than i can live through

the sight of him broke my heart
alone and waiting by the old white fence
and his shadow shamed the midnight dark
that transformed and shifted in its dance
the ground on which they used to lie
shivering from the breath of winter air
starving and sullen, soon to die
blood and mud thickening their hair
in time we will both be scarcely breathing
all broken up and silent with ****** scars
with the light of the moon and stars all bleeding
their perfect designs upon the lonesome yard

i don’t want to die
in the shade this time
with the haunting phrases
that conjure every nearby demon
still pouring out of me

minerva of a thousand works
and condolences
red was everywhere
when you lifted up your shirt
and the water in your eyes
was boiling like mercury
at the thought

the archers have their fingers
pointed squarely at the hotel singer
smoke on the edge of their mouths
coiling sweetly all across the house
and the trees will part
for a song and a blood sacrifice

bowed low over a guitar
trying to teach himself the meaning of pain
sitting in the dark of a car
doing his best to convincingly feign
the long-suffering fool
with everything to gain

her ashes sunk in the sand
and the rest went over the electric dam
in the dark the mournful loon calls
as trumpets echoed in the concrete halls
and the rapids will churn
with a growl and the whisper of a lovely fern

give me a chance
to be the worst thing
that ever happened to you

someday she will spit on my gravestone
eyes glistening, lips red and hands full
standing in the blanket of fog alone
her shadow gracing the aging marble
like the eventual darkening of a monolith
by the temper of the sun setting
at the fall of a holy empire and with
a desperate, widespread bloodletting

it was fine to say
that nothing would hurt me
but the crushing weight
of hideous swan songs
darling, you should know
i was made for this

house of knives
the sigil was burning
from across the sea
and under the covers
you pulled away
blood red lights
kissed my animal face
when i heard your name

oh god, you were right
to say that nothing happens
when we die
just as the lights burned out
and our woven hands
were drowned in cimmerian dark
i am scared that i will go
without a sound
and ever haunted
by the souls i keep
in the centre of my heart

it's better for my poems
if you leave.

watch me tear myself apart
at your altar
to gain a life i hardly know
and i will dream of nothing
but these nights

high darling
love is out there waiting
for you and i

my pale blue hand
hovered like a baby bird
over the mirror shards

a starry sky, a starry sky

my pale blue hand, the pendulum
drained cardinal sins
in the blood-warm bathwater

i dread the thought of you
cloaked in someone else's hands
like the gems of harmonia
never sated, never dead

love, you sensed the rain
before it fell
like another easy beast
into the arms of sleep
and i half-believed
that bleeding was a virtue
at the lake of mirrors

i tried, i tried
to forget the murky colours
of your waning moon
dancing freely on the water
as if i had a reason
to sleep and lie
in light of all these folded blades
still pacing in the drain

the night fell
as one last revelation
this pale moon, a metronome
in the gulf of my eyes
christ, i was so weak
for avoiding the spectacle
but i’m running out of reasons
left to say goodbye

my phantom at the doorway
all serpentine and sage
while your perfume takes to air
like the harvest pollen
exalted in the rain

and sometime, too
will i finally sleep
by the candlelight of day

one last emerald night
at bonnechere park
thin moon piercing through
glass pendants of a weeping tree
the truth is
i still hide your name  
inside my lips like stolen bread

beneath our lucky stars
i found the ending
i was searching for
—to kiss the sand on basin lake
while the serrated cold of water
and my heartbeats
slowly dissipate

thrice do the floorboards creak
beneath your feet, eldest first
and every step is a wound
vitriolic and repeating
i hear the tenebrous stair
spiral forth with the sound
of you leaving

and by the intervals of sleep
i will fall forever, hymnal-red
through the ceiling
our wildest dreams fade faster
in the folds of my memory

thinking of those eyes
one last time
wrapped around me

i remember the ruins
concrete and rebar
rain-slick and strewn
in the dark front yard
the hounds
they poured from the woods
and melted the ground
where the crowned one stood
my clothes were drenched
in chalky cinder
my hands were wedged
against the door

the last time i was with you
there were blossoms falling 
softly to the ground
and the kindness in your eyes
was waning, too
when you finally saw me 
as i see myself 

dark nights in arcadia
at the holy mirror 
my dear, i used to think 
i had so much to give
oh god
but it was never true

o love
i might be leaving soon
i see shapes and signs
between the stars
where once was dark

o love
i remember this
from my sweetest dreams
but i’m woken up
always before it ends

o love
sing me to sleep
with a midnight voice
and i’ll be yours
endlessly

you caught me
balanced on the chair
like an ether-drinker
living feverish dreams
in the depths of your sympathy

and the bleeding page
told everything
i couldn’t stand to speak
a pendant from the rafters
and the chorus
of your turning key

softly fall the leaves
like a twin-sided blade
from my grasp to the ivory
and towers of the sun
break and heal
across the windowsill
to meet the taut, ashen skin
on the hands
that released me

what is left of death
to behold but the ending?

gold and silver rain is falling
in a cavalcade of mercy
and dusk’s writhing shape
calls out to me once more

dearest, i swear i saw you
so undivided
and fluttering like salomé
for blood or drink
or blades of grass
we concede to a sweet dream
while your warm breath changes
to a sabre in my memory

i picture her
in mantis green
beneath the overwhelming light
of setting stars
***** soda everywhere

the wasted space
in my head
rattles always
with that glossy night

shattered bones
and i was drunk
i put my phone away
to watch the ghosts
come for me
lost my voice
saying goodbye
and there was nothing
left to write
at the end of summer
when time is slowed
and nothing grows

i will write at length
about the brief time
we spent together

oh, i could lay down
against her bedroom door
and never wake
though the twisted river
of my mind is coursing
still rapt by summer’s fury
brought to a boil

and the sympathies she shared
all fold and duplicate
with the endless molten morning
and her second storey
glowing like damascus steel

i go to sleep with a smile
that isn’t mine

overkill
and shame
i was an effigy
of spring

before the flame
kissed every bone
and drank my skin
without a sound

only
the clicking of my heart
as the world
ceased to spin

the cloth is cut
and you’ve been absent
from my dreams of late
phosphene, ever-burning
like a wretched mask
moth-eaten in the night

dearest, am i just the fount
of unsettled dust?
there is something in your eyes
that i cannot place
all this golden blood in me
is a harvest giving way
to the sickle and the blade
rich with rust

i want so badly to find peace
among the effigies of her love
or better yet
the threads of foolish hope
that still remain in me