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Lee Turpin Jun 2011
life flashes of electric blue glancing out from every strand
you soared in a circle around my head
little wide angled hands reached for you
alight on my brow allow me to
cut angles into your wings
cut angels into your wings
I don’t know when I’ll raise you once again over my head
to push you away from the earth for only I and
the sky,
can bear your lightness
every dull
cold spinning remnant of of a vast fury of fire,
circling into itself to fit into the shape of infinity,
long since gone, the last bits of you form
a raw shape of my being, draw my soul into substance
fall away, dissipate, and unlike everything else
you join nothing
do not begin again.
and so much more
you take it all with you and
I have no words to tell that
no one can hold onto the last of anything,
you are no more
Lee Turpin Jan 2013
I have you head in my head
spilling out like coffee light
one morning when we were in a cafe
after court
a green day
time was sewn up like like a rip in reverse

I felt myself tip toward you like
the western hemisphere toward the sun in summer
drawn in
you were the moon
I was the shore

your skin was warm
the river pulled at us
you were so warm
you held me up

one night you smiled at me that way
and turned around again and I kept watching you
the chilly night air and streams of smoke made it obvious
that they belonged to us

I felt a good thing then
when I was there with you
Lee Turpin Jan 2016
I've been so close to death
weeped before dancing
in its wailing white glare
now
I don't know why
it makes people cry
Lee Turpin Jan 2015
hold on to me
we only have a little while,
left in these aching human shapes
it won't be long,
my sweet sweet love
it won't be long
Lee Turpin Aug 2014
he steps through the door frame
looks back for a moment
a shadow of the way I looked behind us
up the creek’s darkening canyon walls
when I asked him if he was afraid
and over and over
each time he said no
and waited for me
lovely

he turns again, inside out
and now the door is locked
now his eyes rise
look up and wide
far down the road past the car waiting
with everything except the ones
he’s leaving behind and the trees and the water and the light
in the home that has loved him very much
that he has loved, too

little breeze through the leaves
oak whispered quiet thoughts to me
in that winter
he was brave and bare open
child-like, the way Jesus said
and laid forgiveness down around him
lost all his leaves to the ground
to be soft
when I came back to him broken

in that dark, he was the only thing
he let me press his bruises and hurt his bones
when I wrapped his hands too tight
to keep from falling into space forever

sunday morning I sit and burn into the quiet
he’s left now and the suns gone too
farther and farther
consumed by a tunnel of hungered trees
now, only time will know
what is to become of us?

oak stretches forward stronger limbs
from the center of being
this new-born courage
is still like a hillside wildflower
so I walk careful with heavy footed words
study thoughts as a lesson,
and do not touch the soft

love through silence deepening
this time, he must stay free
goodbye until then lovely oak
Lee Turpin Jan 2016
in the morning
to wake to the dissatisfaction
the kind that only sleep envelops
to stir to stir
and wander into long halls
of a million doorways
in one: a simple smile
another, painted earthenware and a child's laughter
a third: needles before euphoria and neurotransmitters
pouring out into blackness
the next: a single blank page and a sigh echoing out of eternity
the doors stretch farther than I can see
contain more than I can bear
cigarette ashes, beloved footsteps fading away, a thousand different accidents with a thousand different grief-ends, a foreign home, one white bird in a flock of black, tie dyed bed clothes, a foggy road, a scientific discovery, a one-night stand with an unforgettable face, a creaking porch screen door, lost pets, piles of bills, purple lightening, long hair, a fathers tears, a city of bare concrete and rain, a moment beside a wood stove, a lost job, a yellow poppy on a green hill, a bottle of whiskey, a tarantula behind the toilet, a convenience store on a special block's corner, ****, last messages, pill boxes, promotion, a long exam, a homeless man,
in one a wedding, in another; divorce papers
hospital rooms, persian rugs, leaking rooftops, eye contact
some doors locked with years lost
some with no turning back
oh
sometimes I can reach the very last ****, to touch for a moment
the room with death itself
but I wander still for there are many more
wander whispering prayers
no guide but a burning light, following always
the center of being
Lee Turpin Jan 2011
In spring I was born and I stood and watched
an arid landscape, indeed,
pale dust meeting suddenly
a single drop of water
a gray sky, as wide as those gray eyes,
the perfect storm.
Then with a rush, April showers poured over me as I stood,
and I could not bear the noise. I whispered
you cannot take this out of me, to ears that never heard.
The soft ground I had known turned to mud.

Summer came when the gray evaporated,
asserting its presence with bare heavy heat and blinding light.
I fought a weight that pushed me down,
but somehow pulled green things up from the ground towards the sky.
The hours were months from sunrise to sunset.
Sounds, from a distance, as if time was laughing,
sounds in my sleep, I struggled to follow.
Through dull numbness, slowly, it came to me
that something
was not right.

By Autumn I was no longer standing
I’d fallen to my knees
rustling red and orange leaves brushed over me like a fiery challenge to an approaching chill, only echoes
of something behind that had mattered.
Only echoes in emptiness, now.
The gray came again, settling on me as death on an old man
suitably, gracefully, I felt no fear.
Cold phantoms brushed across my cheeks and through my hair
I lifted ready eyes up to the fading light.

And it came, winter.
Cold air lifting the dullness of summer,
leaving me exposed to sharpened visions of realization.
Vivid and cool white, the touch of affectionate finger tips.
Icy breaths repeated to a slowing pulse to life
Everything quickly becoming clear and defined in the falling darkness.
and as I looked out from deepening black to that world moving away from me
I smiled, for this peace,
at last
at the end.
Lee Turpin Jul 2010
I had this friend, he liked to scream
(every kind of scream)
He screamed at police cars, screamed at incoming phone calls
He screamed at the mirror, screamed for ice cream
He screamed over the sound of the vacuum, under the sound of collapsing walls

Sometimes the sound gathered crowds
(it was a truly remarkable sound, never even slightly modest, entirely desperate)
He screamed his nightmares, screamed at those pills
He screamed at his feet, he screamed at the clouds
He screamed at my hands, at the dust gathering on window sills

He screamed his laughter
(what a *****, haunting melody)
He screamed my secrets, screamed into the carpet
He screamed at the ball drop, before, during, and after
He screamed at that word, screamed at a kiss on the television set

He screamed that he wasn’t crazy
(through the crack under the door)
But they sent him away anyway
They told me he wasn’t real

I know that’s a lie because I can still hear him
is happiness the unquestionable right?
Lee Turpin Apr 2015
a sharp blow
swung out by
you,
who was thought a friend

produced a small hole
at the base of my skull
behind my left ear
ringing echoes inside
and shining sparks down
the splits of the mystical dendrite forest
thicker than thieves,
illuminating
the deep and dark of me

and out of the hole
comes some stuff of wisps,
lavender colored dust
with quiet rays of glimmer flickering all through it
floating and curling in the air thick as smoke

is that stuff me?

then it settled in a fine layer on my lashes
and my alveoli
and my eyes were filled with a vision
time slowed as we moved faster
slowly closing my eyes and then

I was in the porch of my infant home
on a late afternoon when there was the first breath of relief from the heat.
but in the familiar air there was a deep stillness
unsettling as I had never known it
and I looked out into the back yard, and over the tree line there
in the distance was a towering wall of dark clouds
and wind whipped through the line of trees

I closed my eyes and when I opened
I was with my little brothers sitting on the cold tile
of the patio of our home in Costa Rica
and rain was pouring down in lines from the sky,
thick sheets running off the slats on all three sides
I got up and stepped into the rain
Mayala reached out for me and said "¡ joelle, NO !"

this time when I closed my eyes,
I opened them but there was no longer anything
and in fact there was no longer vision at all
I tried very hard to remember what vision was.

I suddenly realized
there was not much left of me.
I felt the purple mists of me going out with the wind
to become the nothing
time moved forward with grace
one step, and two
then
it was all done.
Lee Turpin Dec 2011
my faces are the
about faces, my little breaths
are little deaths
I am like your cry at night

my time of day is seconds before dark
when suicide is a life-long contemplation;
a standard deviation from the sidewalk,
and the sunset is a reason

my day is the day when
suddenly,
your addiction makes you sad instead of happy
so why don't you stop

my breaks are all the breaks and
window sill stair fire escapes
used for smoking under-age
I've got it figured out early

my ocean beats against the rock of ages
I'll raise my fist and ***** on my own defiance.
I'm aching over my forgiveness, begging,
is Jesus still in pain?

well
Lee Turpin Aug 2013
beastly
you promised
to break me in
like a rich mans house
promised you were right
and liked to slide me under your shoe
and bring it down hard

thought I belonged
to the cracks I created
one second thought you won
you didn't expect me

beasty best
layered like mahogany
cobra dangerous
with the same weight as the sky
pounding canyons into skin
beat of the earth blood
glistened eyes threaten pray
subtle as thunder
black leopard sleek

my stare undoes you
I take you away in pieces
Lee Turpin Apr 2011
prelude
wake up into crystalline air
can feel
the swaying trees pull up the body
waiting for dreams to run
wash
off

no one can imagine what the waker has seen
the glow of love through a pure heart like light lost in honey

-

I'm sorry for interrupting. I just have
Too much to
Say:

I know

You understand the way salt tastes on my tongue
I understand the way you sit in the middle of the universe
Right next to me
Poking holes into my skin
with which
to fill with words
Painting pictures like drawing bridges
Over these mile high canyons
Standing at every side

these* these words spread like openings into the ice
pride as you asked to see a face I had never before shown

Towers of words and I say
See things simpler
To myself
but already I see them as they are
Like the moon behind the cloud three nights ago
pulling at the edge of the sea

I moved to your gait
To gravitate towards feeling
Like moths
shimmering
The incoming tide
reaching for humanity




your silence takes a shape into mine
How could something so much like light be possessed?
How could you clasp to your bones, a wave that pulls eternally at the shore?
you make me think, I was thinking

I think he would have said
don't you see it has to be this way?

one         small         point                in the dark

How would it be,
otherwise.
Those angel’s hands shaped perfectly (as always they were)
on your neck

and you would have said you’re saying
pointing into the dark,
your weapon words stand so small next to your mortality
and
I love you with nothing

A man without a heart is
a gentle threat
A man without a heart
Lacks only what you hold in your hands

A slip into abstraction
How young we were how young
Yet how young were we?

afterword
stutters stilettos
sick skin sick
beautiful
letters
left this morning
while you were away in
mourning
silhouettes
cigarette shadows straining
shadow eyes
in this dim light
old
grammar
makes me ache
in between every line and I wish
you were more human I wish you were
less
Lee Turpin Nov 2014
ticking clocks switching
the night comes sooner each day

every lost detail
another bar from the past
another key cast to the sea.
every last kiss locked away
Lee Turpin Mar 2011
I stay up late because it feels okay at 3am.
I eat toast

I liked weather in far away places
It gave me a reason to call my relatives
Sometimes when you think you have nothing         you forget
They're all you have

I knew you like this and
Before you spoke I knew your words
This was boring, after a while

You're what I'd forgotten
Remembering as I put the kettle on for tea
Lee Turpin May 2015
sometimes I know
sometimes
I am only
a tree
with unbreakable heart
moved only by the wind
Lee Turpin Jan 2011
with my heart
and when it broke, my soul
and with time,  sacred and ethereal, that too
bent beneath you

then it was with only with might
that I was able to hold your head to my chest
as you cried and as

in passing,
you overcame that too

impossible: still I loved you still I loved you *still I loved you
Lee Turpin Sep 2010
You left a gap in your words
expanding between your teeth.
In the lapse of your pretension, I saw your weakness.
I saw it.
Lee Turpin Dec 2012
he pressed any farther and I might explode
bleed with internal bruising
or go home
or sit in my car in the rain and cry
drive out each street in the smooth electric dark

I would have closed myself
in a padded box
ran heavy into the fog
sank deep into wide open black pupils
out of reach

to be impossible to touch
but feel every single thing
like a white burn
or a long knife

to
stare at you and not say a word
not say a word all day
i’m in the middle of an ocean of reaction
and it is perfectly still on the surface over mile long depths
and you’re pounding on the windows of an empty house
slamming your fists into the three inch thick ice of a frozen lake
screaming and roaring as you sit there quietly nervous
I hear you
and you hate me a little bit because you love me too much

but there were swift and silent teeth
sharp as noon
ripping through our paper trails
through my skin and my veins
to my bone

I'm being taken by tremors.

pour your burning coals onto my head
spit into my evil eye
me
Judas
knowing God as guilt and
spilling over with guilt

I drove out every street in the middle of the night
I was coronated by the rain
glistening
with shoulders hanging from the sky
I spun around and around in my head
the trees danced and pulled at each other and at me

and I entered cathedrals
wandered into hallways alone again
with softest footfall
kneeled to cruel earth,
and slowly washed away with the runoff
Lee Turpin Jul 2010
Media: the opportunity to bond with your children.

your big
chance

I turned over a wheelbarrow to make my garden look fancy
but people just kept asking if I killed the gardener.

it got
old

When I said I need you like a hole in my head
I meant I need you bad.

turn left
here

I'll wake up when i'm dead.

so be
quiet

If you close your eyes
everything goes away.
Lee Turpin Jan 2011
Standing in the kitchen window late afternoon heavy in the Southwest United States and he is looking at her and he is thinking and he says it out loud
You are looking so much better
And more so much more
Alive your cheeks are less like the caves and more like
The peaches in the orchard that we walked before the innocence was taken

Through the window old trees converse about the passing breeze and there is a chill in what they say for it is never for us to know.

She turns from the pane and she looks at him and she nods her head and she says
For a time, before it happened, I believed that all things passed and that was so wrong for. Nothing passes, nothing heals, and nothing fades. It is all right here in me like it were the minute before. *She quiets for a breath.

It was not until after, long after that I learned this
That this meant also that nothing dies                                  she looks straight at him now
Nothing dies she says again
Nothing dies and I see the most beauty ever to weigh on my heart
in the face of an illegitimate child disappeared in a swinging screen door or in
the time I am alone awake before anyone wakes up
Or in the neighbors along the way putting a candle in the window for Christmas.             do you understand?
I don’t know why but I live to see these things
I guess because someone must see them. When they come I am the only one that is there to see. And when they pass, they justify my place here and right now, for I am the only one that saw.
The last syllable of her sentence is uttered in a calm note and everything follows and is right,
ugly as it is,
it must be seen and every part of the story is and will be what it is.


They in this moment in this place
among a million
always passing but never passed
always they share the same air, the same words upon this page.

*He has nothing to say so she turns back to the window and its okay and he thinks that he loves her but he does not say it out loud this time.
for kali
Lee Turpin Jul 2010
Hating, biting, kicking, beating
punching, ripping, eating, cutting
crushing, gnawing, pinching, slapping

Taking revenge for love's sake.

Laughing, jeering, talking, shushing
moaning, sighing, calling, *******
Yelling, screaming, slamming, crying

Somewhere amidst this I said "I don't know you but I'm sorry,"
and then I joined in.
Lee Turpin Jul 2010
I wait at the window and I watch her sitting out there in the air, empty and open to the early morning.

I am motionless and I wonder if I went out there and stood looking at her if she would feel in that moment that life and death themselves were the simplest things anyone would ever know and that questions were more fulfilling than the answers. That our brokenness was our only claim to existence.
We would be aware, but untouched. One second would trip on the next and we would surface and the roar would fill our heads again.

She blinks and focuses, she sees me. She looks at me with an apology on her face, waiting for something readable on mine.

Well, I guess I always thought it would feel different in the moment when someone saved my life. I thought I would feel more than this, but all I feel is white.
Lee Turpin May 2011
the sky speaks to me
jet trails
say: its going to be
ok

the small wisp clouds say: what a
terrible
waste
of a mind

the heavy ones say: set your feet
lean towards lake shores

the overcast says: where is my head,
when I cannot sleep

the rain says: come here
the snow says: lay down
the sun says: hang your shoulders from your neck and
laugh with the enemies of your lovers

sunset pulls at ivory, the moon hums
picking up every piece to put it back in the box
chides: you might as well have said so
each star whispers the name of each day
I have lived
its own name is the period at the end of the line

the deep hue says: hello
bending along the line of infinity to
meet the light hue
an exposition of uneven symmetry
it writes on me
a hand gentle on the head of a child:
where are you looking for
it says:
I am not as transparent as I seem when
I am pushed down into the earth by the night
it says: no,
here am I again, born again, in the dew
inhaled once more into heaven

to prove the boast,
sunrise spills out in a violin voice
climbing through a thousand different beginnings
extending from tree tops,
pulling civilization upright
with a breath of wind
it clears its voice

and speaks to me
Lee Turpin Nov 2010
August motionless
like a deep sleep.
One long deep breath  that we took together
exhaled with images of green and blue,
sunlight dancing heavy on a water’s surface above my head.
The sound of slow heartbeats in a warm room filled with open air and drifting light.

Your voice,
whispering aloud to me the words of your favorite authors,
the weakest wind pulls the curtains into the room like phantom arms reaching out for us
from the wild expanse
that spreads away from us outside, just outside.

Expansion to be consumed, to be found out
to find the sun and let it fill us
before it falls away from the earth
before we shut the windows at night
before we wake up.

Walking up away
through green forest away from our nothing
to that lake laying there in the rocks staring at the sun
with an empty face
shattered into a billion silent sparks.

The heaviest moments of September
glittering in your blue eyes
as they slide
and sink
into cold depths of memory.
with half a heart
Lee Turpin Jul 2010
Limping aimless down the sidewalk
You shattered gait
Smelling awfully of smoke and drugs
You shaved head
Grasping a cigarette in both hands
You oversized ugly shoes

No one likes you
Turn the corner and you're gone and I never saw your face

— The End —