you grow your beard out a little in may and look
like a flyboy in 44 with a soft face, soft mouth
just toughing it out to get home to apple pie and books
the one with the glasses, so to speak.

new, but in a way that says "if i shaved it
i'd be cutting away the memory of every bead
of sweat i shed in the time that this all grew"

and you look at me and god
those are .50 calibre eyes
green as the pacific
clamouring with all the pain and silence
of its little islands.

"do you know that feeling when you
realise that you don't quite know
what you're missing (if
anything)
and never will?"
ideally i'd give you a level look: "yeah."
i want you to ask.
even if it's your last question and
a black sheep amongst all the others.
in reality i wouldn't look up again.

star of infant light within my chest:
shriek not as you do, shear not the rope
that wound me round this stake at self's behest
and lit the flame and poured the oil, alone.
for coring out the essence of the fruit -
that which by none is truly named -
will ruin it, tamed and mild the beast then broods,
never to recognise its place nor Wild retain.
cruelty impassable? no: taste of Truth,
like glistening auburn leaves, the chapel glass,
chopin breathing in your room, sunrise from roofs,
a boon from chance, air pregnant ere the fact.
deprive me, flickering star, of mystery fire
and watch the world compress (and i expire).

i can't wait to wear my skin proudly when we live together
all secrets bared like teeth and summer i imagine us
in stolen five-star hotel robes, white morning walls, you sipping
orange juice pen in hand, me nursing a coffee
you're either writing a poem or a poem is writing you
i think to myself 'absurd'
people will pay hundreds of dollars to stay
in a wide room with velvet curtains for one night while
i get to stay with you for years and never
once do i notice a bible in the drawer or
any other little thing that could make a sane girl
go mad. anyway with you i've got
a much better view.

that first morning your blinds were making
a hymn on the floor out of the sun.

pull a thread of baldur's hair and
it coils out to an endless etymology
of you. bashful eyes, funny lined teeth
with a quill tucked behind,
censoring in fir green. it seems
asleep as you grow quiet
and by some humming band of unknown
particles in your magnetic field a
full creature just walks on out,
tail and all, weird and pretty as hell.

that first month the sun and i were both
shivering expectantly in a doorway.
how could i have known what it meant
when the proverbial wasp landed on your shoulder?
maybe i did. pulling those memories from their jars
yields only honey and one dead bee.
now, i don't feel even a line differently
from how i did, about to take root
when i woke up to you. now is more
whiskey in the woods than pabst on the beach.

in older days we were not fazed
to tarnish precious coins of time;
to drain the sea, to turn our cheek
with faith in opaque lies.

the mines were dug, the grids were plugged
in endlessly. we erased all thoughts of ends.
beyond our reach, the future breached
filthy seafoam; surely not the fault of men.

the warp & woof of history
met blades sharp with centuries
(inevitably).

there was laughter when we saw the tide -
now "..." grows where green has

died.

A pallid page: laid out for guillotines
Of chickenscratch all frantic in a trek
Across that indifferent monstrosity.
The lines ascend, but tend to end a wreck.
This certain fate stalks they who brave the Blank:
To crumple and to crease, to never cease
‘Till but the wiliest, weathered words remain,
Stalwart, scarred; final heralds of the peace.
What end is sought in this warmongering?
That question’s murk curses humanity.
Minds have been known to yield to stronger things…
the dinner bell, perhaps insanity.
Yet brave these squabbling syllables we must
Else face the terror of collecting dust.