Eyes wild, ringed red, gazing out of the page --

   the watcher over the wilderness
   does not sleep.

In the forest primeval
   there is a glade — the real world
   of our filth bleeds in
   drop by drop, reddening
   the sky, and Öli
       witnesses all.

Haunted by apparitions
   of fear, figments
   coming to presence,
   barely corporeal in the dappled sun,
   the great owl knows better
       than to turn away from the unknown;

The aperture, sealed, was yet
   made to be opened, and though
   the devil tree, screaming blood, vomiting
   anguish into the wastes, was felled
      and the blasted heath reclaimed by the forest,

Daring trees grow sparsely
   and wither around the gnarled stump
   where He who has seen too much
   waits, hoping that stupid ******* coyote
   does not bring the city back with him

      ...again

This noise out-shouting
                        the signal

grotesque and unspeakable
the blunderbuss of all cøcks
           at its veiniest throb
        clubbing voices to death
        with tangerine pomp

        thrusting turgidly down
     liberty's throttled gullet on a bed
        of rusty newspapers and
       celebrity dishrags

leaves little time for hope,

needs many hands to bring it
to flaccid silence
          where it belongs.

            Many fists to soften
        oppressive skulls for the world to see
                and find the inspiration
                                                to act.

My bedroom was so large,
and I was so small.

Cleaning it was such a task,
when organization
was so new, a nascent skill.

I didn't know then,
but I might have had a brother,
and our family was too poor.
Once, Mom was late, and
exercised her reproductive rights.
But afterwards, Dad
wondered aloud
if it was the right thing.

Bad timing.

And she hated him for two years,

starting here.

And when she found me in a pile of toys,
having failed at my singular task,
I can only imagine

   what she must have been thinking,
   when she took hold of my wrists,
   and suddenly the world spun

      the walls a kaleidoscope

a wail tore forth from her lungs,
a sound I'd never heard.

   And -- for a moment --
   I was flying

      a moment of weightlessness

      the moment she let go of my wrists

      the moment my spine hit the bedframe

      the moment all the breath exited my body

      the moment of silence in the wake

Never had she done such a thing.

      The moment the shockwave hit --

the moment my cry was truncated
with a "Shut up!"
And she could never admit that it happened.

It hurt her too much to know
that it did. I learned

that empathy is
a cross to bear, that some words
twist the knife
in someone else's skin.

So much

goes into being
    only just

a cold,
   dead,
      thing.

The hunt begins. The fur
of the white wolf
beckons me forth, along the trail
into the woods.

The smoke is the reminder of Her
initiatic journey.
The trap is set.

    She guides me into it.

Hope is a clever animal.

Pondering the inverse
relationship between
desire and disappointment:

After many lessons,
Anxiety answers Hope,
an I for an i.

The I formulates desire;

The i learns the folly
of attachment, and instinct
holds sway, a balloon

filling with
oxygen, a balloon

popping.

Needed what I never got --

got what no one should have --

now I yearn for what no one should,

and it hurts like
a dog tethered in the yard
barking its fool head off

and no one is coming home