The water is always calmest at night, sometime around one or two on the Carolina coast. It’s right around the time the moon has grown tired of pulling the earth towards it; when its hands are shaking from holding in something so big, when the water takes a little bit longer each time to kiss the shore. I’ve learned to love how the water looks at night, it seems more selfless to me than it does during the day when the sunshine reflects the peaks and breaks of each wave, when the water is clear and you can see into every part of it. It’s different at night, it becomes a blackened mirror reflecting only the images of those awake long enough to see it, and it’s much more humble- to show off other people.

In the Deep South
There is always a woman
In an apron calling out to her kids
Warning them to hurry in
Or the corn bread might get cold
The kids couldn’t care either way
And at their age
Food doesn’t taste as good as
The marshes feel around their ankles

They’re just young enough to be nourished
Off of adventure alone
With sticks in hand
Grazing the tops of half-way grown
Up to their heads wheat

In the Deep South the outside
Is still the Wild West
Where you can walk a few blocks
From your front yard
To deserted boulevards
You can’t but a greeting card
From.
And among all the untamed
Nature and desolate fields and lakes
There is so much space
For kids to create

In the Deep South
Kids see broken down Chevys
As breeched kingdoms
Open fields as battle grounds
Littered with rocks that look like grenades
Every vacant marsh a ****** planet
Where you use overall clasps
As radios to your fellow astronauts.

Why would anyone be in a rush
To come home
To something so real
As Mama’s cornbread.

SHOTS  .   .
.     .*         ANGRY   .
      .           .
       SHOTS   .    .
.         .                      MANIC  
SHOTS  
  . . .      .
    .        UNFORGIVING     .
                                  
                          ­ SHOTS
.         .          .
  . ...       . RING OUT IN THE NIGHT  .  .

DEATH   .      .
                    HUNGRY
    .           .         .
                      .                DEATH
.      .  ­       THIRSTY  
  
DEATH    .         .

.           ******    .      .

                             DEATH
.              .
             FEEDING OFF LIFE

THEY DO NOT GIVE BACK
           NOR SECRETS THEY KEEP
                 THEY TAKE WHAT YOU HAVE
                            SORROW THEY LEAVE
.             .                     .
     *.   .         SHOTS    .        .      .

This is how I’ll end;
not with a bang or a bonfire,
I’ve saved an apple for the pale rider’s horse,
and will smile when he bends down from the saddle
to carry me away.

My Soul has fallen in love with Sorrow
they make love and call it poetry.
My Spirit thinks he has overstayed his welcome.

I tend to

Hope something can be done

as if nothing will ever be done

Wishing

I could've gotten something done

as if I've hibernated for the 15th year in a row.

I'm wishing

Wishing

Wishing

I would just die

as if believing that I may as well.

Warm water turned cold

by winter's flair, And the memory

is still there

folding like its own waves. Hear blood rushing in your ear,

the memory speaks

to you through conch shell. Its sussurus

sounds blue, warm black,

hues of a silvery orange, gold green. And when you step

in the water you think of

the way it had reflected your gleeful posture. The way everyone

advanced on the

translucent blue with texture like crumpled paper. When ice

did not threaten your toes

but instead gave all limbs flight. All this

undefinable like jazz...