Woodland child, you have lost the moon
to walk a path, dark of fallen trees
sorrow of your sacred homeland camps besieged
the old ways buried, deep the red earth swallowed
all the precious souls, have flown far into the endless night of eagle
feathers swirl, scattered at this ancient altar

In the ashen air
always your heart remains, your wisdom blood breathes
like the sun of fire, your dance of vivid painted colors
surreal dream of Tishomingo, trading beaded leathers
through the ages, children rooted in trees and fields
medicine men smoked in visions of waterfall suns
all of our days, deep this bloodline runs

Yiska gobbed
on the window pane
in the locked ward.

I stood next to her
and gazed out
the window.

Snow was on the fields
and on the tops of trees.

She smelt
of carbolic soap.

The spittle dripped down
the glass pane.  

Couldn't sleep,
Yiska said.

Bad dream?

Each day
is a bad dream.

A rook disturbed snow
on a tree top.

What doesn't **** us,
I said.

Turns us mad,
she said.

Makes us stronger,
I read some place.

Are we stronger?

Slow snow flakes
drifted by the window.

She wiped the spittle
with the sleeve
of her long
purple night gown.

I don't dream
of him any more,
she said,
don't dream
of the ****.

The word hung
in the air about us
like an angry bee.

What do you
dream about?
I asked.

The church,
the altar, people
watching me
in my white dress,
but not of him.

Has your mind
shut him out?

Hope so.

The snow fell harder.
Black birds
took flight
into the grey dawn.

What do you
dream about?
She asked.

A bell rope,
a tower,
ticking clock.

She sighed.
Her small ****
seemed stiff
in the dawn light.

Have you stopped
slitting your wrist?

So far.

That hanging attempt
had those nurses
******* themselves
with panic.

I recalled the face
of a nurse
mouthing words
through the small panel
of glass that evening.

Someone
turned on the radio.

The night nurse
gazed at us
by the window.

We saw her reflected
in the window
as if in a mirror.

Plump in her uniform,
her dark hair
tied in a bun.

Yiska moved away
leaving her carbolic perfume
on the air like
a disturbed memory.

I just continued
to vacantly stare.

In what hidden pain
says he

*I'll never love again.

When I am traveling, long  
the days and sweat of trains, window games  
play of strangers, lonely stray
and I with no escape, but my mind to fly away
will meditate, sink deep into my seat
to disappear, into other worlds
far from my destination
derailed from expectation
like the mad seeking of the sun
when only moons will come
awaiting a friend, a hand to hold
the lonesome of traveling alone

You cannot polish a heart,
there is no tarnish remover for sale

once,
a thought exists,
then always, extant

once a feeling felt,
there is no erasure,
no white out,
just another wear and tear
to thy fabric added

it enters and infects,
no surgery can excise,
chemo and radiation
leave scars
and remainders

certain sadnesses are unreadable,
even if counterbalancing weights worn,
we are the sum
and the summation,
we are the holy ghost
of everything
we have ever known,
even if we did not
father it

a storage facility,
you rent permanently,
for the "stuff"
you don't want
but can't discard,
pay dearly for that inability

the poetry,
an artifice,
a cheaply hired psychologist,
a rented imaginary friend,
from whom there are no secrets kept

I am not delusional
or deluded

there is a new tiredness in me
that I did not ask for
and sorry to have met

now a parcel I must carry
like the delicious awful testing images
of one's own end.

there was a joy here for me once,
a day and way
of atonement in my
writing and reading

and though it is 400am
and here I am
writing again,
I surely expect
the music genie
to play for me
"the thrill is gone"
any second,
for it surely is....

once upon a time,
in that chair,
could easy poem
and easy write
but the thrill is gone,
the love "of it"
upped and disappeared
the weave and the woof
"of it"
not the same

cannot get that tarnish removed,
the commemorative wall plate visible crack'd
though reglued,
the cracks are
mirrored images reminders
of what I feel I have lost,
and what is sadly indeed,
just a commemorative now

full in a heavy way,
self-absorption ended, really,
my paper towel self
a soaked ragged mess,
the more it wipes,
the more it spills...

a fullness that comes
from human hate
a sidebar loud, all overhear,
in the courtroom of
humans racing
"to excel,"
they misunderstand,
as they just finger point
to their own chest blasting,
look I got into harvard,
made a million,
but I am still a major *******
in a grand tradition

this stuff has ashen pilloried me,
everywhere in my
not so red anymore blood

I am not delusional
or deluded,
or even depressed,
just weary,
tarnished,
and
writing this does, releases nothing,
changes nothing, makes, improves nothing

the stitch in my side still there,
saying poetry, nice but who cares,
what once was fair and comely,
now just ordinary fare, unlovely
a McDonalds of common words

once the poetry of hate is writ,
it cannot be deleted,
a curse upon all
that abused this child so,
your promotional coupons
are discarded
with today's newspapers
and tomorrow and even today!
no one will care
about this or the
mismeasurement markers of no glory
or of hate, or the
pseudo popularity you create
or relish into thinking of yourself,
as valuable

tell me I am wrong,
tell me of New Year's Day
start overs,
will be grateful
for your trying,
your counterbalancing attempts,
if genuine, are
truly glorious

even if the thrill is all gone,
your trying to untarnish me,
well, every little bit helps
at the very least
gets me sets me,
down more evenly,
untilltng the lean of what ails,
ever so less

but the tilt,
the tarnish,
is immeasurable like divinity


here is where,
I leave it and
the fast approaching sabbath,
depending where on  your calendar
it resides,
can be both a weekly ending
and/or a beginning,
but a sabbath rest from the garbage of words,
by humans abused,
un blessings saying I am better than you

so, a place, a time to start,
to polish over just a tad, the stains
of what cannot ever be deleted,
cleansed
even if it is pseudo-gone from the internet