Wailing eyes appear  .  .  .
Dark wings descent under moon,
  .  .  .  Bone break hoot of owl.

Woodpecker reminds  .  .  .
Aches are long in last season,
  .  .  .  Knocking on old tree.

He doesn't know limits.
2 on the wrist and hand on the 3.
The other is out of the window with a firm grasp on the shoulder
slipping.
A hiccup.
slipping as his words have been doing.
slurred don't take caution nicely
it sounded like he said.
A hiccup
he said he wouldn't
he said he's fine
he said he'll be there
he said something
A hiccup
Something red flashes above him
He doesn't know limits

It stops.

All of it.

Not you, however. You can't.

Sun falls, moon rising  .  .  .
Crows splattering throught day,
  .  .  .  Two pieces of night.

Shiftless, sifting the air,
Plunging gyrations,
Crow speak
Hackle, hacking;
Speckles the sky.

Saw the air whittle to smoke,
Black mar in the weir of wings
And mankind muddled in the wraith,
Slowly streams a bread trail
Forth and back;
Black bleeding.

I see your claw tracks,
Dark-digging-sparkle
Plain in the muck,
Needles threading,
A trail of stars.

1

The chards rising.  Am I the praying bird?
In the gleaming sun my bones are negative,
My flesh a cypher walking through the plains
As ghost I move, my dark lord, above me
Flocks swirl and spike. I stand accused,
Your pointed face divining oblivion,
And no redemption in the rains of my
Cliff walk days.


2

I see my shroud pinning on the wires
His legs are razored forks spinning my
Compass from True North. Your dark brush-
Fire wings, the swept wind, wheels and strings
My fate. Such black rhetoric in a burn,
Your caws, loosed perches, on the stakes, picks
My crowning grave. Black dove, your feathers finger
As they slice.


3

Smoke, the cardinal blood caries my teething
Bone, spades my hand without a flight.
Taut, the pulled noose my hooded one
I see my scarecrow’s reflexion, the scar,
Let blood, the seeded droppings end trailed
To my door. Feathers, ferry to carry on
Dowsing downward, black knight of down, to sticks
On extended wings.

Snow covers valley—
Solitary raven staining world,
Love has turned black.

In the long nothings of blackest night
Owl whispers.  Hair of mouse stands,
As only an under sieged without spear
Can and grave vole, simply wide open
On his mat of dead leaves, drying time
And even the hare, without hope, hops
Maddeningly caught in dark labyrinths
Without sight, dear is the silent scream
Of all that was mere, so slim after light,
Night scurry, dash, curled fingers, prey.

Hard rain tapping head  .  .  .
Winter gales come from nowhere,
  .  .  .  What are they saying?

.
Others would scream,
The burning, the flame—
Such seering cold and hollow
Open grave, if they could ever
Breathe in as the dirt piled on
And the graveyard rushed, fell
To bury all that was, doffed flesh
My torment and pain, of my loss,
A name as even the wind forgot
As it wailed, lost, lone, keening
After banshee had spoken,
No— in my skin, others
Would pray, forgive.