come closer.
I won’t waste breath on lullabies.
I’ve gnawed the years,
spat blood and marrow.
If you want the taste,
the true taste,
take it alone.

Drink alone.
Stagger the road alone.
Laugh till your ribs split—alone.
Howl till your lungs tear—alone.
And when sin claws your door,
let it in,
alone.

Alone is the blade.
Alone is the wound.
Alone is the grave.

Guard your fire,
your shame,
your cursed name.
No one carries it for you.
No one shares the dirt.

When the earth shuts its jaw,
it swallows each skull
alone.

the moon lights a bed of frost.
the wind a storyteller.

are the stars and the sea
still there
when the sky weeps white?

the moon lights a bed of frost.
the wind is a storyteller

and the griffons know the failure
of flesh, flesh and bones

and feeling the bones
in my crooked nose,
I understand sunrise
is not a guarantee.

the sky weeps white.

but the nightingale sometimes
sings to me of you in my dreams.


...(if the nightingale sings of me
then know I hear her too.)

i may drift off
at random moments
upon seeing poetry
in a serendipitous
seemingly miraculous
landmark occurrence
if i'm lucky enough
to notice it
but it's the muse
of the mundane
the poetically banal
that speaks to me
in a clearer voice
it tells of the hair
that clogs the shower
the washing left out
forgotten on the line
in yet another downpour
of two dogs
keeping me company
while i work
it is here
     forever here
that the truest
moments of beauty
will be found