"fishbone" poems
KEEP a red heart of memories
Under the great gray rain sheds of the sky,
Under the open sun and the yellow gloaming embers.
Remember all paydays of lilacs and songbirds;
All starlights of cool memories on storm paths.
Out of this prairie rise the faces of dead men.
They speak to me. I can not tell you what they say.
Other faces rise on the prairie.
They are the unborn. The future.
Yesterday and to-morrow cross and mix on the skyline
The two are lost in a purple haze. One forgets. One waits.
In the yellow dust of sunsets, in the meadows of vermilion eight o'clock June nights ... the dead men and the unborn children speak to me ... I can not tell you what they say ... you listen and you know.
I don't care who you are, man:
I know a woman is looking for you
and her soul is a corn-tassel kissing a south-west wind.
(The farm-boy whose face is the color of brick-dust, is calling the cows; he will form the letter X with crossed streams of milk from the teats; he will beat a tattoo on the bottom of a tin pail with X's of milk.)
I don't care who you are, man:
I know sons and daughters looking for you
And they are gray dust working toward star paths
And you see them from a garret window when you laugh
At your luck and murmur, "I don't care."
I don't care who you are, woman:
I know a man is looking for you
And his soul is a south-west wind kissing a corn-tassel.
(The kitchen girl on the farm is throwing oats to the chickens and the buff of their feathers says hello to the sunset's late maroon.)
I don't care who you are, woman:
I know sons and daughters looking for you
And they are next year's wheat or the year after hidden in the dark and loam.
My love is a yellow hammer spinning circles in Ohio, Indiana. My love is a redbird shooting flights in straight lines in Kentucky and Tennessee. My love is an early robin flaming an ember of copper on her shoulders in March and April. My love is a graybird living in the eaves of a Michigan house all winter. Why is my love always a crying thing of wings?
On the Indiana dunes, in the Mississippi marshes, I have asked: Is it only a fishbone on the beach?
Is it only a dog's jaw or a horse's skull whitening in the sun? Is the red heart of man only ashes? Is the flame of it all a white light switched off and the power house wires cut?
Why do the prairie roses answer every summer? Why do the changing repeating rains come back out of the salt sea wind-blown? Why do the stars keep their tracks? Why do the cradles of the sky rock new babies?
4.4k
When the moon retires running her length
the river lies a fishbone on the white plate
feebly breathing like the slosh from oars,
the shadow digs a hole in the bush.
The faintest chill rattles don't escape
and the chatters dull as broken notes,
the shadow picks up from the mist
with the intent of an absorbed dreamer.
The gold diggers in that forbidden land
filter their preys keen to fill some more
from the mines lining the grey riverbank
with each reap a little closer to attainment.
The precise compass weighs the measure
tightening the muscles into a symphony
for that climb onto the ****** in one spring
before stealing the stilled, deep into silence.
Aug 8, 2018
Aug 8, 2018 at 10:04 AM UTC
Dowsing shiver your hybrid morality until there stand no more alabaster temples on the hills of our nations. Erupt fantasy and realize fate. Find a lost camera and hang someone else's pictures all throughout your house.
The Golden Riddle of justice is a fishbone; it's arc bends eventually to the point that it slits your throat. Carbon fiber courage swallows blood though.
Jun 16, 2013
Jun 16, 2013 at 8:48 PM UTC
“Can you state your emergency?”
“There’s been a lung collision.”
He’s stealing your breath, darling I can’t feel your lungs
What an aberration, forced to bleed the river of an emotion
You were never taught to feel growing up
I think nobody told you how to feel a colour so hard
Crimson on your neck, on your chest
But I cannot find a wound
Your breath feels like knives
But it’s funny, you’re dying
You’re trying to tell me something
It sounds like the kind of thing you would say right at sunset
Slurring your sevens like you have mints on your tongue
But you are only gasping for air
Marble gazes
Your eyes are lolling back
They are the same eyes that have cut through me
The same eyes I’ve always thought were beautiful
When you were sad
You are weak and you are failing
Completely unlike the times
You would walk in like a sandstorm
No less powerful than a serpent
Beautiful
Now you are trying to speak
“Feels like a fishbone dislodged in my lungs”
And you laugh
You are laughing and you are dying
And this night still feels like day
I tried scraping out the difference
Between guilt and self-loathe
But the answer only lies on the blade of this knife
Maybe I could tell you I don’t know what I did with it
The reason we are not sure from which wound
This blood is seeping from
It wasn't just a lung collision
It was the explosion of a galaxy in your chest
When your ribs bent and cracked
Now they are broken, dust
You are breathing in rust
But it does not matter because you are dying
In the distance there is the sound of sirens
They are coming and they might be far too late.
Jan 28, 2015
Jan 28, 2015 at 8:45 AM UTC
Desperate friend, you've come again
with weight and wintry wind
With each new day
the warmth slips away
Autumns closing in
September sheds her tapestries
of jewels, moss and vine
Underneath her Earth exposed
to fishbone roots and toothpick pines
A phantom with penalty
white lines, white light, white lies
Slaughtering the last breath of hope
for one more Summers night
A somber ode to Winters fate
In a polar prison the soldier waits
One more night closing in
the good ones sleep
the bad ones sin
Autumns closing in
Northern star, midnight moon
dearest friend, faithful bloom
Become the light we desperately need
Oh restless mind, plant your seed
little by little
Oct 28, 2016
Oct 28, 2016 at 5:28 PM UTC
Reach out with a fish bone finger to touch the face of youth.
Using the senses to recall what life once felt like.
Reach out with a fish bone hand.
Wrap it around the shoulder of death,
Make him a welcome guest, so that he may bring you peace and comfort.
Reach out your fishbone arms.
Embrace the soul of winter.
May its cold nature light a fire in your bones.
Lay down your old fish bones
Lay down that old skeleton, so you may find a new kind of skin
Jun 12, 2011
Jun 12, 2011 at 10:28 PM UTC
A fishbone's image on the wire
in the orbital district,
the white coated scientists are embargoing
this news discovery about Mars.
Grimsby is too far from home
MacFisheries here already
Liptons on the Way.
Oct 8, 2012
Oct 8, 2012 at 2:41 PM UTC
proper verbalization is impossible when all emotions build up
into a castle of nothing
where all i'd like to do is throw you down a spiral staircase
and leave you there to decompose.
my heart is a tomb and i've dug you out.
so young, and willing
to go along with all requests
and just believe there's love where there isn't.
misty led me to the fishbone dreamlife
and i let myself get lost among the ribs.
your ribs.
they're bruised.
when you laugh you ache
when i push you burn.
and now the thought of you in pain isn't in regret, nor delight, just apathy.
i once was a chain smoker.
one after the other,
and i'd come back later for more.
but there's only one cigarette left
burned down to the filter and i don't want anymore.
of course, i'm rather fickle so generally i'll go back for more
but is it out of genuine want
or addiction?
do i stay in this bed of tobacco
locked in it's embrace out of habit?
could i walk away?
can i?
Oct 18, 2011
Oct 18, 2011 at 5:06 PM UTC
The assumption’s success is exciting
that danger too
is too and
that that again for you
there are too many of these words for suspense.
Assumptiosly,
I’m picking thorns from the lips the years
used to tell you you
have less faults than a rose.
Probably I’m a fishbone’s softened point
as red as roses aren’t without the ******
that made the same red as half the red
on your hands already.
It’s time and
again to tell you in as many and as broken
as entire houses hand blown and probably painted
like goose egg words that
I add Salt to things I like and need to keep
longer than this no understatement
I’ve made you an ocean filled full of fish bones.
I ate oceans feeling fishbones breaking;
breaking;
breaking;
breaking
me, talking to you like chopping a tree onto myself.
Even if words or not are in the right order
do or don’t you understand do or don’t you?
Aug 25, 2014
Aug 25, 2014 at 2:26 AM UTC
It’s the first time and
again to tell you
I’m as broken as an entire house hand blown and probably painted
like goose eggs.
And again, Salt’s all I add
to things I already like, it’s
no understatement I’ve
made you an ocean filled full of fish bones.
I assume success is exciting
that danger too
is too and
again that for you
there are too many words.
Peach,
bear,
broken,
syrup,
or-terse,
are not enough to get life to work like you but
are enough to get life to work for you.
When or not in the right order
you do or don’t understand don’t or do you?
Necessarily,
I’m picking thorns from the years
andagain lips used to tell you you
have less faults than a rose.
In essence and again I’m a fishbone hut
in a **** storm and again
roses aren’t as red without the ****** that
may or may not have made the same red as
half the red on your hands already, and again,
I eat/ate oceans and am fishbones
breaking me brings no wishes or good luck
or and again I’ve choked children and
again talking to you is like chopping a tree onto myself.
Jul 19, 2014
Jul 19, 2014 at 8:50 PM UTC
My sweet little mollusk,
You polish the sea-tangy sand dollars smooth with the soles of your feet
You fill up your sweet siren lungs with a sun-sated breeze and submerge your bare fingers
Until they can sweep the slippery silt of the seabed abyss. I can’t sleep.
Your anemone fingers trace watery ripples through the ebbs of my dreams, trailing streams
Of fluorescent-blue algae sunk deep. Your barnacle tongue shatters ships
Into ruinous splinters of treasure. I kiss
The cerulean ocean that hides in your lips.
My sweet little scallop,
The galloping waves break the curves of your shallows.
There are flecks of unpressed sea salt brine in your irises, tireless riptides of foaming-bright promises.
Your skin has the silvery sparkle of scales that effervesce endlessly, bending beneath the fierce tides of your palmprints.
I’m dropping. The current caresses your cheeks’ fishbone hollows, rethreading the necklaces strung out of seashells.
You bury your face in the swells of the tempest. I envy
Your azure, I worship your lapis.
My sweet little mussel,
Your tussled cyan-coral hair is unbleached, unleeched and resplendent
I am rendered transcendent by the green iridescence of your silk seaweed whispers. I have drowned in your splendid.
I can still hear your aquamarine through the white roaring waves cracking onto the shore.
I want more. Your crustaceous sand whirlpool has nestled below the soft curl of your chest. You press the world’s oceans in the dip of your palms
And drink deep from the waves swirling under.
I’ve drowned in the water-spilled seas that are cupped in your hands,
I have drowned in the pearls of your wonder.
Mar 9, 2020
Mar 9, 2020 at 12:15 PM UTC