"threadlike" poems
Earliest morning, switching all the tracks
that cross the sky from cinder star to star,
coupling the ends of streets
to trains of light.
now draw us into daylight in our beds;
and clear away what presses on the brain:
put out the neon shapes
that float and swell and glare
down the gray avenue between the eyes
in pinks and yellows, letters and twitching signs.
Hang-over moons, wane, wane!
From the window I see
an immense city, carefully revealed,
made delicate by over-workmanship,
detail upon detail,
cornice upon facade,
reaching up so languidly up into
a weak white sky, it seems to waver there.
(Where it has slowly grown
in skies of water-glass
from fused beads of iron and copper crystals,
the little chemical "garden" in a jar
trembles and stands again,
pale blue, blue-green, and brick.)
The sparrows hurriedly begin their play.
Then, in the West, "Boom!" and a cloud of smoke.
"Boom!" and the exploding ball
of blossom blooms again.
(And all the employees who work in a plants
where such a sound says "Danger," or once said "Death,"
turn in their sleep and feel
the short hairs bristling
on backs of necks.) The cloud of smoke moves off.
A shirt is taken of a threadlike clothes-line.
Along the street below
the water-wagon comes
throwing its hissing, snowy fan across
peelings and newspapers. The water dries
light-dry, dark-wet, the pattern
of the cool watermelon.
I hear the day-springs of the morning strike
from stony walls and halls and iron beds,
scattered or grouped cascades,
alarms for the expected:
queer cupids of all persons getting up,
whose evening meal they will prepare all day,
you will dine well
on his heart, on his, and his,
so send them about your business affectionately,
dragging in the streets their unique loves.
Scourge them with roses only,
be light as helium,
for always to one, or several, morning comes
whose head has fallen over the edge of his bed,
whose face is turned
so that the image of
the city grows down into his open eyes
inverted and distorted. No. I mean
distorted and revealed,
if he sees it at all.
2.6k
I’m watching my roommate come to terms with the fact that he actually likes a girl here who likes him back, and in the darkness of the dance floor, a smile curves across my face like his arm around her. They are happy.
I turn and scan the room for a broken bird, a wing clipped by circumstance and bathroom mirrors.
I find her.
Feathers furled, perched on a chair, her presence is threadlike, the stray ones pulled from shirt sleeves, I hold her between my index and thumb and I feel nothing but air between my fingers.
It’s a beautiful kind of lightness. She is a beautiful kind of lightness. Her hair caresses the air around her like satin.
Her eyes wide, sometimes I think it’s from fear, but sometimes it’s from the shadows of happiness that she allows to step on her heels from time to time.
They are amber. I see crystal histories, lattice lines of the past I wish I could know, but she keeps her stories locked in her stunning amber prisons.
I fled from her tonight. In the darkness of the dance floor there was no light to reflect from her amber eyes, so the grip of my insecurities around my neck tightened, and I left.
I wanted to walk to the lakefront. Clamor down the rocks to let the moon lap the water into mist upon my slacks, I could picture my silver tie reflecting the moon back at itself, drifting in the waves before the saturation of obsession dragged it to the bottom of Lake Michigan.
I couldn’t stand the thought of my tie not reflecting your eyes, the gray circle at the edge of your irises like the edge of a stormfront,
Transient thunder could lie behind the next whisper of your voice or closing of your eyes.
I couldn’t stand the thought of never reflecting your light, so I only walked a few blocks. I kept looking to my sides, reminding myself that the moon, and you, were still with me.
My dear, like the moon, our time is waning.
But my dear, like the moon, your amber eyes are waxing, lunar storms always on the horizon.
How I long for the fall of rain.
Aug 27, 2013
Aug 27, 2013 at 6:43 PM UTC
I am ending.
Losing grip on threadlike strands
of vibrant stardust and captured moonlight
Ghosts of shattered glass looking
for solidarity and solitude
Brittle shells crafted from shadows
And silence, screaming silence
resounding in the chambers behind hollow eyes
and colorless irises
over glittering diamond shards.
I am blinded.
meteors expanding in my pupils
Supernovas inside my head
night sky painted on the dome of my skull
Dawn hidden beneath the eyelids
Fluttering open like window shutters
Heaven's eye on your forehead
Crimson claws raking through damp tresses
of dusk and midnight
And daybreak in the cavern of the mouth.
I am close.
Holding onto the descent of heaven's glare
Dust beneath my fingernails
and laughter just beyond my reach
Illumination in my grasp, slipping through
Like liquid sunlight strained
Howling echoes of dread and death
trapped in my ears
Like the choir of the ******
Singing a melody, a prophecy.
I am ending.
Nov 12, 2013
Nov 12, 2013 at 4:09 AM UTC
In reverse of the waddle wheel
the landscape runs back in blow
of winds that take a hair threadlike’s hand
to dance a trickle of pathos
when I swallow.
Not thoughts of of prattle, but roars within struggle
as if time concreted through spaces, still,
to contingency thee confide.
What a subtle heaviness to stand where I shall revel
What a terrible freedom to know what I cannot sail
It’s gonna end.
But until now I can’t even tell
what I am missing,
for what, and by whom?
Sep 27, 2025
Sep 27, 2025 at 10:09 AM UTC