a poem a day while my heart is away*
here i feel the numbness, the dull ache on unkissed lips and ungripped hips
i didn't know what i was missing all those months apart but
but
but now i've tasted freedom and bliss and sin and martyrdom,
and living without you again seems horribly impossible.
we walked amongst dying trees and you held my cold, bony hands in your warm ones,
and i kissed your chapped lips and realized that if every day of my life was like that one, i don't think i'd ever be plagued by my usual sadness again
is it wrong to need you so?
is it wrong to love you so?
thus from my lips, by thine, my sin is purged
i've never loved being broken as much as i do when it's by your hands
and i miss you
and i miss you
and i don't know when i'll see you again
and i hate that

The horse (a creature of blind passion) pawed
The earth beside the silent fallen form
A digger of graves more noble yet … more odd
Than ever I had chanced to see before

His raven mane flashed in the waning light
Which time to time broke through the pressing clouds
His nodding passion and his frothing cry
Failed in their valiant efforts to arouse

Some battle fought long since had caused the wound
That took the rider from the reins at last
And left the steed unmounted in a world
Unknown by journey or by battles past

Dark senses now compelled the ungripped beast
To travel far from sounds of master’s fray
And find some place of tranquil rest at last
Sweet reason’s constant battle’s lost this day

Unreined, unburdened, free to roam at will
The creature’s innate knowledge must prevail
To take the place of Master’s hard learned skill
And keep blind passion on an earthly trail

And I’ll forever follow down this trail
Where passion always leads the lost and least
For I have lost my Master’s voice today
And I am now this roaming, riderless beast

You asked,
"What if my Sunday has passed?
That the week was all I had,
and I messed it up so bad."

And in cognition,
I ungripped my neck.
I saw a counterpart — I was not the only one.

I knew how it was, to dangle by the jagged pier.
And you knew how it was to choke by disregard,
that floating was impossible with a punctured heart.

When each door meant nothing —
used and crossed out in your likeness.
Where I waited for the Sun,
but my windows stay boarded up.

You scraped bottom until my first word fell.

I said,
"I am a prisoner. And I am the prison."
You said,
"I am a cage, with nothing breathing inside."

I was alone. And you were alone.
And then we were alone together.

You unpicked my fearful lips,
for my throated echoes.
And I reminded you that you
are the reason that beauty exists.

Of the endless books we read,
Auster, Hesse, McCullers, Graves,
we still found ourselves
written on the same page.

Our tattoos were marked like scars —
another hopeless attempt
to speak with ink.
Why not mar the skin,
if we lose only grace?
I used to believe perfection was false,
for I had never seen your face.

You pointed out
my large feminine hands.
Then with your modest fingers,
you screened the chuckles.
And all I pictured from that endearing sight —
my effeminate hands, sheltering yours that frigid night.

No longer living in a future that was all talk.
No longer imperfect — for our scars sat perfect with.

We found Sunday.

I am not alone. And you are not alone.
And we are never alone together.

The ocean breeze,
The pinkish sunset,
The sand in my toes,
Your hand in mine.

Your last smile,
My overflowing tears,
My broken scream,
Your ungripped hand.

The moments with you here, the moments without you,
The happy days, the sad ones.

None of those exist today.
Only after images remain.
My eyes beam,
My smile shines.

The ocean breeze,
The pinkish sunset,
The sand in my toes,
My empty hand.

The memory of your smile.

January made any movement feel extraneous, as if something nudged to
haunting irresponse.
Sing Sing Prison was beyond all that, but
never more there--yet not even its
manifestation would have it.
The Mahicannituk (Hudson River)
followed the land two ways--to conceive
more than water.
Ruth Snyder saw that as Sing Sing walled
alive--smothered her prefume, crouched
over lights & coughed out iron.
Queens was a place, this was not--food ate her, water drank her.
A place to make out surroundings that
don't want to be seen, that are put forth
just for deprivation.
"Ruthless Ruth" appealed to her thin frame, dropped it like a hankerchief on
the cold floor.
Almost convincing herself that one's true
nature is unpunishable--as she stood up
again.
"Old Sparky" (name for the electric chair) was seated across from an indefinite coming--its unapproachable presence growing into its features.
Ruth was roaring with the twenties as her lover tried to go thru her--while her
husband wagged his tail somewhere.
So Ruth enlightened his sexless naivety,
with a couple of cold puddles outside of a
long lay.
Her lover (Judd Gray) smacking back his suspenders in answer to a Who Done It.
Their body-exploring-finallys & whispering hot sophications--saw a door
kick open to the rest of the world.
A lot came on in, Ruth needed luxuriating, to writhe on high-end furniture.
See again: "Old Sparky", now it's all about
"Old Sparky"--it was never not about
"Old Sparky".
Led by the hand to a modern-day witch burning, of course there was an audience--they arrived in cathartically shaped veils.
A latched heap, held by safety--holding their peace.
Figuring into the law, & willing to watch
a subcutaneous thunderstorm.
Especially Tom Howard of the New York Daily News, who had a camera strapped to his ankle--expressly told it was for:
Private Eyes Only.
His Life's Work was strapped to his ankle--as The Mahicannituk's current flowed.
He lifted up his trouser cuff & squeezed
the shutter buld, then ungripped it.
The room met the designated height of the switch as it was flipped, its current
flowed.
Ruth conceived something more than electricity, as she made hairpin turns--
blowing toward unsuccessful ejection.
She cocked her head calmly as she watched herself beat leathered husks,
her scalp smoking like twigs.
The witch they came for surged upward, & was restrained as if she were reacting to Latin commands.
If she had the **** for a last meal, a menu put to taste congealed & what thirst there was ran dry.
Tom got his picture, & Ruth was blurrily
venting mid-fry on the front page of The Daily News.
Which read: "DEAD!", the first public picture of its kind.