"unspools" poems
February bites down—
wind with a switchblade edge,
sky like the underbelly of something dead,
clawing at a season that turns its back,
half-winter, half-wishbone,
stuck in the throat of the year.
Sidewalks crack like dry lips.
Trees wear loneliness like a borrowed skin—
bare, brittle, bracing for something
that never arrives.
The sky stays gray,
an unanswered text.
Days sink like forgotten receipts in my tote,
asking things I can’t answer,
whispering, Didn’t you think you’d feel different by now?
Didn’t I?
The cold is a debt I keep paying in shivers,
in chapped hands, in mornings that taste like spoiled perfume
and dreams of other cities, where I wake up panting,
where I breathe out his name like an epiphany,
and let my eyes sigh closed like a prayer.
I walk through the days like a half-lit hallway,
never sure what I’m looking for,
never sure I’ll find it.
I forget what my hands were made for.
I press my palm against the frost-bitten glass,
just to prove I’m still warm-blooded.
February unspools, soft and slow,
a ribbon of time that never quite ties into a bow,
a breath held too long in a house too small.
And I—
I stand at the edge of the month like a skipped stone,
almost ready to sink, almost ready to fly,
caught in the soft ache of almost,
in the half-light of wanting.
March will come like an answer
to a question I don’t remember,
but tonight, February lingers—
a ghost-limbed thing,
a name I still chase in the dark,
leaving me unfinished,
half-written,
half-here.
Feb 4, 2025
Feb 4, 2025 at 12:18 AM UTC
The morning walk
along our stretch
of shore suspended,
my daughter, alight
with curiosity,
holds the hard husk
out to me in her palm.
Obsidian black
and desiccated,
flecked with sand,
the skate egg case is open
at one end, a nascent tear:
a modest aperture to briny,
underwater amplitudes.
I explain that somewhere
out in the Atlantic—today
tinged cerulean blue and green—
a skate is swimming.
Its diamond shape
soars in subaquatic space,
wings through water like a kite.
And from its body
the color of sand
an invisible thread
unspools for miles,
rising eventually
out of the waves,
enchanted fishing line
into my daughter’s hand.
Oct 20, 2016
Oct 20, 2016 at 12:18 PM UTC
Mothers come gently to our rooms, the sunset kiss on the forehead,
Woven homilies from their baskets of forgiveness and spools of yarn.
But for the grave, this heart its coiled sunset unspools, so long entwined
In woods and seas that redden now into the soul of all sunsets combined.
May 22, 2020
May 22, 2020 at 10:27 PM UTC
I. The Assassin
Smoke and dust
suck oxygen
from his puny lungs
as he rises on an
ancient freight elevator
At the warehouse window,
he assumes a darker mask,
his bony finger
tracing the trigger's curve,
his beady eyes narrowing in
on the slow moving target:
that famous sculpted
head of state
so perfect
in the plaza light
Finally he will plummet -
a bruised puppet
slipping through
a surreal night,
a phantom of smoke and dust
blinking in the glare
of a Dallas lineup
II. The First Lady
Her deep whispery voice
unspools a reel of film:
crowds, blinding sun,
a promise of shade
in the distance,
then a sudden odd quizzical look
on her husband's face
She recalls that moment
of slow motion shock:
that serrated piece of his skull
floating lazily
in a blur
toward
her
bright
pink
lap
Jul 12, 2015
Jul 12, 2015 at 12:53 PM UTC
It's been two weeks
four days and
seven hours since you left
It's cold in the bed. I can see the fog unfurling on the floor around the bed posts. The morning sun burns through the blinds and unspools like liquid metal in patches on the quilt.
*"You're acting crazy" You told me
"I am crazy" I said*
I threw a glass at the door after you shut it. I heard you laugh as you walked down the sidewalk. I heard you laugh as it shattered across the tile.
I fed the cat. Sat down on the floor next to her while she ate. Watched the steam from the teapot tumble through the air. She doesn't purr like she used to.
It's been two weeks
four days and
nine hours since you left.
I'm still picking up pieces of glass.
Nov 14, 2014
Nov 14, 2014 at 2:50 PM UTC
Night binds me blue in blackened silk
elemental sleep stolen by deadest dark
needing rest, comfort, kindness's milk
sifted tears & sobs do leave their mark
still
cold
black
quiet
feels so solitary stark
no escape hatch though I crave release
as wants pull me unto vapoured arms
no succour here I will feel no peace
only bitter pills and swallowed harms
crested light brings harsher days
tattered remnants of coppered dreams
reminds me its the psyche that pays
as fragile silk tears joy at its seams
harsh
bright
bitter
light
of winters mourn
dawns bring the bitten blinded sighs
a glassed in cage for wing clipped birds
oblivion obscura in the masses eyes
ears deadened to my silence unheard
oceans full of childs supple soft bones
his hunters blade glistens the breaks
the wind whispers tortured moans
the sliced knife tip just takes and takes
endless
deep
black
water
the sea swallows me down
Its serene to the point of painful, pretty
this forest where sprites could be at play
no lighter folly for this game is too gritty
secret lair to lead his new lambs to slay
as these vignettes proxy via my dreams
projector unspools reels sickly unsweet
his breath putrefies unpeals my screams
his scent petrifies my heart shale & sleet
hurt
broken
hollow
husk
brittle
a once fierce heart lays flayed.
J.C. littlebird 07/06/2019.
Jun 6, 2019
Jun 6, 2019 at 6:14 PM UTC
⸎⟆⥉⦕⫯⟴ Ode to the Count De St. Germaine ⸎⟆
Dearest Count,
I know you watch and listen.
It is through you I set sail upon this ship of thoughts
To you, to whom, I christen.
These polysemic effulgence do, alas, waxen, wane,
but seldom in vain.
In antediluvian silence drawn,
manifests in hyperborean dearth
a logos, sir in autochthonous rebirth.
Their, hierophantic murmurs will obfuscate,
the omphalos of matter, still inchoate,
where perichoresis in vertiginous tide
the fractal that doth assuredly bide.
A palimpsest of null embrace
where these false augurs drink from hollowed urns,
and time itself forgets to turn.
Perfidious orisons, whisper-thin,
in circumflected aeons spin,
converging on the cusp of naught,
where paradigms in silence rot.
A chrysalis of paradox,
enshrouds the fey, unbridled clocks,
that chime in fugue, then dissipate
beyond the hinge of latent fate...
The pericombobulatory grand design
deliquesces in auctorial decline!
(Syncretic palingenesis unspools,
within the aether’s epistemic pools,
a syzygetic parallax unweaves
the thaumaturgic spoor that time bereaves.)
For naught but vacuous profundities remain,
a simulacrum of the arcane mundane,
where in sesquipedalian grandeur lies
a syllogism clad in grandiloquent guise.
Ouroboric concatenations of antinomian design,
circumvolute within paracryptic paradigms malign,
as obmutescent theogonic vestiges coalesce
in the eidetic zymurgy of aphasic largesse.
Metagnostic palimpsests, fracto-linear and obtuse,
catachrestically wane in hyperchromatic profuse,
whilst locutions, effulgent yet contrite,
obumbrate the paramorphic tautology of night.
A transcendental abecedarium, paralogical and vast,
consanguineous with the inexorable umbrage
of our shared Jungian past,
germinates within the syntagmatic—
Ever relaxed or ecstatic,
Coalesced to pragmatic,
Lugubriously emphatic.
Within this hypostatized ratiocinative mire,
where sophronistic axiom and non-being conspire,
one finds but an echolalic, chimerical gleam,
an ontosemantic palinode to the dream.
The Archetype realized.
The Alchemist mystically re-materialized.
Count, oh Count.
"Wherefore art thou," indeed,
in this : our time of greatest need.
Feb 24, 2025
Feb 24, 2025 at 4:23 PM UTC
Assemble the gang speaking retro slang
Name itself rang future fame and acclaim,
Heard a siren sang, and came to do their thang.
Surpassed and contained,
Unmasked with disdain.
Complaining the gangs to blame,
restraining, not having shame.
Solve a case with a great appetite,
And dang, an even greater Great Dane
Ancient tombs; the disturbed, unearthed, unbound.
Patience. Soon, absurd will be served by a hound
Unlacing the case til it’s off base; the crisis unspools
They’ll finally find the place where the ghouls stashed the priceless jewels
Unresting meddling kids testing theories like litmus,
Caught a ghost reveling amid queries for the witness
Get this;
A jealous menace,
Who thought he could fight the team
With a few fake screams
Some fog and a light screen
Once again, dream team hops in the mystery machine
Off to get soda pops and raspberry ice cream
Jun 12, 2017
Jun 12, 2017 at 8:37 PM UTC
a bag of sand
a dead man's hand
withered but alive on the fractured land
what's a hand to do
without the arm its due
or the muscle and the bone from which the hand took cue
hand wanders the plains
hoping somehand deigns
to interlock its fingers and alleviate his pains
hand curls into fist
weak without its wrist
shaking for the company which it has sorely missed
then fist unspools to wave
for across the sandy grave
another hand is looking for the warmth of hands they crave
one hand makes a sign
then fingers intertwine
if these hands keep holding their bruised knuckles shall be fine
May 20, 2018
May 20, 2018 at 11:51 AM UTC
every story has a beginning, a middle, and an end; and yours begins with her: the girl with steel spine and sunshine smile and a hurricane heart. it begins when she says your name and it sounds like it was always meant for you. it unravels and unspools and suddenly the mark burns on the back of your hands: best friends.
a couple of weeks pass and you make a home out of a bay window. a couple of months pass and you make a home out of each other. a couple of years pass and she is every crevice, every corner of home you keep coming back to. a couple of years pass and her name and her soul and the soft lilt of her voice are stamped like a map on the back of your hand: sister.
they say it ends in middle school. they say that a friendship such as yours isn’t built to last. but the girl carved on the back of your hand never really knew how to listen to what other people say. so she stays.
every story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. and this story is ours, she says, her fingers tracing the lines stretched across your knuckles, finding their way home. ours, ours, ours.
and it begins and ends with us.
Aug 14, 2016
Aug 14, 2016 at 5:22 AM UTC
Pick me up in my dream tonight,
Lead me home through quiet halls of light,
Where sorrow cannot follow,
Where echoes do not weep.
Welcome me beyond the veil,
Where gold bends beneath weary steps.
Let me rest beside You,
While below, my mother lingers,
A figure draped in mourning,
Hands trembling over a name
She will never call again.
I have left her with the ghosts of joy,
I have torn the sun from her sky,
With love spilled from open veins,
Drop by drop,
Like rain that never reaches the earth,
Like autumn leaves too heavy to dance,
The last breath of fading stars.
If only the dead could speak,
If only breath could slip through silence,
I would press my voice into the wind:
“Forgive me, mother.”
“I love you, always.”
Pick me up in my dream tonight.
For the war has quieted in my marrow,
And the sword I have carried, heavy with grief,
Lies rusted at my feet.
Let me fold into the roots of the Tree of Life,
Let the sun warm my hollow chest,
Let my lashes kiss the light one final time,
And as my breath unspools into nothing,
As my body bends to ash, to dust, to light,
I am home.
Apr 14, 2025
Apr 14, 2025 at 8:23 AM UTC