I have welcomed you back, my love
Welcome back to hell.

I issued a fair warning to the call-man
On the watchtower, I told him
          “Would you believe this if I told you?”
          “You tell him that I am coming for him!”
          “. . . and there will be more than hell to pay. . .”

More than I could have ever dreamed. . .
His blood is my blood
&
My blood is his.
I will drown in it one day.

He walks slowly into the center of my vision.
I smell a false sense of fear,
Was it I or him that reeked of this
Blurred illusion of what we both shook from?
I heard a child’s laughter in the fog (again)
Was it I or him that brought this
Old demon back in?
I saw a trembling hand raise
As the fire blazed in and out
A knife became shape (again)
Was it I or him that first reckoned this
Evil deed of sin?
I felt the blade slide in (again)
Was it I or him that took this
Task, this burden, this dream
And crafted it into our own ****** up reality
The blood was thick on the ground
I taste that old familiar taste
That ironic, irony, iron taste . . . old blood
But again, was it I or him that began
To sink not swim into this
River of blood?

My throat is fully coated in iron
(Steal diamonds and gold)
From that nightmare/dream
And I lie here in my bed and think back
To “where the **** is my coat?’

i. smoky fingers curl around the heart-beat
   pulse-beat song-beat and wrench out the
   bricks one at a time
   the rasp of flesh latching on cement, the
   grating grinding of stones lunging out, and
   the scream as they fall in the dark rabid
   waters
   the building erodes in the fog
   the building erodes in the storm
   the building erodes like everything erodes
        and my heart erodes with it and in it
        and among it

ii. he has never known fear and that is why
    he climbs up scales up cringes up the
    never ending walls
    that is why he clings to the bricks as they
    are torn out and that is why he hopes that
    he too will fall and
    that is why he wants to erode because
    erosion is the melting, the harsh corrosive
    acid leaching away, erosion is the secret
    to a long
        and beautiful
        and happy
        and irony-drenched life

iii. gray mud spatters - no, it swallows - no
    it consumes like a monster, a monster
    with tendril claws and poisonous fangs,
    and it eats you with a flick of its jaw - no,
    it erodes
    gray mud erodes in the twin way of the
    world, gray mud is the thing that erodes
    you and your love and your lover and it's
    the thing that is eroded until one day it's
    gone
    and nothing
    will ever
         erode again

iv. he is covered in gray mud, and i am covered
     in gray mud, and my skin is rebelling against
     the cold slick slimy tingling creature that *****
     the bruises away, but he welcomes it
     he always welcomes everything more than i do
     and maybe that's the reason
          maybe that's the hidden reason
          why the world is eroding

Do not stand at my grave and weep..
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awake in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft star-shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry..
I am not there. I did not die.

I’ll catch the summer breath in your hair
The receding waves cast their nets and retire
Vacant white tumbles free
And I’ve set my sights to a horizon I’ll never meet
You cradle fears and hopes
Inside wild ambition, escaping youth
I’d want to escape for reasons other than
The unstable hues of you
I’ve often watched the lines reach your eyes
And spun a tale of bliss from blindness
Never knowing whether the shores of your beginning
Will meet the ends of mine, at all
In starlit night I’ve touched affection
The purposeless cry mixed with human interpretation
Shifting from beauty to a sheltering ache
Makes me wonder if I’m fleeting like the days left in our wake