I couldn't see their face
watching the clock
on the far wall.

When shouts rose,
and the windows broke,
(myvoicemyfist)
a wind or a bullet
(mygun)
sent me spinning.

They
watched the clock
as the floor,
the whole Earth,
broke my mouth.
Never caught the time.

"Accidents happen all the time"
I was never able to say.

Waking,
no truth,
broke mouth,
handfuls of shattered glass.

the lonely stoner
finds no haiku
for their hands stretch too long

is the art that we seek
in you?
is it in the world
is it already
expressed.

when silence falls
the curtains are pulled
summer nights are as welcome
or more so
than summer days
windows off the sill

alone is a place
and i find it so often
under stones
and in bathrooms
and bedrooms

the air conditioning
is on a timer
and I wonder
if it will be too hot tonight
even alone

accounting for body heat
is a practice best anticipated
because waiting is cold

the unburned wood before the empty fireplace
testament to the season

movement of cloth can define
emotion
and
status

so strip us naked and we feel
what it is
to touch
and hurt
in all actuality

but give them time
and oh
the **** is this
a moldering joke
that I just can't laugh at anymore

hide away
for the sun pelts down
and gives us words
that we use
to bleed
and think with

in our hiding
we grow moss
as a stone not rolling
and
photosynthesize

no longer the same,
noticing the time.
things are noticeable
when they're different.

the clock on the wall
is only as reliable
as those who made it
to tick.

the present is the past
if the moment doesn't last

~~~

always arriving,
like forgetting something at home
and driving back
and driving back.

If you hear me say that all my love
is for the Fall
than I'm a fool who's forgotten the Spring.

tough touch
teach me a lesson
tell me something today that you know now
not recalled but balled up and bounced
out of your mouth
once soft, broken
broken, wet
all over the floor
skin to skin
shocking!

"why do you write?"
he stooped and grinned
and one could see his sickness

"I write to find you
because maybe i need to **** the snake before
the poison goes
or maybe
i don't know
maybe there's nothing left to do
and maybe the people watching us
will throw
pixel bits
or love-left-over
through space
and some of it might rain on us like dust
when we are sleeping
and that would give us a purpose
when we woke"

"Oh,
are you sure you're not trying
to get ******?"

and I wasn't

a chemical composition
light textile and and enough bends
for a knot
all expression of the dead dog in the living room
left behind
as the grow lights over the seedlings
were turned on
and a flower was placed on his dead chest
and I walked out the door
it was a real thing in the mind of a witness
a storm rolled over
a star was never seen again

im realizing
that even when relaxing
im grasping at the air
feel need to hold
what's not there

when the cold in your stare
brings me 'round
to the ground
and im all ears again
making fear a friend
before it gets the better
of us

keep em close
keep em close
embers in your pocket
dont let the wind
turn suspicion
to a rocket

i've flagged down the last cab

ground herbs

a phrase that can emit,
in the mind of the reader,
all senses :

rasping
sound
of pestle to mortar
stone to stone
to skin
touch
of rosemary
or mint
redolence
and a hint
of the green
of the leaves
seen

the
taste
in all of our mouths
dredge and nectar
ever present

are two words not enough
to describe?
or are they
all to much

they say
"absence makes the heart grow fonder"

that sad, beautiful music,
that thrumming in my chest
can only be played
when the heart strings
are taut
and strummed
by the long fingers
of memory

That sad, beautiful music
is heard
somewhere
by an audience
all sick with anticipation
.
.
.
unsoothed by the sound

I hear that music
when you are away
and my only consulations
are the poems that stay
the poems that come
unburdened to my mind

I, audience
holding my breath
gleaming
and the poem goes
and i'm left without enough words
to gum the grips
slack the strings
so the music plays on

a well made poem is a window
or a telephone
or a lifetime somehow pressed and 2-dimensionalized
in a photograph

a well made poem makes a ghost of the poet
of itself
nothing there
but the view beyond the window
the listener/speaker on the end of the line
the eternity contained in an image

a ring of stone under water
a breathless figure sits
between red coral-fingers
blue eye-fish
and from her hand the lava pours

steam
running away with the motion of stone
leaving silent twisted images
basalt black
wracked back
spinal cord columns
to salt
and become green
and beautiful with algae

Violent underwater mother
birthing continents

all mineral
gem
metal
plant and animal
birthed
thru her
and the sand that is the
product of so many
ancient fey stone and glacier
meeting each other again
and again
and the sun
and the wind
the river
the hoof
the root
the heel
the rot
the sand that is
the mana
that make
the motion
the Aa
and Pahoehoe
slowly rolling new mass of life
that we are
is!

submerged
remembering
remembering

a ring of stone under water
a breathless figure sits
between red coral-fingers
blue eye-fish
and from her hand the lava pours

if you reduce too much there is a suture
where the mix and stitch
seems like a oneness
from one end
and a
hole
from the other

i've seen demon shapes
where there was only this

and angels too

.

eye knows light
mind knows eye

i don't mind

well-worn
objects in space

stop trying to see them!
it's dark.
and you're not here.
and you have no face.
or hands.

still you know their smoothness,
their shining sides
and rough patches,
set as they are,
constellations,
pegs in the night
with which mind is looming identity thru
to weave the hammock
that holds you

like waking from
sleep, sweet
and dripping with
dreams
you find those things
so specifically placed
and memory serves
a scented something you lost
in the fog

are these my hands?
is this my face?

who said that?