indecisive and insecure
I am on an edge
no cliff nor rooftop
from which to leap
more marginal
more like myself
a collection of questions
laced down a ragged page
I take a moment
to pull myself close
to gather myself
into a tighter pile
of misunderstandings
to tie myself to a series
of questionable knots
strung across the night
with a sense of frivolity
like lights at a garden party
or a noose in a lonesome room
swinging beneath a bare bulb
(March 25, 2021)
my myopic eyes fix
toward a horizon
I cannot see
as I plod through
this viscous mud
which will be my grave
(February 26, 2021)
if i gnaw out my fragile heart
canines slavering through flesh
the way wolves trapped
will desperately gnaw off
a leg to escape the hunter
will I be free with only a blood
limped trace dropped like roses
through freshly fallen snow
to mark my passage like stale crumbs
scattered across the frozen forest floor
a vaguely cogent sentence fragment
to parse a meaning into salvation
will I see in time the breach
open wide enough to squeeze
rock against chest between
tightly held breaths balanced
on a desperate fear that I have
lost the best bits of myself
(December 1, 2020)
I cannot see much of life
beyond the ragged hedgerow
I’ve grown from broken thorns
scattered like blood
across still water
unless the walls fall
and all the little boxes
open like rain misting
the tightly trimmed
topiary with ice
and the cold parenthesis
cracks like cicadas’ wings
as i slip from myself
a worm through earth’s minutia
feeding on the remains
and fragments that were mine
(November 13, 2020)
the well offers no echo
for the truth to rise upon
to allow her to step screaming
from the water’s cold depths
to shatter the infinite mirrors
where we live out our lives
(November 1. 2020)
On the floor
in a closet
curled tight
like an egg,
he dismantles
what’s left
of what remains;
he shaves away
thin layers
until nothing
like memory
is left,
just a space
where he had stood
filled with air,
and the laughter
of distant children.
(October 1 2020)
With a headful of sighs,
I move from room to room,
stand in the doorway, then turn,
followed by dark regrets
which waited to slither back
from all the obvious corners.
I promise myself again
as I slip further away:
it will only be a moment;
then days, then years vanish
before the wait will stop,
before I walk out the door.
(September 19, 2020)
In these next darker days,
Shadows walk in laughter
upright and self-righteous,
and we have no where to hide.
Ash floods the bitter sky
filling the streets, the rooftops,
our lungs with thick death.
With no time to cast bones,
our glazed eyes watch
the portents unfold into heaven.
Panicked, we rage in the street,
or cower next to a wall,
a silent witness to the fall.
(September 17, 2020)
this body holds no answers
other than its own
I listen to its stories
all the iterations
the looped variations
as if razors inscribe each word
labyrinths within labyrinths
a slow-cut scratch through skin
to bleed heal and cut again
until what is true
what is believed
what is said
intermingle
their incestuous scars
like runes carved
across cave walls
and I have nowhere to go
and nothing left to say
(September 9, 2020)
If I could peel these veins
from my arms and fashion
them into a noose,
then I’d find a dead tree
to swing upon
like a tattered paper lantern
dancing in an empty breeze.
(August 30, 2020)
