The labyrinth
bends into itself:
one thought feeds
bits of fear to the next;
until, teeth crack
on broken bone,
and it ends
without a beginning
to begin again.
One’s end’s ambiguous
as one’s beginning.
Indecisive and vague,
the end’s no different
than any contingent.
The end ends
with a flailing
of the mind
through a stark
unawareness
of where we are,
where we have been,
and without a why
to justify
the confusion
of the scattered pages
across the floor,
and the ash in the air.
(May 12, 2019)
Like flowers in a slow conversation’s
eddy, he floats through his circular day.
Nothing’s amiss. Almost, as memory,
the pattern persists; almost as if he
whispers to someone who listens nearby.
Each flower’s petals fall, by troubled turns,
until the air is not enough to hold
the incoherent world; and, like glass,
it shatters into the composting earth,
oblivious to its own slow demise.
The flower unfolds into its silence;
the swift flutter of bird song in the trees;
the rough caress of dry leaf on dry leaf;
the winter wind’s incessant pulse and pause;
are nothing to his flower’s petal’s fall.
(March 20, 2019)
S
As if with a spoon,
she scoops the words
from his pliant mouth.
The rounded vowels,
and crisp consonants
shred her tongue
with shards of ice.
Meanwhile, with slick
knives, he carves
all conversation,
leaving bits of blood,
like rose petals,
to stain the ground
in a red-wet lust.
Neither he, not she,
can speak into
what was said.
They stare, stunned,
past empty eyes;
their mouths slack
like the recent dead.
(February 5, 2019)
Am I here?
Can you hear me
anymore?
I am no answer
to your questions,
implied, or stated.
Is this what’s left–
to fade in and out
like a side-show ghost?
Am I here
scratching inside
the house’s walls,
like a rat
slowly dying?
(September 27, 2018)
There is less to do,
less to talk about now.
Where do I lay
my belief like a sack
full of rocks? When
do I shuck off
the tired traces
and stand unburdened?
There is no where
to go, but here–
and finally I have come
to a place I have
always been unknown,
a place that is mine.
(September 18, 2018)
It’s not fair to compare
one to the other where secrets
are apropos to a love affair,
or some distant war as far
as that goes. Yet, what’s to be
done to stop it? What metaphor
within yourself were you willing
to sacrifice? As long as one
doesn’t mind water swallowing
your words, it’s simple enough
to drown in any nearby river.
I, too, hold my expectations
at a distance in order to live—
I’m not sure what occurred,
or even if we were just lovers.
(August 15, 2018)
She picked up his bones
scattered in the yard,
and took them into the house.
Her workshop was cluttered;
so she cleaned off a spot, and
orderly stacked them up.
Days went by, then weeks,
and finally years. The bones
collected dust like mementos.
One day, stumped, she looked
up from her work, and saw
the neatly stacked dry bones.
She laughed as she remembered
him, then went to work:
drilling, weaving, balancing.
She sang as she worked, happy
at last to be creating so freely
from his humble remains.
Finished, she took what she had
made from him, and hung
it from an old oak tree.
It danced a hollow dance,
clattering as the bones clacked
together with every wind.
In the evenings she would sit,
and sip a glass of wine, happier
than she had ever been with him.
(August 7, 2018)
