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)
mill horse (124)
Category: meditation
Without the Stories She Must Have Told
All I know of her is, perhaps, this
three-second, eight-millimeter film clip:
discernibly old, she steps through shadows
next to a tall man, who is also in shadow.
Briefly from the sepia tress, she looks back
towards the camera— her face a blurred silence.
(February 18, 2021)
Layers (122)
the cat slept all day
turned tightly into herself
a sublime wisdom
snow begins to fall
silencing the day’s hard sleet
the night grows colder
ice brightens the moon
along the bare branches’ backs
like a hot whip’s snap
by morning the snow
drapes the yard as if with light
the chimes slowly sound
a lone mockingbird chirrups
inside the house the cat waits
(February 18, 2021)
lacuna (112)
large or small a space
is only emptiness defined
a hermit crab lifts and peers
within a new shell’s prospect
examining the spiral depths
of the nothing there
(January 29, 2021)
tithe (110)
to assuage the beast
i toss my heart into the fire
smoke billows angrily
against the oblivious sky
(January 26, 2021)
as in fields of broken stone (109)
all the ropes and chains
and puppet strings
knotted about
our brittle bones
like love turn us
toward a hell
we’ve compensated for
for years and years
where we coo and flutter
like lonesome doves
*
this is where i am this
is where you are this
is where i need to be
no where else but here
where i followed
continuity’s remains
like snails’ wet traces
through damp vegetal rot
where i find the eyes of the dead
laid on a cold plate
watching the mendicants
offer olives and oil
to a god
who cannot be bothered
to laugh
(January 25, 2021)
Permissable Topics (108)
we cannot talk about some things
because that causes them to happen
We cannot talk about sex
or death or injustice
because they do not exist
we cannot talk
of our experience
because it contradicts others
we cannot speak to each other
because that could build bonds
we cannot speak of the voices
that await us at school
at home and in our heads
we cannot speak
we cannot talk
we are not allowed
(January 21, 2021)
Drowning(107)
he walked along the quay and listened
to the waves shush each other
as they lay down on the shore
the moon wove between clouds
lacing the waves in white
before they sank beneath the sand
he wanted the waves
to wash it all away
what he wrote what she said
(January 20, 2021)
there lies the rub (106)
she said you said he said but shouldn’t have
said what you said she said quiet angrily
because what he said dared to disagree
with what she said you said were simply lies
(January 19, 2021)
which simple metaphor shapes my day (104)
a different time with new shadows
wraps the light in different patterns
more random more abstract less fragile
less likely to crack like a beetle’s
carapace beneath my careless boots
I roam between my vacant days
then disappear easier than I thought
between quick ire and old resentments
like broken branches slip easily
with the river’s froth across smooth rocks
despite all the engrained justifications
despite the comprised and contradictory
narratives despite the feral rage
I am who I am stripped of language
laid down since birth like shrouds
(January 15, 2021)
