Today, I’m Broken

“Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang!” —Arthur Miller

In the space

where foolishness

counters sense

rests the rub of trust.

I cannot speak:

my name’s

an aggregate

of shattered

bones and blood,

pulp in a thin

skin bag

sags against

a closed door.

My name’s

wrong; it echoes

its mistake

along empty halls.

For decades,

I’ve learned

it’s wrong

to trust

my uttered

name;

a red stain

seeps across

the floor.

(March 21, 2015)

mirrored

Everything I see reflects,

and refracts, what echoes

can only seek to say:

a partial phrase unparsed,

a face in studied pose.

So, I turn, and return

again, to words I’ve said,

or heard, with hope such

seed will grow and flower

more than my vain need;

yet, know the crows, who caw

from fence and field, watch

with darker eyes the shadow

twine and twirl about us all.

(December 17, 2014)

ouroboros’ hunger

I am a worm

absorbing and excreting

my earthy remains:

I strip away

nagging remorse;

strip away

all desire

for some other

than now,

to find

I return

a blind dog

along cold traces

filling in old vacancies

with ornate mouthings

that gnaw

their silent hunger

through my skin.

(December 1, 2014)

Sourceless Tension

Vaguely omnipresent,

it emanates

and radiates

at once

inside and outside

everything

and myself

like the universe’s

low hum

beneath millennia

of ontic threat;

it leaks

between

all permutations,

flowering

between our arms

like morning glory

tendrils

turning

toward the sun.

I hold myself

along the edge

of permeability;

neither a part

or apart –

a transition

disintegrating

obscurely

like the last

flourishes

of a solar flare.

(October 20, 2014)

What’s Why

No reason to explain our reason’s

details: truth remembers more

than you, or my lost vows, past

the fissured surface’s skin, into

substrate’s fractured fault lines.

She waits with patience to shift

violently away at once; even before,

my first tongued tremors play along

the length of your taut skin.

Such tensions tune themselves

in key to your determined wants,

driving you deeper to mine

the resonant scraps in my heart.

I stand across your divisions, and wait

for time’s breach to tumble us together.

(October 12, 2014)

eclipsed

the moon bleeds tonight

beneath the weight my back aches

another month gone

(October 8, 2014)

lost

Like an iconic creature boiling

off the bottom of the sea,

dense ripples cross my shoulder

blades clawing the sky for air:

I don’t know where I am.

Fog entombs the shore

along a frothing sea;

I am not a part of either

the land, the air, or ocean.

There is no fire to tend,

no wood, or kindling to gather,

only a vast grey mist

with no source of light.

I say my name.

No echo answers.

(September 12, 2014)

whither

the wind ruffled

the sycamore’s leaves

with laughter

as he wandered

toward a wood

once again

not fear

of death but life

strangled him

entangled his breath

in hacking spasms

until his words

caught against

his ribs

like birds

broken

between wires

of an ornate cage

not so much

a struggle

against something

as sacrificed

into wind

(August 15, 2014)

Feeding

to remove anger from my bones

I tear my nails through skin

extracting fat blue veins

between the muscle and tendon

like earthworms from the ground

writhing in a robin’s clenched beak

(May 5, 2014)

My Fear Finds Me

Within this light

I carry, I am only

able to see beyond

myself a certain way

into the darkness.

Friends turn as I

enter; in greeting,

I nod as if I know

anything more

than who I once was.

I bring what I can

to the table, scraps

of past ideas I can

no longer patch

together as one.

I try to listen,

but only sense

the conversation’s

rhythms and flow

dancing in the room.

Uncaught in any

ear, I watch my

metaphors die

gasping in need

of explanations.

The noise becomes

my silence, a cocoon

to comfort into safe

solace while the world’s

fangs drip in hunger.

(April 28, 2014)