Turn to me tonight
through tumbled sheets,
and wake me in your arms.
(July 18, 2016)
-
Four Haiku for the Buck Moon
by
We come to ourselves;patterns repeat as patterns—You, me, each our own.*And then we grow up—Almost as if we planned it:earth’s procreant urge.*I’m too drunk to thinkbeyond the now of this page—Who am I to doubt?*I desire you still,to hear your voice in laughter—to begin again.(July 18, 2016) -
Silenced
The words liein wet trenchesalong the road;I no longer knowwhat I know iswhat I know.Trust’s membrane thinsan ache alonga spent vein – –a rupture in truth,as if an aneurismblurs my vision.I am afraidto speak out loud.(July 17, 2016) -
vita
I am evaporated mista breath of dusta slough of skinI am a dry cougha mortician’s soft handthe blur of thought and sleepI am what you claimto be the partyou slice away from meI am the absencean open doorthe close of a book(July 12, 2016) -
Garden Meditation
Her roses break into my hands;the petals drift through my fingerslike stars. I don’t know where I’ve been,or why she disappeared that night:the trees danced darkly against thedarkening sky, like the troublededges of Van Gogh’s Starry Night.Each moment glistens like morningrain, the sun sliding through the drops
as we slow dance tangentially.There are no contours to divide,no green topographical mapsto consult. If I knew whereI was going – – I couldn’t be lost.Instead I am here, befuddled,as her roses tremble to earth.(July 12, 2016) -
It is Itself Enough
by
apologies to ws
no explanationsuntil later, heexplains:a differencebetween his handsheavy on my shouldernow and the ache–the moon’s crescenthere now, and Paristhen, but not himthen.the sky’s less grand,or am I smaller?wisdom was simple,or we were naïve:despite the poison,the drowning in air,the grappling panic,I am here without change;patterns are patternseven when I see them.the house across the streetgoes dark;there are no screamsleft.(July 11, 2016) -
A Part Apart
by
A story’s comfortcomes in retelling.The pattern laid outlike a blue quilt;each square tightlystitched to someoneelse’s contribution,someone’s scraps.It’s taken timeto listen close,to follow a threadfrom knot to knot;until I, too, amwoven whole.(July 9, 2016) -
Shantith, or Original Sin
“Behold the time of the Assassins.”Arthur RimbaudIt is not that stories don’t matter, but they are not justified; the margins neatly matted. Each spring, as a child, the carnival would arrive in town for the fat stock show. The kids in the local 4-H and F.F.A would compete, trying to win best of show and scholarships from the cows, pigs, sheep, and goats they had loving raised over the year for slaughter. We ignored the poison in our veins. Instead we spun, and flipped, and screamed tightly to each other on the carnival rides, held safe in our laughter. The horrors lurked somewhere else, some other state, some other country’s small town. Someone else’s children burned in the magazines stacked securely on the living room floor. From a blue sky, the sun shone brightly upon the cottonwoods in the back yard. As neighbors leaned on rakes talking quietly to each other, the sounds of lawn sprinklers spritzed through the evening air.(July 8, 2016) -
Dream Journal #30: Desire
From dreams filledwith flirtatious texts,and tentative conversationin bars and beds tangledin reconciliations,I wake into silence;the cat through a windowwatches a cardinal singon a branch out of reach.(July 4, 2016) -
dissemble
by
all these things have turned upon meturned upon me turned and turnedI am tired of explanation’s explanationto myself about myself to othersreciting and rewriting poems and liesI know before I know what I have saidto say as I say it all again to myselfall these things have turned upon meit does not matter or perhaps to seemto matter what I think or thoughtcould happen or did happen or neverhappened beyond my desire for desireto turn my life away a way along a waytoward a resemblance of happiness(July 4 ,2016) -
always too late
by
Silence, withoutdistractions,comforts. Within,silence openslike laughterabout our coldobstinance.Beneath cicada’sstaccato screams,summer’s heatembeds silence.We should speak,but don’t know howto dismantle silence.(July 2, 2016) -
mea culpa
by
There is a confessionI will not confess;this is it. I have no handsto offer solace, or begforgiveness of neglect.Between desire and denial,self-abnegation parsesthe day-to-day trespassesinto shards. With bloody fingers,I shape my fragments into mosaics,abstract and mono-chromatic,until simpler to believe.My guilt inculcates the air,and then I drown.(July 2, 2016) -
Horse Sense
by
Once the bridle is in place,one behaves well enoughfor the masters to rideto church and home.Better to submit.The food is plentiful,the stable warm.Does it really matterif they are wrong?(July 1, 2016) -
Tacit Reflections on the Floor
Look – – Here’san imageof someone looking;as once, late at night,in a bar mirror,I lookedto see allmy imagesunfold like flowers.(July 1, 2016) -
Basic Training: a faux fable
by
“Who do I think I am to decide that she’s wrong?”–Townes Van Zandt“Tell me a story; maybe I’ll believe it.”–Iggy PopOnce one morning in Virginia on the Appalachian Trail,we stepped out from the dark forestonto a ledge of rock jutting into the air,the view across the Shenandoah Valley stunningenough to almost make one believe in God.A few feet from the escarpment’s edge,like a sacrificial gift upon an alter,a pile of human excrement lay coveredby a few scraps of paper as if with a bow.Some after partaking in drugs, relatean experience, a vision if you will, most profound,transformative even, like a pocketpulled inside out – – – often comparingtheir evening’s chemical experienceto the weeks-long vision quests of somenative American tribes – – after all, this isthe age of convenience – – the quick fix,even in spiritual matters. So listen close:Back in my distant youth, almost a man,during my sophomore year of college,I often took hallucinogens. One night,I sensed I had to use the restroom; so I sat,and wandered through the bowels of my thoughts.Among the many lost profundities, I thoughtabout Elvis who had recently died, and heardlike a voice from heaven, my Aunt Hazelbending over me fussing about wasting time.Then I was home somewhere between twoand three years old, screaming for help,my pants dangling at my feet, screamingfor my mother to save me, to help meclean up my mess. Aunt Hazel steppedin, cigarette dangling, grabbed some paperand roughly got to the bottom of the problem:You’ve got to take care of yourself,no one wants to clean up your shit.(June 29 , 2016)
