a small difference
between where I am
and what I see
determines today’s
direction
the wind buffets
the cell I push
against
as if words
can protect us
(December 14, 2017)
-
Blood in the Mouth
by
As if thrown into the sea,
I drown in myself. Adrift,
Worn from lack of sleep again,
I berate and taunt my past.
Each faux pas, each arrogant
Act, repeated and rehashed
Until each cringe inducing
Detail is nailed to my skin.
Time does not layer armor
Tightly enough to protect
Against the internal thrusts,
But rather sharpens the blade
To more precisely dissect
Each vein flowing from my heart.
(December 14, 2017)
-
Surety’s Loss
by
end, erato, eros, interrelationships, loss, memory, muse, perspective, poetry, relationships, traces
I hear your voice still,
But as a whisper.
The words wisp, like mist,
And shift shape as lisped
Past context’s vague edge.
What was said lingers,
A cold recompense
To hold this absence.
(December 14, 2017)
-
Sit
I have forgotten my voice,
And become smaller. I don’t know
where I was lost, which forked road,
which whimsical decision.
Once in Vermont late at night,
A dark so dark I could see
Only the dark, I was lost
With no flashlight to open
A seam in nights starless threat.
So, I stopped, stood still, knowing
The sun would eventually
Rise to reveal the way home.
Reason’s path does not matter
To the ground I sit upon.
(December 9, 2017)
-
Check, Mate in Two
by
I am nothing, but all:
a totality without
definition to describe
the vacuity within.
Bound to my skin
like a bear raging
against its chains,
each second contemplates
its blood-soaked revenge,
as if an afterthought
confirming the mistake
turns with disdain
from the banquet table
unable to renege.
(December 6, 2017)
-
Balance
With a voice inflected
Like morning light,
You whisper in my ear.
Edges are so near;
One’s well past,
Then notices.
The rose unfolds,
Then falls.
There is never enough time.
On the verge of tears,
I hold you
In this moment:
Precarious,
Yet whole.
(December 4, 2017)
-
Cough
by
clotting into a thick mass
dread drops like cottonwood fluff
throughout the soft afternoon
I cannot breathe this darkness
too many knots of decay
to choke like thorns down my throat
each morning I spit a bit
then find scraps of redemption
as I stumble out the door
a new day’s dark-red dawn blurs
a simple numbness unfolds
inevitable and cold
I gasp and look to the sky
hopeful I will breathe today
(November 30, 2017)
-
life sentences
like dust dancing in the light
filtered through a shutter’s slats
I walk through my emptiness
leaving less than a ghost behind
the room’s stark silence belies
the turmoil of indifference
which roils beneath my indecision
like marbles scattered to the floor
yet the indignant day grinds on
each definition thickens and blurs
through ever vaguer variations
until the very air clots with blood
(November 30, 2017)
-
Whisper into the Gale
by
“I do not hear the scream, […] I am the scream. “
— Edmond Jabès, From the Book to the BookIf I scream,
No one can hear
Over the clamor.
So, I whisper here
To pierce the fray,
Which fades to fire—
A burning to sear
The air free
For us to breathe.
Our throats gasp
The flames like water
Without redemption,
Except as syllables
To parse truth from lies.
(November 26, 2017)
-
Prism
My eyes fragment the light
Refracted from the things
Of this world. I sit here
In the dark teasing bits
Of wet flesh from my chest
Like a raven feeding
On the eyes of the dead.
Little is left to us—
Shadow’s remnants echo
Between deep-patterned sighs
And ritual’s gestures.
Meaning reflects desire
As kaleidoscopes spin
Off ordinary hopes.
(November 23, 2017)
-
Adrift
I wander day to day
Listlessly waiting
For distraction to break
Boredom’s terror,
But nothing comes—
Not a note to fold
Into tight patterns then
Tucked into a pocket
To find months later
Blurred like nostalgia,
Not a note to whistle
Alone and a bit off key.
So, I mask the silence
In mottled memories.
(November 19, 2017)
-
Throb
“There are all these voices in your head, all these feelings for people who are no longer a part of your immediate present, all these places you used to live. They keep coming back and doing battle with the adamant present.”
–Lewis Warsh
In perpetuity,
The adamant present
Insists on being
Recognized:
Who are you?
To Whom do
You speak?
I stand
In the difference
Between heart
And mind,
Opening and closing
Like an eye
Blinded by the sun.
(November 17, 2017)
-
Memory’s Ambiguity is Not Enough
by
the scraps left
of them fall
without remorse,
as things
of this world
fall away,
like glaciers
calving
into the sea.
she writes
a condemnation
of ill-mannered absence;
he writes
a lamentation
for what wasn’t there.
nothing completes itself
from bits
of memory
like smoke
into air:
one moment
a shape hovers,
then is gone
without
consequence.
(November 15, 2017)
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