image and icon

stare into the wash
where the oranged asphalt fades to
everything
like a taoist question
repeat until you understand
that the wash between
the lit asphalt and the invisible is
everything
even you

8-15-07

letting the night back in

it's not the matchbook
or the smoke between your teeth
it's not the book of mists and clarity
open on your knees
it's the dark
old girl you left
she is your deep teacher
even welcoming the last dregs of your mind
to curl around her feet.
you watch her
between the bitter smoke and the chronicles,
her waves roll on
roll under your watch
behind your fumbling hands and tanned skin
roll up under your ribs and curl around
your insides.
old girl you left. old friend.
she welcomes your sun-stained heart
into her waves
deep as a teacher.

aug 15, 2007

fluency

you look at your hands
hoping mine will not look the same,
i do anyway.
there is a lot like that to say to you
but instead you take your curled hands
and cover mine
silky and cool inspite of bolted knuckes and tissue wrinkles.
and i'm the one who feels unhealthy
without hands that can say their admiration.

aug 10 07

longer to linger

it is like i am not here,
but she knows that i am
like i know what her sounds mean
when i dream
and i can wake up and answer her
- the iv does the stroking
i might do to your cheek
the smoothing
i might do to your blanket -
but I'm here
and she knows it.
she tells me i can start singing any time.
she starts her new verse: i am resolved
no longer to linger.

5-13-07

tilling her in

Suddenly, you are heavier than i am used to
towing a deeper tide
suddenly, the pale gold sliver is just a cane
as you heave out of the corner of this window.
i can't see a thing.
just a grey sky against black leaves
and her white body like paper
like the tissues she twists and spits in.
And you out there, worldly, the great traveler
tilling her under in this room with air conditioning, tubes, and dripping.

5-13-07

what's eating you

i sound my barbaric - belch -
well, almost as poetic, i think,
wishing i hadn't got the chick beer
wishing i hadn't cheaped out, bought a good
bottle of dry white whine instead.
thinking about the city and how i will
forever
be drawn to it but forever
hate it
for licking its lips at the sky and belching in the presence of stars.
i concentrate on a dark space between street lamps.
let it lick its teeth at me,
take another sugar swig.

4-22-07

hearing things

what could you want now
four a.m. could be alaska for all i've seen of it.
it would be easy if you would just tell me
from the start.
and you know when i'm talking about.
crashing in a hot bed with too many covers
(that was way back at twelve a.m.)
a lot easier.
but i don't expect you would tell me
or say anything.
you don't, or i never hear, but either way
whether you or would not
i had faith
preached out of me long before twelve.
i already had it preached out.
so i stick to my doubts, quick on the draw.
at least now i believe you could or would
just not to me.
so if not to hear a dismembered voice
what then?
was it for the story
or for the sweep sweep of his breathing
or to notice my headache,
or to taste lethargic honey?
you must have a reason
you must.
it's four a.m. for your sakes.

feb 27, 2007

dry leaves drowning

Finally Oklahoma's deep in summer
smudging feet and legs up to the thigh
in wildgrass and mud
blurring horizons into mirages
drizzling a deep sky onto frizz
arm deep and still reaching.
Oklahoma drown the rustling paper
milking heat and sweat
to smear the landscape
fat mosquitos smash their lust into
cream puff clouds
and those who bore the winter
wrapping naked bones in dry skins
are satiated as they sink away
in a bowl of sky and land and extra virgin oil,
cream too heavy to be stirred
by their buckled legs of stilt.
june 07