make my favourite sound

the day the train does not
sound like a man on a train
pulling with all his weight
on a whistle
when everyone is deaf asleep
just to wake some one
perhaps
to hear him make that sound
trains will not make my favourite sound.

rules for rituals

is it still sacred
if we talk of shoes
seconds after the verses are sung
after a moment
turn to conversation unmetered
spines and throats settled
into the small familiar?

i was

i was a liar
intricately convinced
confused how little
sense I could make

How honest

When I caught you telling someone how
honest I was. How rare.
I wondered and wondered.
I am still wondering.

beneath the wheel

say write
and not know
i write of shining
clouds of callus
of the wheel turned
and ground
til i can recite
every stone on my tongue

birdscrap

Went to wetlands
there are long smells there
tincture of earth
live
a thousand times upon a time
industrial debris as soft and hallow
i stared at a bird hard
flickering bird, scrap, bird

Dreamscore

Train warmed cymbal sky
warmed fluted hollows
A whole pit
practice scales
The score nightly
dreamed

Winter Dunes

half dune, half prairie
her body gets heavy
praying to Lake Michigan,

that lapsed incarnation
of a dream
of a belly
that once, long ago,
was a sea

sliver moon

you charm,
filed fine by the year
worn still finer by the hour,

we children,
fathered by days
mothered by nights,

feel you crumble on our skin

fires feed

fires must feed
on seams of black
the dark dream billowing
the dream,
a wild mouth of bone glisten
the dream, a mouth of gristle
the dream, your worst,
burning close and clean