Likeness

behind your doors
i wash my hands
my face
my mouth
my eyes
out
horrified that i've
washed out your likeness
the bits you or i
licked and layered
over my skin
i feign mystery
and make for the outside
outside your doors
i walk my hands
my face
my mouth
my eyes
out

nov 25, 12

Setting Sirens

a silhouette
smokes
curls her lips
combs her breath
through her teeth
when they taught me about men
they taught me about me
through the cemetery
they come
for my face
my clothes
the body becoming me
setting sirens
a silhouette
curls her lips
i'm glad to stop
looking in their white eyes
i fade
i'm glad
less than matter, darker
grave

11,7,12

Keep Very Still

i heard
i was told
my conscience is a gear
with stakes
and to keep very still
if it bent
it would break
and the blade
would stay
infecting its hold
after that first revolution
i knew
it was more than a stone
like a bomb
i heard
it click into place
a leaf in the spokes
nobody heard
nobody knew
it left off long ago
and i don't know if it gave out
or blew a hole slowly
i bleed to
death or
it just
lies
in
wait

nov 7, 12

Memory Keeping Priests

our feet lapped with midnight tide
fieldgrass stamens and pistils
the priests of this telescope temple
nightly thanking heaven
they were not born with our bloodied vessels
so poor and forgetful
we who trade for nothing,
for sleep,
a dozen shocks of raining light,
falling memory
last recipients of lightyears-lasting
prophecies without eyes to fit the lens
they keep the field
with wonder holy
never rising, kneeling,  praying, pressing
to the curtain the stalk of their bodies
likely and possible
they keep the censer burning, swinging
in case we remember
to come to the temple.

aug 17, 12

Words I Made Up

words i made up
for sound only
against a game my sister played
of words with sounds
that rotted in my throat
(they don't count
she said, unless you can find them
in the dictionary)
pushed through underbrush
untame
until the very wild of sound only
was my kingdom,  a void
that needed no fighting for
that swallowed the world,
meaning on meaning,
whole, or forgot it.

aug 16, 12

hanging scales

how fast it falls
and when you forget
altogether, tells me
slightly more than nothing
tells me you weigh our ends
scales strung up
from floating ribs, those scales
should be weighing
the next, now,
sometimes,
if my ears are
oiled and broken in
i hear -
almost, the key is not looking up
in the slant strain -
just how heavy our ends will be.

aug 20, 12

Your Joy

were you down that road
slipping by before dawn
the clouds
made a perfectly smooth scar
your joy, tether let
all the way out,
snuffling the seam
of road and field?

aug 17, 12

Working With Available Words

this is me speaking chinese
all it is
is three words for "green vegetable"
and only one for "sad"
a consonant sound at
the beginning of "want"
i am told i have never
pronounced intelligibly
and the three specific meanings
for the three words
"need"
are indistinguishable to me
yet
burn as my skin might
these are the only words
available between us
and my blood runs thinner
and hotter with the possibilities.

aug 17, 12

Axis Mundi

Eternity, a knife stuck
perpendicular in the ground
a blade wide enough
we must squeeze by
flaying our back
or front, which
would you lose
to participate in this prayer
what do you come to sacrifice?
Or on our best mornings we
close our eyes and walk
for hours
with only that shining blade
behind the eyes,
willing it to extend an invitation
an image to intersect
this blind road and spare not
one side of our body
more, but to thickly, as thick
as the million ghosts of stars,
run us through, clean
or not, until our blood coats
both flats of the knife
and we are more eternity
than not, flesh
fallen, shaved from the spine
tender mouthfuls for birds
of death and resurrection.

aug 17, 12

On the Altar, on Moriah

the year's end then
i lost my voice on
the way to you
or it died out
as we climbed mile
for mile into that
wide top
of the world
it was the end
of a year afterall, thinning
to a blade
and our voices
eventually
scrape clean
sacrifice
to the holy nothing
a fleet death shock
a frayed tongue
this is
what you are, afterall.

aug 16, 12

The Colours of Armageddon

This lavender sky
poisons shingles and brick
socks their mortared
millipeded gaps to pulp
dying kidney colour
like every rotten body gored
taking its last eyeful
lungful, hung from its own bones
lustful, it remains
gorgeous, engorged on stranger
and stranger means
of achieving
this last requirement
down to the last handful
the world will throw
gross beauty
in our eyes
and foam sticky holy
glory down our necks.

aug 11, 12

Bricks in the Blood

The walls
we live along fall
determine we will,
must, fight
their clay weight
hefted along in veins
snatching cradles
thought secret ours
in every eddy
exulting to smash
their painted spindles
carved curlicues
innocence we
believed sound
the only way
to find our bodies
bare but for one another
wrapped around
is to love like war
to break our fingers
from their death grip
to outbreathe this blood current
to live until it tires
of killing us

aug 13, 12

His and Hers

All that was left in the morning
was a jam jar
gin-soaked lavender oxidizing
and the last page of a short story
she always wanted to write,
about her secret high school boyfriend,
already done
right there. better really
because it was from his perspective
not hers. and now what
did she sleep after the jar? after the story?
did she need to be sheet swaddled to do so?
did she stay up wondering if she'd always
be a line walker
unbelieving believer while
the opposite too
did she stay up wondering, caring
why she never once cared
if she didn't have teenage sex
why the shape of faces fitting just so
was a sign of everything, enough
and a summoned smell of collarbone
could keep her up for hours
draining slowly from a jar
never thinking of more
not writing down the answers
to any of these questions
not even asking

aug 2, 12

About Morning

Coming out sideways
bringing drywall and frame,
the world down around your feet
shaving what's left of my bones
to double-edged stakes
nailing you to the rubbish heap
and while i've already paid
for your coming nightmares
with my pawned teeth
even monsters regret
so i sing you to sleep
lying about morning.


aug 8, 12

To the Bruises

we made our way
to an outcropping of bruises
in the dark they glowed
glossy black, black and blue
against the flat night
we thought they would shield us
between them hidden
from the endless, endless
web of consequences or worse,
indifference to our ruined lives.
in the dark, in my nerve cuffed joy
i did not count how many,
many selves i'd let loose
i did not count the reflections in the glossy black:
to the cleft she came first, desperate to steal
raised my own gun
steadier than i ever could
and blew a scream through your body
the size i couldn't tell
and through my face
big enough to be unsure it survived at all.
with nothing of me to save
she ran for the cliff side
as if it was not blacker there.
my only living self, finally
awake and all instinct, went after her
falling scent
the ghost of my jaw called her back
among the bruises
among our strewn outcomes
she lifted her throat as long as it would go
and cried into the black and blue
and against any reflection left.

jul 1, 2012

The Color of a Sheet

The sheet pulled over our twin bodies
yours and mine but
also hers and mine,
it's just the color of a sheet
i told myself but
you handed me a treatise
a careful thing
careful not to say
anything but the color of a sheet,
i bore into it, to find you under there
and wasn't allowed,
to find myself under there
but how is it i couldn't,
could only see this other body of mine
leaned against yours
all the faces lost in the color of a sheet.
Now and until we find one another, hand over hand,
we will make the color of this sheet
our tent and not go behind
our elders to see reason
under sturdier eaves.

jul

Between Us, The Holy of Holies

This unfordable vein
might as well be an eternal
motion. if we ever found
the source, the bubbling gush
compact enough to walk
an easy circle. if we ever found
that, we'd have already walked
so far together, this river apart
we'd might as well keep it
so part of us.

and who's to say
it's not the holy of holies.
the hollow heart that keeps
it all from crashing
against it all. keeps
us from crushing one
another's throats in our hunger.

on either side of this
river, this chamber
veil rent and bled
we make out one
another's silhouette
through smoke.

aug 7, 12

Ouija

if you repeat (if)
the lines (you)
stroke for stroke (repeat)
the internal structure (the lines)
will organize itself (under your hand)
like a message (from the dead) on a board
of random letters
like a picture in the dregs (it's there)
you gather its pulse
under the wrist (then gone)
behind this knee, then not
testing every weakness to get out
(repeat the lines)
blind if it helps
trace them (senseless)
until your fingers find that knotted muscle
catching all the rest (in) its (terror)
strangle it
that (cold) ghost meaning
will arrange the lines evenly.

jul 27, 12

The Month

he said this one's good for a month
and i felt the space of a month
balloon around me. full of my
own hair touching my shoulders,
my own hands touching my hair
outside the houses supposedly full
i only hear buzzing
houses full of bees
beating to get around the windows
and surround me
if i forget them
they won't come any sooner
forgetting the houses won't make them fall
forgetting the pressure mechanically,
without a will, laying siege
to the walls of my month
won't reverse gravity
whether i keep them warm
in my mind or not
i do not sustain these things
they wait any way
and come for me after all.

july 14, 2012

The Professional Sick

no sum of parts
shaped only by
the limbs torn from traps
and the limbs
offered as peace
or bait.
like the professional sick
hire an alms giver
he will carry me to the nearest pool
into which lately pissed a prophet
or son of god.
because i never believed
any great physician
wearing just a face
i didn't recognize him
even as i paid
with my story
and took his back.
because i never believed
in one pool
more than the last
i didn't recognize
even as he passed them all
and hauled me to his own womb
a churn of blood and tissue.
the tide there stirred in fits
pulled time out in salt
compressed it down
stealing only to toss
my shrunken remains
over its shoulder
until holding my breath
felt as right as breathing
and all in one gulp i drowned.
the prophet disguised in piggyback
scraped me to land
by dislocated parts
there arranged them
pressed them into stone
left me there to learn

jul, 2012

Sleeptalk on the Moon

night on the moon

craters reflected in tea

the horizon bowed

room hums into room

read my dreams to me

swept of sound or cloud

i knock through

babel narrating

only sleeptalk aloud

june 6, 12

Head Dreaming of a Bird (or Bird Dreaming of a Head)

waking up to the birds
the infant season
cries earlier and earlier
need,
the dog paws up a pallet of thatch
satisfied to hear me say here
go or lie down from time to time,
and inside i'm also satisfied
with the feeling of a new bird
falling from trying
drawing the failure out in euphoric swoops,
so far up, if anyone cared to watch the sky,
the empty skull would stir with only me
the only shadow in that whitewashed bone
the only wet and beating thing in that years dry head,
anyone could watch it happen
until i fell out of view
the end of their story of me
ricocheting without grace
through brittle capillaries
bent invisible
and flicked to the earth,
the morning won't register
anything amiss

june 5, 12

Such Fires

We are not for these fires
love them as we do to a crumble
and our limbs and fisted organs
are still what we're left with

In the whole earth we tie ourselves up here
and cry martyr burned in them
but such fires are to be warmed by
not staked to

Such fires are to come back to
to signal marco on our polo ways
not to lean into while the world
drains from our eyes forever
a black char
we no longer turn to for life

We love them but these fires
they are not our bodies

june 5, 12

Check the Sheets For Spiders

In the mother's house
built around our heads like a garland
across our arms like the satin
edging of wide-woven blanket
the girls whip the sheets to wake spiders
beat the pillows against the walls
and promise to wake while the windows are still blue
the father roams and stacks his boots
steel worn as dull as leather
and leather worn as thin as words that count
he stacks pale dishes above their rims with food
passes it around, settles, then dusted
away again by words, like gnats from the garden
the mother, the mother
checks our crowns for thistles
and beetles, repeating the lists
of things that chew shotgun holes
in the night, things that hide
she traces careful incisions with her beak
on the napes of our necks
remember, remember
to check the sheets for spiders

may 24, 12

While She Sleeps

I listen to your whole body
every part is part of you
used from fuse to spark
lit at every end
from the fresh ember of breath
nothing cools in the whir of the world
you newly spin on
i blow in your hair
and draw in the momentary incense
rising, smelling like everything
i no longer believe in
so just for you i close my eyes
just to light as you light
just to pretend what you know
eyes only good for distances
the nose can bring in through the body
retracting close enough to thread
through that cavity
expanding back out just
in front of your face
This is how you believe
eyes closed

may 24, 12

For Show

Moth shadows tilt as big as bats
and merge with sculpted black leaves
the sky draws a close curtain
and narrows a melted light across the audience
changing tiny into monstrous
and for show, the shadows of their bobbing heads
resembling everything else
tangled in a rising midnight wind.

may 24, 12

Dancing Bear

Ever the monster, dancing bear, tame
with a limp now, heel of a boot
finally crushed. What bear
could dance without shoes
the limp, without the heel
rejoins paw to field
so can't there be one day
not for dancing, Sunday,
can it be that day
one day for loping
away, and not only away,
please, that's still a chain,
but towards the world out of time
in more than two steps, all four
lope to sky, to roots,
tree line,
through brush, lope to
what is good,
to learn again
what is a bear

may 6, 12

No Time, Jericho

i did not have the constancy to
rub you thin
or the strength to fold you in my hands
or the adoration to pick at your glaze
so i tested your ceramic curve
between gravity and granite

i did not have the invisibility to
stake out your hiding place
or the practice to stalk you there
or the silence to hear what brought you there
i did not have the right

i did not have the tenacity to
march your perimeter methodically
or the breath to fill a trumpet's coil
or my other hand the strength, as said,
to smash a jar of fire on command
so i ran your walls of Jericho
gasping fall, fall, fall

apr 27, 12

Waking Dreams of Carrying Blood

Waking from dreams
everyone's wounds
were layered and beautiful
but bleeding
shining dark on pale
drained in the sun
dust rising to drink from these fountains
and i wasn't sure i could carry them all
back to the shade, damp, uphill, in turn
they each woke from their falls
talking nonsense
and making circles in their sentences
to convince me it was not a sign
when i begged them not to talk
as if their brains had come loose
they each sat up smiling, prophesying
only asking me,
where did I fall from,
how to climb back to the shade
or some, where to go on from now
not one needed carrying,
only, go behind me in case my blood
drips too much.


april 13, 12

Weather Report

the park today rather than breakfast
and sleep
for it is not really sleep
and tomorrow will rain
tomorrow a walk
for the next day will be sun again
and the shoes will dry

april 2012

Walking Calves, Train Car Calves

The girls on their walking calves
their train car balance
come here to make a life
but walk into this half light
through this haze and shine
checker their skin
it's theirs and a stranger's
gain their bodies for their minds
some coming kind
some going kind
of sight
on their walking calves
and latest train car balance
they ride.

jan 29, 12

Listening Thru a Glass, Darkly

My hearing has not been good lately
the kettle world turned up too long
i watch the reflection of my hand
in its streaked silver
i watch your reflection in the gathered condensation
when you tell me what you see
i make a noise that means, i'm listening
it's not a lie, but it is a dream.

jan23, 2012

Wind and Rain Letter

What have you done wind and rain?
What have you scattered into rivulets, into rivers
What have you sent through the clouds, blue as blood
What have you strummed and rung
What have you sung through to a cry
What have you flayed and staked
What have you turned out and smashed
and dragged, tooth and nail
What have you thrown, doors and windows
and bets and matches
What have you blown out?

mar 2012

Winter Pieta

Fastened and bound
in denim and wool

days on days in succession

almost procession

almost ceremony

mutual aggression

Ribs clenched against cold

and the earth's own body

packed tighter and tighter

against ours

We tensile march through one another

steadily toward denser degrees

limestone into marble

veined with crushed sediment

At last a winter Pieta

one as crucified as the other.

dec 2011

Dragon Guts

Track brindles our bodies

Physically they flicker

under

now not now
until
the shadow of a train belly blots them
What once was sound
swallows whole
flocks of thought
and walk and word
And down that throat
for the known now
stretched to a shout
we are dragon guts
dragon tongue
dragon song

april 2012

Any Other Word

i forget my name
comes the end of the page
and a pause, too long
love comma
a blank margin, generous
as a dry mouth
rough tongue
it slides around
gelatinous ink
waiting to be wrung
nothing rings
love comma
nothing
love comma
hole
love comma
margin
love comma
i hope you know.
if it were any other word
i could skip it.

mar 7, 12

Grass Eaters

To our lips
we sucked
at one another's hands
inside caves light stained
ingrown wire and corrugated beams
little boy memories
layered like worlds
shifting plate and sinew
among us stone
and marbled selves
eyes wide color squeezed
language stretched to fray
composed in jerks
crumbled of sudden
fallen through mirrors
in betweens multiplying
like sobs
To our lips
we pulled
at one another's grapnel cables.

mar 7, 2012

Our Bruise

The bruise you put under my lip
tucked up in the thin shade
did not clot
but burrowed deeper through
made a swell against
my hidden teeth
ached pressed into them
seared when i washed my mouth
hot with mouthful
after mouthful
dragged itself along the side of my tongue
back further than i can examine
arced into the smooth cavity over my throat
and fell or rolled down to all my weaknesses
pooling into the spaces where i am missing
spaces i coil around, tightly, pinching them numb
until even the arches i rely on
sing in tremble
from the joint of my toes to the heel
anchored and dense
your bruise rings even there.

mar 7, 2012

Signified

Look for secrets
the leaves caught in the amber,
age-old eyes
the tongue weighed
on your back teeth
how close the bones huddle for warmth
and the space the skin leaves to fill in
it makes sense
in how many times the shadows
of your statue multiply
the sentences you string
still lie along a plane
but one i didn't see before
the measured, poured sheet of  their silences

A Room Not My Own

I've chosen a room not my own
other voices flicker along its walls
and crack like static across the ceiling
hot with their requests
cold with their forgetfulness
but it is my room
i lick the seals of the doors
i pad the mattress with more sleep
watch the cracks grow umbrage
awe the native shadows
I've chosen this room

1, 5, 12

Along the Spokes

no resolve
i've worn out my body
i've worn out my heart
pink with old blood
i've worn out time
hung on lines
washed, wrung, stiff
dislocated by the limbs
pushed apart and soldered
to the empty hole in a hub
no resolve
i fall along the spokes to this space

Winter Fly

the winter fly
on a lamp shade
it lived this long
for this
to be seen
to die against light
its wings a new shade
to read by

The Day After Day

Like smoke attracted to bodies
it unmans us
unsalts us
only pale food between us
your mint tongue
my ash throat
my favorite feast
the flame leans toward glass.
I am a rich man
sucking Lazarus' finger
in what must be
the day after day.

1, 5, 2012

All the Ancient of Days

the small of my back is made of wrenches
i imagine yours of wrens
my wrists and elbows clock hands
and yours cracked marble
my neck of broken limbs
and yours of barnacles
my face is of dust
yours must be of spit
my insides made of time
and yours of all the days

1, 5, 12

In the Small and Still

i'm quieter
did you wait for this
i'm back inside
you're so polite
after all the notes
and lists
and orders
i've taken
i've taken refuge now
you can pass
i won't ask
more than your palm
more than your back

jan 5, 2012

So Help You God

Go on unfold
a waxed map in your hands
you pen its insides
you spell its name
you fear what you've made
as if it's empty, it stays
mountain on mountain
wood stuck into wood
wildgrass against wildgrass
ingrown in creases.
Your hand on its cover
a vow a curse of truth
you swear to tell
and nothing but.

jan 5, 2012

Sway

The wind is patient in the dark
giving in to trees
holding them
rocking them
darkly
as their own shadows would
singing nothing
as it is all to say
aspirating
into their coming sobs
rocking their limbs in hers
the little ones
thought themselves big this year
sway all the way
to where their trunks spread
over the ground
and probably on
the wind
gives up to the trees
to rock them, darkly.

jan 5, 2012

Another Breath Poem

Breath
sickled scythed
and bound
to be baled
tindered
and whetted
turned into basins
to hold new breath
tall and swaying
from bare slain
bodies asleep

1, 4, 12

The Rounds

Her face is a clock
as is his
overlayed on one another
the clicks they make
the twisting gears
all seen
in sync and out
pale and dark and audible
as they make the rounds.

jan 4, 12

Odyssian

the sins i'll sing
to my children
will be odyssian
and plenty.
their ears will fill
with marvels
and revel
enough to send their dreams ashambling.
my days will march
loose hems they'll catch
and when they stop for breath
my children will still be itching.

jan4, 12

Bunsen

the way
to cool a heated iron
is to hold it to your chest
by both hands
your body needing
always lapping heat
will take the burn in
pore by pore
until the material
is innocuous to your grip
what is not tinder is flint.

jan 4, 12

Levitation

leaves, piles, burn high
if it can be called fire
rather smoke twine, ghost thread
spindle rise
mortar, pestle
crush steeped
shadows of trees
against our bodies lying by.

dec 22, 11

Christmas Night

The house behind me
behind a door shut just nearly
whirs - deaf and deafening.
here
i hear geese
coyotes
street lamps sentient
have i moved outside of this
or has it moved from outside of me?

dec 25, 11

Chaser

what you've said
is what you would
but what you will
will be what i taste
without these words
to wash them down

dec 23, 2011

One Million

you have one million shadows
slightly resembling you
your lines
and planes
your neck
and collarbones
when you build your fire
when you lean your face to it
when you blow evenly under its ribs
and sit at its feet
in this light
you are a million
and one

Sept 10, 2011

Never in Capitals

NEVER carved and slash inked
in the metal below
a train window, last car
fleeing the gorges
glass and steel
and vowing just NEVER

Holy Hell

holy hell
you speckled dog
you turned the ashes
in my mouth to sweet
something i don't want to swallow yet
but the blue
under my skin
to brine.
your black nose
and deep ears
filled with me
and filled me in
and under my skin
holy hell
i wanted to fall
and grow there under your paws
but not crossed
shadowed homeless birds
or you as you stalk
uncovering
where they come from
unbraiding the grass
blue in my wrists
do you smell the trail
do you come or run
and guard your neck

nov 26, 2011

Currency

currency in
trampled cigars spent
measured in
how sick i get
when full
exchanged for
sunken shoulders
trying with their all
to make room
the shape the shakes
of my body take
given and taken in
behind a wall
from the wind
hand to handed
in tight doorways
lent

Chinese Tourists in the Park

The Chinese men stroll so close
their knuckles knock
and though the darks of their eyes
are not the ones i miss
in confusion i conflate
all darknesses alike
and wish my hand
could knock against theirs
too close to avoid it
as we break new language in

Land of Mine

this land of mine
not benevolent or civilized
but i will train your eyes
                       to see
my trees are filled with onyx crows
their roots tangle with pitch and sloe
the blood here doesn't run, it blows
but i will teach you how to breathe

you may not just go where you will
the hills leaden darker, not lighter, beyond hills
but i will teach you how to abandon feel
                                      your way to me
i've built scaffolds over the deepest parts
when you're exhausted i'll build wheeled carts
but don't be disgusted with the dark
it's the only way my land knows to be

Once Lives

Are the leaves kicked
layers of integrity
once part of a whole
once lives
layers of garment skin
ribbed and thin
rubbed weak
down to bits
or curled like exhaustion
in lungs
flattened like exhaustion
in eyes

Cloudcover

In this town of angles, lines
the clouds roll over
barrel chested but mute of thunder
staying to the margins
we'll never build into
their dissolute shadow dissolving light
reminding us we are spherical
our straight legs and strong
rely on arches
buckle over the brim
lean into the bend
lie like sickles in our sleep
the paths we drive
only seem level
but always bow
always carry us intentionally
back
around, arriving at the place
we set out to escape.
Find old bones
of our own limbs
torn from us
to make the getaway.
We find them precious again.
Though no memory
of the pain they bled from us then.

Rocking Sea

sails sun tattered
wind pushes through
on its way without you
alone you rock yourself to sleep
or something like it
in a crib of moaning waves

Slow Travel

Our thoughts have habits
of slow travel
winding weeks making a way
re-establishing the road,
gravel up, each time
keeping it firm
no matter the miles
keeping it straight.
So forgive the wasted time
now that you're here
i'm used to caring for your words
as pilgrims resting from travel
i've put them in my mouth
to keep them warm
i've taken them in my pockets
to keep them awake
and i've kept silent
as they stretch their aches.
Forgive me if my jaw locks
now like a blank page
when you're gone
these powers will return
just when you're out of sight
i'll remember how to curse
and regret not practicing
talk in real time.
But for now even curses
click hollow barreled
until i've filled them up
with that road.

nov 12, 11

If Still Green

If our mouths are still
a bit green
they'll ripen by then
they'll dry by then
they'll fall by then
they'll build by then
with a tiny heart of air
by then they'll crack and light
together they'll ignite by then

nov 8, 11

Don't Let the Rain Put This Out

the light rain hisses and spits
on a wall of blazing vine
dying. fingers smolder at the ends
of a warm body. the world
is the emotions there are no words
for. here the word earth strains
it lies in taut grafts
inflamed by our need to say what
we cannot. only strike
and send up flares.

nov 7, 11

The Backs of Books

I've turned all the books around
in shame in fear of their faces
to know what i've been doing
The days the same
their dawns waiting
nightfalls crashing
I'm huddled for cover
hidden in chatter
distracted and wound

oct 30, 11

Shut Traps

we don't believe each other
we shut our traps
unsure which side is in or out
only of the lock here
my reasons and yours
between
my body and yours
and as long as it takes my hands
to rub down these walls
or world for another pair
it's fine. they won't be yours
i'm looking for. they won't be anyone's
unless that one can see my fists hide things
and leave them closed. leave me be
let me sing and swear
i want them empty
but never pry them from their gnarl

nov 6, 11

With Thimbles

If our bodies go away
we sew them onto our feet
in flight
we know them as shadows
multiplying
a light abandoned trail

Dunes

the clouds on her thighs
make dunes
they hit the moon
she sifts them
hard-won time
she undoes them
new things
shows them
for what they are
what they are to be
from now
from here on

nov 6, 11

The Honest Word

wake up, let me in
my lips feel like your cold hands
my mouth feels like the words
out of line
some old grammar
some buried thing
the honest word said
is no
a chant that goes
up from our torn out bodies

nov 6, 2011

Whole

Take all my insides out
lay them aside
one by one, swallow them whole
there's so many things a mouth can hold
there's only so many things a mouth can hold

nov 3

Walking Lines

Will walking lines be all i give
staccato, stalk, and slip
away along the slabs
and stare into where the starlight should be
cinch my shoulders
by the houses, shambles and sheets
sunken and still
silence my cymbals, make my steps
passing their septic sleep
sharing sidelong looks
stealing shadows from their dreams

nov 2

Wear

Clouds come on in watercolor
two parts paint, one spit
rust washing this place
making us ask
are the holes in our eyes
picked like the holes in our teeth
growing, filling,
wearing away again

oct 30, 11

Motion

i walked with the wind
watched a train trundle
heavy with metal
when it was gone
the grass roared its echo
then laid itself to rest
pulled an onion from its undertow
peeled it to a stone
walked away with the shakes

oct 30, 11

The Hush Hush

Come the barely lit days
the lambent season flickers out
with only wind to take its place
come the barely moved mouths.
Come the sky husked
translucent and spent
come the dark hush
whisper bent
come the hours used up
the urgency they lend.
Lips cracked deep in the center
with quiet
slowly cooling cinders.

oct 30, 2011

To-Do

tuck your hair up
walk your ways
touch the trees
watch the headlights come through clouds
take your time
wear out this light as it leaves
hardening, draining
into ground, nest, sculpted sky
leaving you with only pages intact
and stamps
and metallic breath
leaves you with your bare eyes

oct 29, 2011

Picking Paths

picking paths
away from here
this city, its mad mumble
coming when called
to talk nonsense,
neat, perpendicular town,
at my elbow
smoothing my hair
checking for fever

Oct 28, 2011

Gloss

if there was only so much breath
and a whir of fire under a kettle
to be heard over
would the truth bother with this wrapper
and string
or spill
not even into hands
just out and on
as blood or spit or sweat
a mess cohesive
denying its own pattern
until looked into

The Tells

we wait for rain to pass
but as it streams between the world
and here, our tells become
easy to recognize, all akindle

our own limbs

already burned to embers

grounded reasons
gathered for tender
and nothing left to add
just the hours until
the rain has passed

oct 18, 2011

Not Now

don't look now
the days gone
are catching up
coming around
flashing teeth
shaking hands
the agreements made
are out of date
no time lost
showing up here
out of place
catching my eye
making like a stranger
with new friends

oct 18, 2011

Crook

many times
the windows are cracked
and leaned into until collapse
the silent downfall of a dancer
very little is taken
many times
the locks are pried
the bolt rolls over and clicks
gentle force like a suggestion
but the cheat passes the night
on the steps
never understanding the house
trembles with want.

oct 16, 2011

Vintage

the words of my mouth
backed by breath and sound
are distilled and aged in
cool cellars in the ground
not spent not spilled
to mud tilled in
underfoot and only taken as
undistinguished earth to be scraped
from your favorite soles
on a day without date

If Ever You Need

nearby i keep
an open road
and though i cleared it myself
you may mistake it for
the nocturnal path of an animal
it never crosses another
it leads to water
gentle at the banks
hungry in the deeps
i keep it clear enough to follow
near enough to take
if ever you need

oct 9, 2011

At the Stake

when work doesn't come

as it should

the body pushes through,

making motion through a sieve

and the line left slack

catches and knots

the nothing seems hard,

begins to feel like work again. 

but blood doesn't move

it catches in bruises

around which all my effort folds in.

to make something true

the body must be staked

and burned and turned out

into ground or ink or soot

a material suitable for work. 

oct 9, 2011

Fever

hips have a basin
to carry weight
not seen
to receive risen waters
broken levees
to make room, open, nearby
to keep the bones taut
broken relics
hips have a basin
so there will be a desert to wander
to burn by day
empty
and shudder by night
empty

oct 9, 2011

September Eighth

wary
warning sign
the light leaves early
slips in and out and
undoes the laces
earnest but weary
and we will be alaska
land of midnight
when these signs
have passed us

sept 8, 2011

Feral

the play of a skirt up thighs
head thrown back to the sky
ribs make room for the sigh
a pair chasing through rows of light
a wordless cry

sept 4, 2011

Silent Night

What one silent night can do
to staunch the blood let out
with awful progress
a moonlight herb, a rally
smelling spirits stirring
a rise from rigid shock
kissing wounds
with soft wake up sounds

sept 4, 2011

Reading Practice

I've read your moods
more than your face
and your body more
than your words
And in turn I've practiced
a face that says little
and words that never approach
We'll find the line of this story
lie and lie by lie
Silence is our white walled room
denying everything
waiting for everything

sept 4, 2011

The Ways You've Been

Where your notebook sits, leave it
don't depend on your pen.
The planes of your house
you've washed with your eyes
the boxes you check,
let them rest.
You've always known
the nights are uneven
let them, rise upon rise,
build inside you.
Let their geography swell
time a rundown metronome
and language was only
something to put in your mouth
in times of ration
you've outgrown these measurements.
You've been searching
up under your hair, your nails,
sit still.
Forget your words for your body
it will take you on from here
and these ways you've been.

sept 4, 2011

Hungry

If your hunger is a good hunger,

breathe it in

If your city is a good city, 

say so on your return

If the day is a warm pool

with a lean, muscular cold

sliding along your neck,

ride into that

Your hands are good, 

press them to your lips

eyes, nose, mouth them

If your tethers are good tethers, 

love them. 

sept 4, 2011

Road Need

There was not enough driving
there were not enough ways to remain unseen
there were not enough open roads
through total dark
there was not enough sense
between landslides of talk
there were not enough ways of remembering.


sept 2, 2011

Wind-Up Day

Our time together hand-wound
the dirt, our skin, holds the heat of the day
long past dark
the deeper we look away
from one another and across
the climbing hills
into the stars arriving
from the daylight ash
the dark walks behind me
matches my confusion step for step
hides my limp
arrests my hands and all
from reaching to break a fall
or scrambling up again.

sept 1, 2011

Help

there will be poems and
truth laced lines
to walk us through
to teach our broken bones
to work again
to convince
our blood drained hearts
they are meant for this
to lie against our
wail worn faces
and whisper them dry
by morning:
"the world goes on
god goes on
it's only you that dies
it's just you, don't mind it"

aug 23, 2011

Spool

The sewing thread
spins the spool
undoes the soles from the shoes
and the flicker from the trees
and the locks from the doors
takes my "maybe" to make it "of course"

The sewing thread
in the bottom of a purse
lies in wait for fingers
sends them through others
making sense, making riddles
pulls my "maybe" through "of course"

The sewing thread
in its hundred thousands
follows black lines
in sidewalk cracks
in iris tenses mends
everything to this
"maybe-  of course"

aug 25, 2011

Not What We Thought

So far
i know we are not guilty
but small and held together
as if buried under war rubble

i know we are not weak
but sore from failing to move time
time as hard as the sky
that will never adjust no matter
how we grow

i know these are not tears
that dry up others' mouths
but that wear down the mortar
masks we wince behind

i know we do not die
but pass from one hand to another
and our hearts do not break
but dream of air we have not tasted
and have been told is impossible to breathe.

aug 24, 2011

Tender

Witness the tender season
laying down its arms
going on its knees
hands up empty
letting hostages free
giving up bodies of fire
scraping the hard blue scales
from its helmet sky
sending its blood out
in the open to cool.

Still warm to the touch
the tender season
buries its face
in a pile of surrender.

Witness the tender season
lift its last head
look us in the eye
as life drops from it
degree from degree.

aug 24, 2011

Winter Wood

Look winter love
see the room
drawn from the space
you've drawn out
from here to far away.
I'll sit at its baseboards
making tallies
of the numbered times i've
lost my own breath
and had to search it
in the winter wood
you've made this room of.
Once found, once I breathe
again as everyone does
in and out again,
i'll spend my drawn out time
drawing the black sky between
the limbs of your white wood
and bless it
for relating our messages.

aug 22, 2011

Salute

The warning flyers silent
dropped around your ears.
I sent them slapping
from the belly of my planes
then droned away
to let you think
and time to escape.
In the whole city
in all your streets
you stood standing in place
over and over again reading
the printed declaration
the spelled out shame.
Run, was the gist,
get away
before I come back
with my mouths open
and my hearts marching past.

aug 22, 2011