need

 

need

the geography of my need

is found in your knees,

--connective tissue holding

a petal of bone--

your bone a hillock

raising my diamond depression,

my ballerina-pink satin scar

kissing your sanguine red welt,

our two griefs mating into sunset.

when we stitch them together 

knock-kneed, three-legged,

arm in arm, let our 

free hands violently swing

else we come

tumbling down

my knee on your knee

like your teeth on my ear

like my nails on your throat

Happy Families

 Chasing Apollo across a continent

We arrive at the city in night

Stalagmites glow at the heart

Christmas lights laid out beyond, blinking  it

Dawns on me they are porch lights

Peeping in and out through branches

Suburban home fires warming to the

American dream of couched laughter and 

Candlelit casseroles

Red lights scream along dark ribbons

White light feels anxiously ahead

An itching need to reach those strung out lights

All happy families are alike

warm baths   clean sheets

waltzes in stocking feet

every house the same beat

“How was your day, dear”

two steps right

“Smashing, darling”

one step back

“You look lovely, doll”

left, left

blink, blink, *blush*

up

Up in the sky they are all just playthings

Lights flickering silent in the dark

Too far away to see dirt and grime,

Hear sobbing behind the radio,

See families lonely wreathed with webbed halos.

From here, I can hold the house in my palm

right, right, back

Put my eye up to the window

left, left, up

Before I shake it, and toss it away into the dark.

Strange Harmony

 

It is a joy--      to sink into earth      covered in a patina of salt-sweat.      Kinetic energy.      leaving footprints in culverts,      a tussle of slapping cornstalks,      airs concussed by hammer blows,      the camaraderie of workers boots             congregating for gas-station lunches,      moving through like wind:            Invisible but affecting anything	It is a joy--     to slide through     greased with moneyed palms     surrounded by the tension of     Potential energy:     opened doors, idling     cars, pulled out     seats, clockwork precision set     with a center of stillness,     moving through like sunlight:       drawing all eyes without touching a thing
There is a comfort--      in a body greedy for sleep,      dreamless and engulfing a body      that knows where its muscles are	There is a comfort--      in the swish between silk sheets,      swimming in the twilight sleep      of oceans and lavender
It is a blessing--      to eat sunshine      and breathe out chlorophyll	It is a blessing--      to eat words      and send back the crusts

It is a strange harmony

of evergreen and hardwood 

scaling up the mountain,

the breeze blowing all branches

before / after

 before / after

    a point in the line of time 

    so dark it draws the eye

    a shudder of a door slammed 

    so hard the portraits fall

    a slash and burn

    so complete the inferno devours itself

    the edge of a razor

    so sharp it eviscerates whole words

not normal / normal

     unthinkable / thinkable

     intolerable / tolerable

    it creates an alien world that looks

    uncannily familiar

maybe not better / maybe not worse

but definitely, definitively

  different

those two f’s like parallel lines (parallel worlds)

      like two daggers, tips pointed down

    warriors’ hands on hilts

     blades not unsheathed

    but ready

Hot Springs

 

swimming in winter

drowning in february grey

we dip our heads under rising steam

cheeks blush, fingers wrinkle

clouds borne from lips kiss wandering phantoms

we gather snow, burning hands red

clutch it close to our chests

squealing as we fall back to warmth

a frozen ache held tight

    like a secret

    like a crush

    like a pocket of personal ecstasy

an afterimage of desire

keenly cold where there should be fire

a fleeting moment dissolves

into tepid memories of gooseflesh

Camp Followers, On the Strength of the Army

For them it is the reassurance of knowing things as they are

For us it the restoration, an absolution

Those flocks of petticoats trailing after cannon

Priestesses disguised as laundresses

And we do offer up our filthy garments

Heedlessly stripped off, rumpled, thrust aside

Dumped in barrels of river water

They unfurl, water seeking out its wounds

Blood snakes away in ghost smoke

Until the women begin their endless work

A fury of scrubbing with brimstone--

Piss and lye of ash--

Tendrils of hair whipped free

Mutter of prayer or incantation

Boiling baptism of water and fire

Bubbling like excitement

Trembling like terror

Jumble of pathos fighting with itself on the brink

Then an exorcism, a cathartic flogging

Forcing a weeping of anger, of fear, of shame

Swallowed back by pride

Now expelled with violent chastisement

Spent at last they lie them

Out like soulless shells on hushing grass

We open the packages tied with string

An immaculate shirt to incarnate as before

Smelling of sun and boyhood

A traveling to the time before.

The Old Plantation

 The old plantation

dressed in a recent coat of whitewash,

shutters an identical shade of original green,

braced by golden beams of new wood 

as it slightly lists to the left

due to foundational errors.

The whole affair cordoned off.

A restoration of remembrance 

     or nostalgia;

     admiration

     or a recognition--

of weathered stairs polished with 

    plain worn shoes

    beating

    steady rhythm

    behind a staccato of kid leather boots;

of ledgers laid open to

   columns of profits

   as straight as

   harrowed furrows;

of windows peering out 

    at fields sprouting snow--

    a harvest of clouds--

    while wraiths creep amongst fog

    under the relentless glare of

    barren sockets 

 framed in green and white.

running to stand still

 

Running on a treadmill

standing stock-still

I tell myself I am safe

from judgement, as though my slow progress

would offend, my stretched Lycra

would distress

I tell myself I am safe 

from runner's knee, and muscle pulls

concrete is too hard to fall

one trip to make me crawl

I tell myself it is easy 

drinks at hand, music wired

as though carrying what I need and desire

is too heavy

I tell myself it is easy

course predestined, speed anticipated

No sudden turns, dogs, streets gated

Even the seasons don't change

I don't change

I get nowhere.

Grey Goose

Reflecting

Father pops out in brilliant hues

    camping trip green

    roller-coaster red

    icy-pop blue

    punched through with angry black.

But Mother is a mess--

a finger-painting of routine,

bleeds colors from sole to grey,

the particular indiscernible from far away.

Grey--

tint of storm clouds

pregnant with sobbing,

chasing the sun with condolences,

mutilating the heavens with her bawl.

Grey--

chimes like silver,

sword on sword in a

defensive battlecry,

clashes of protection.

Grey--

skeleton scaffold of ladders

to drape a skin of want

without hazard of buckling.

Grey--

world at dusk;

a black and white movie

with birdsong as soundtrack;

blurred edges, softened scrutiny;

a rabbit's meuse;

white noise.

Grey--

becomes the background

so the colors can

pop.

Quotation Marks

A mirror of twins

mimicking the other

without empathy for the middle signals.

Doubled ears with tongue between.

Soldiers standing guard 

to fix the words in place

so, even unheard,

ciphers displace the atmosphere

like hurricanes dispatched from butterfly wings.

Ribs holding the breath of intention.

Final Meal

love begins 

with the eyes

hate sets in 

the jaw

monitoring the procession

from fork to mouth

mastication without gustation

you saw your knife

lift it bloody to slick lips

with smacks and slurps

crunch of bones

tearing of flesh

shredded between your teeth
like you consume all your lusts

like your bovine eyes leered

like your voice bellowed

like you’ve nibbled at my brain

and sat on my lungs

and poked out my eyes

you mean to grind me down

until you void me out

I have cradled 

anger  humiliation  guilt

in my gut 

until I birthed it on a plate

that you ate up

it may not be this sun

this moon

but soon

there will be a leaving

dust

 Dust that fuzzes the edges

A great detritus fog

Made up of hair & skin & dandruff & powdered sweat & nubs from blue sweaters & sloughed mud from trainers worn when it rained & pollen from a mountain hike to Looking Glass Falls where ox-eyed daises rigidly rocked as if uprooting themselves to stalk after you--

Pieces of you attract and collect to your abandoned surfaces

As if it could proliferate thick enough to claim the matter as its own

As if you wanted to stay all along.

Those precocious motes dance

dizzy in the sun

like echos of your soul and 

trace the erratic trajectory of your 

travels in the shadows.

Let the dust nest in my brain

Let it choke my lungs

Let it mold its exoskeleton around me

Let all your pieces become my peace.

How to Kill Me

 Stab me

With something long and narrow

Deep in my side

So the bleeding is internal--

Eternal--

Causing weakness and apathy

Til the blood bubbles up;

I'll close my mouth,

I'll close my eyes,

To keep it inside.

Smother me

While I rest

(But I never sleep);

I'll suck up 

The down.

But lay on my heart

While you hold a pillow to my head,

Rock me gently

As I crash.

Shoot me--

In the chest, not the head--

Bullet ricochets like a pin ball

My ribs flip and bump

To slingshot the ball

Deep in the muscle

The size of a fist

At last unclenching--

A hole to break the whole.

Just don't let me die

Being flayed alive, 

Rubbed raw by routine,

Irritated ad nauseum

By Sisyphean habits.

Skin blistered and peeled

Until every exposed nerve

Awakens with each 

New movement; each

New stimulus provoking

Agony that astonishes.

Cleansing water becomes

A cauldron of combustion;

Silk sheets, a bed of nails.

All I can do is stand

Still, until I cannot stand

It, still--

Words

My first Word
fermented for a time
as conception, an idea
then formed with my lips,
sounded with my breath,
borne of desperation
with a search for blood
amid a cavalcade of tears.

The next two followed
as a slip of the tongue—
Conversing
in the desert night
living in what shade we could find—
Communing
with tiny earthquakes
near the sigh of the ocean—
Conjunctions
joining noun with noun.

The last
uttered with a stutter
knowing its import,
knowing how its pronouncement
would shape the world.

The Words
echo behind me—
A sentence strung on a string—
with only the punctuation in question.

Mirror

Mirror

Empty, until your reflection

Animates my looking glass.

Through your iris, all becomes rainbows.

Bend, refract, magnify the light

Like a lighthouse marking the harbor.

Fasten me with your gaze.

Let my gravity pull you round.

Make me your cynosure

Until my drag decays your orbit.

Or fling me out altogether

Among stars twinkling like heliographs.

Set me adrift in the dark.

Blind to my silver, my floating glass,

Regarding only reversals of you

You see only you.

The Garden

As newlyweds you strolled
among lush, verdant hostas,
ferns, and sedges; along a
travertine path.
Hydrangeas and honeysuckle
beckon hummingbirds and
butterflies: a magical Eden
alive with faires and elves
under the watch of guardian oaks.
Heat radiates from the green,
sighs fragrant with flowers,
heavy and earthy, raw with desire.
An orchestra of cicadas sang
to the twilight.  Fireflies
echoed constellations.
You captured a star for your bride:
A firefly under glass:
Celestial turned beetle.

Monsoon months arrive
with showers that impel
leaves to dance a tarantella.
The garden grows close as
the sky grows heavy.
Travertine path as slick
as your lies.
With mincing steps
and mincing words
you walk the fine line
between truth and what
you want her to know.
Wading in mud leaves
a mess too big
to clean up.

When the water retreats,
the army advances
in two single-file lines.
Like her barrage of carping
vitriol, the river of
six-legged creatures,
relentless and resolute,
pour forth from camoflauge
to infiltrate your citadel,
dissecting and carrying
away your lives
one crumb
at a time.

Under summer sun
mosquitoes, buzzing
like your bickering,
find their mark in
soft spots,
unthinkingly laid bare,
as surely as your
provoking pronouncements,
sucking blood,
replacing it
with venom,
so that alone
in bed at night,
you lie awake,
scratching at sores
until they bleed anew.

Fruit and flowers
lay lost and putrid
among the litter
of spent leaves and
brittle stems. Chill winds
carry decay and rot
around a lone
stationary figure,
the taste of dark
in the back of
your throat,
bewildered
at the waste.
Bare branches
crack the sky.

Noxious

I was towering and magnificent,
Substantial and unyielding,
Lusty limbs outstretched as if to hug the sky.
He was just a spindly thing
When he asked if he could
Use me as support.

His tendrils tickled as he climbed,
Fresh leaflets patty-caked in rhyme.
I grew nostalgic for the days
When I was thin and lithe--
Bending with the whims of wind,
Reaching for the sun.

Then laughter stopped
As enchantment turned to irritant:
Stalks snaked around my gut,
Vines grew tight like a garrote,
Began to canker and cut,
Leaves metastasize and march
Relentlessly, recklessly upward,
Its inevitability thundering forward,
My view eclipsed by his.
I labor for breath beneath the weight
Of his underhanded prosperity.
I buckle and capitulate,
Swallowed whole,
Subsumed into a monster.

Little Luxuries

A weekend of little luxuries:
dinners of crustaceans,
denuded of their shells;
desserts flavored with honey and thyme;
strolling through gardens--
prude tulips hugging petals close,
hiding its secret black passion;
lewd bottle brush,
only a fuzzy bristle of stamens;
we two coiled in our chrysalis,
a husk of bankets, covering
our blossom of limbs
as snow drips soft and wet,
ignoring the glancing sun.

A Little is A Lot or a Little

Butterfly wings change the course of history.
Orbits of planets rotate unhindered for millennia.

One snowflake starts an avalanche.
Tides lap the earth with habitual doggedness.

The breakup of an atom leads to mass annhilation.
A lone wolf's brays wane in the wind.

A dream can raise a city.
A dream can dim with the rising sun.

The Rule of Eight

They fairly vibrate with need,
Pinging across the universe,
Saturating themselves in light, color, scent;
Looking to connect, to share,
To lose a part of themselves,
Morphing and bonding;
Becoming something else completely.

I watch, unable to rise from my shell.
Matching their mania tires me,
Makes me unstable.
I cling to my core and watch as they dance.

Each day, following my same orbit--
Apogee equals perigee--
Never too far from the center.
A noble thing, perhaps,
But hardly alive,
Undectable, disregarded, dismissed.
An exhalation.
A sigh.