my last face to the wind,

an opaqueness to a

small translucence,

sand waiting to be borne.

even the sun erodes,

a gentleness taking more

than I can give.

wreck me!

be the final blow

.

drugs

drugs pull me easily past the emptiness

of sheets, the enveloping coldness

has no hands to press their five pointed

fire into me. a chemical warmth eases

eyelids into the luxurious kiss of darkness,

metronomic breath looses time to oblivion

.

map

the map of bloods journey,

a story of the failed flesh of

days, growth stunted as fingers split

among the rocks of hours.

a division of labor multiplied by nothing

an incomplete zero maintaining the

potential for less

1 ½ cups coarsely chopped cranberries

there are easier ways but I support
each one, whether almost black
or nearly pink, in the V my
thumb makes opposing my forefinger.

nipples are not cranberries but there is
memory in motion.

I slice them in half so they can no longer
roll off the cutting board. Ten or twelve,
maybe fifteen at a time. Repeated
until the mark in the glass
measuring cup is reached.

there is no hurry to complete a task
that draws out the day, there are too few
before the arbitrary line is met



.

Black Tears

clothe me in your sorrow
I will be exquisite in the rags of your pain
bathed in your rancid fear,

your hurt will be mine. the
jarring violence of a ruined heart,
the bitter cold of loneliness, and
all the tears you can not find
I will shed. precious as pearls
the drops will fall from my eyes

painting by Jel Ena

.

waste

the concertina wire's persistent sharpness

is unbroken but it can only

hum as it tries to snag the wind,

a discordant despair with

no true economy, lines 

are twisted desire to hold

squalid hopes banked against need.

an orange glow with no warmth

B

A

R

a neon sunrise in the cold dim

6 a.m. light. closed.

there are no spirits to thin the blood

only the drowned ghosts of

memories and regrets swept 

into the corners with the busted teeth,

puke, piss and blood.

debris.

nostalgia remembered on 

a dusted shelf or derelict in a

mummified desert. lives become 

trinkets abandoned.  golden trash.

land fills and grave yards fill

with preciousness

.

ćutim

a vaseline softness holds the

light, only suggesting shadows.

the silence spins, hints of 

teeth held together

in denial, a small gasp

waiting, or sugared lips in the

act of unzipping.

potential is almost decided.

my hands move on the silent fabric

a womens scent rises.  

there is no plot to this waiting

or depth of vacancy to deter

the repousse of memory

an ear pressed to the murmur of a heart,

warmth of comfort, a vector of rest.

the days of my breath advance,

small turbulences lost in the stillness

that doesn't release me

.

lyric

I will sing the moon red,

words ripe with the blood

of a young god.

a benediction for nothing.

fingers worshiping flesh,

eyes seeking the salvation of beauty.

I will breath until I stop and live

until the flame of memory dies

.

transmission interrupt

listen as the silence wells,

can you hear the voice of destruction?

the bloods degradation hangs heavy in

a yellowing room of projected memories

strained through the skeins of smoke

and nostalgia. somehow a line

was crossed that killed potential, nothing

kinetic about this trajectory. the random violence

of a match strike and the nicotine high

that falls short of the need.

the romance of addiction, so lost

we can’t find each other in the same room

.

glyph

I fill the time you left me with

with cheap whiskey in a desert

not close to being anywhere else.

your memory still holds.

the errant sun’s voyeurism

sparks continuous along

the curve of your silhouette,

the cool relief of your body,  

and the stain of my hand

on you

.

absence

my skin shines, a thousand ribbons

loose in a barren sky.

the deception of life. color that

light once occupied, photons absorbed

as I once absorbed your skin.

the gap too narrow to maintain

.

seemingly

fingertips dig, a persistence

for the depth of silence.

subtract the skin I have

given.  a deeper darkness

stretches between

the breaths, rooms

crammed with the detritus

of loss.

the sky keeps pushing

its manifesto, the weight

of a blue stratigraphy.

I’m always finding the wait

empty of you

.

rest

the dream is twisted into the wet breath

of the forest.  dark fingers of spruce

hold the night calm before the last kiss.

darkness stirs in the slow rotation of shadows.

bones have settled into the carpet of needles, twigs

to snap betraying another life.  there is no

morality in balance

.

last

I lie in the last

foaming breath of the tide

the fingers of a thousand

tiny crabs whisper

into the sand.

my lips curl with the wind,

a smile for the voice

of the sea.

my eyes fill

with the emptiness

of the sky

.

knives

shadowed desire feels

through the fingers of your ribs.

an iridescent cyst pillowed between

the fume of your lungs.  a lure.

flint will flakes under the 

bone hammer, an easy

dissection, viscous threads

do not hold

teach me worlds held

in the broken dark, illicit

and close.

hold me

to the home of flesh

.

haven

as the tide I seek

only to be closer

to the luminous moon

of your heart.

your body the shore

of my desire,

a haven and a home

crossroads motel

the eye of a cigarette

glows with inhalation,

a shallow brightness.

smoke is lost in the still dark;

like the whiskey and the dreams

that never find sleep.

a blistered sun rises,

the dawn is not so much liminal

as it is a corruption bleeding

through the rattled

exhale of the a/c

robbing both the cool breath

of the night and the 

peace of absence.

ashes fall, a sacrament lost,

like everything else

.

raw

we have rubbed the night raw

taken all two bodies have.

embers blackening in the breaths

falling into each other

.

sunday

splintered fingers snag

in the honeyed dawn,

dreams are folded away.

I want to stare

until I can feel you,

the soft rambling damnation

of your skin

.

smear

you smear through my consciousness,

the color of thought pulled to

your pale skin

I empty of everything

but desire

.

you are the weapon of my destruction

the sky opens like a

wound, flesh rendered

succulent.

reverent fingers twisted

into the soft

mortality

of another day,

a red aria smeared

into a final silken

night

.

signs of life

the sky sits steepled and murmuring, wavering

with a blue heat.  broken desires shift in the fingers of the wind,

the tides of sand accepting the congregation of debris and mistaken needs.

It is simple, there is no water to reflect me and your eyes

have submitted to other  pressures.  Without a mirror I cannot see

my breath

.

my voice skips

my voice skips across the
surface of the night
ripples spread, searching
for the edge of you




.

headlights

a quick flick of photons reveals

tumescent flesh

orgiastic and lethal

a cloying sweetness seeking satisfaction

before deteriorating back into night

.

because of Bukowski's birthday

life through the lens of a beer bottle

narrowing pain to a smaller focus

something shared in whatever form

the gutter takes, or the

hell that must be paid.

the book and verse of too much loss

ratified by the hammerstrike

of type written fingers

.

change

there is a shift of atmosphere,

an increase in nitrogen, something

unknowable to my bones.

an ache almost, a memory

of a breath caught or released,

an instinct missed.

the air already so thin between

us, a suffocation of footsteps,

my hands too close to your heart.

the blue deepens one loss at a time.

do blue eyes turn white when

there is no blood? leaving

only striated clouds to see through.

I keep writing blank verses in

this bible, filling the pages

with less.  Is the dream’s

absence who I am

.

firma

I have carved your name

into my hand. the mutability

of the knife’s destruction

is an impure silence, a

wisdom that knows what to take

and sometimes leaves enough.

I have defaced

my god, rewritten flesh

to accept the alignment of bone

and gristle, a massacre

of fingers to lie

down along the

spine of you receiving

your perfect symmetry.

.

why

why the fuck can't I have you

why is the blood in my veins

as meaningless as holy water

the sickle brings nothing

fingers plead, laid like pages

one atop the other, prayers

left blank, hymnals rancid

with cheap booze

all I want is to touch you

to know that the apocolypse of a single night

was more than a dream

.

two suns

1

it sears,

digging into my skin.

errant radiation finding the knots

of DNA, a viable mutation waiting

for the starting gun of mitosis.

2

your hair flairs golden, an adoration

wrapping me in light that digs into my heart.

though tanned, preserved against decay, it

can not resist the catalyst

of touch

.

Summer

There once was a little girl that lived near the edge of a spruce forest. Her eyes were the blue of the hardest glacier ice but they were quick like the chickadees that stayed all winter. Ever since she was able to stand on her own feet she tried to see everything with those quick chickadee eyes. And as soon as she could walk on her own two feet she was determined to see the silver teasing between the spruce trees and laughing over the fire weed. Through seasons of the aurora and the midnight sun she watched squirrel and moose and the occasional caribou wander through the grass that formed a barrier against the spruce forest keeping the cool darkness of the pines away. But there were spaces, openings among the under brush big enough for her. The forest was open to her and had invited her in. She knew now that the silver was the birch tree, the harbinger of winter with it's golden finale. She knew the squirrels slept in the ground under a blanket of snow all winter and she knew that the willow shoots were eaten by the moose, and moose are always best avoided. Now here feet know how to avoid the tangles of roots and she always answers back to the squirrels who yell at her as she intrudes on their forest.

Days slide by some trapped in doors, there is school and other things the adults thinks she should do. But now the grass is a carpet heralding the embrace of the forest since her parents no longer worry so much. She has always returned when she was told, come when she was called. In spring the night still comes and stars shine down but they slowly disappear as the equinox approaches. The glow of a sleepless sun soon lights the nights. The shadows are deep under the eves of the trees but the eyes adjust. And the feet are sure. And the forest opens new secrets with the each foot step. There is a space, no trees block the twilight sky. The curtain of trees part to reveal a pond crowded with snow geese. They are busy raising their young for the flight south. Kneeling in the tall grass at the edge of the water watching, counting, listening to the countless honks. There is a splash to her left, a clomp of water as something hits the surface. A fat frog full of mosquitoes. Again to the right this time. And the speckled back slides under the water in front of her. Twice more the she sees the fish swim past. She notices red near the gills. She sees the two marble eyes motionless except for the circling fins and the gills keeping time as the mouth opens to breath. The fish is watching her. Slowly the trout pushes its nose through the water as if smelling her. She is quiet, she is still, her glacier eyes dare not blink. She can see the fish clearly through the water and the sky is brighter now after midnight. The deep crimson cut on the throat of the fish. She hears the small splashes and wet sounds of the fish hovering in the water. Almost a whisper. A language of moss and smooth rocks and water that laughs on it way to something important, of tidal pools, and the silence of winter. But it was gone with a crash of grass and a brilliant orange flame running on four legs, stupid fox! Greedy for goose, heedless of the girl, the fox was gone as well. The geese too busy to notice the small commotion in the weeds. She watches them for awhile more, hoping the trout will return. But it is nearly morning and soon her mother will come to wake her up. It is good to be in bed dreaming when breakfast is ready and another day is laid out ready to be discovered.

.