seldom

the horizon is papered over and semipermeable,

there are days I can swim beyond it, my eyes

breaching the thin trust, my hands are tiny fish

reaching, shivering in the dead water, stirring molecules.

words pass imperceptibly, a message rippling along threads

long since archaic, evolution doesn't preclude loss or devalue hell

.

when

a finger space, the distance floating on false
water, it is not a storm calling or a mountain falling.

the ground curves away, the road goes where it wants.

I am still counting the seconds after the flash

trying to get an idea of distance. that electric blur

of an afterimage jagged on my vision, my sight ruined

by the past. scraping across boundaries, moving

further from the remembered truth.

smudged fingerprints on a glossy photograph.

the evidence of longing. someone loved enough

to be held by more than the edge.

at what distance does a heartbeat

become irrelevant and can I count that high

.

subdural

let me not drink the soft sea
of your hair for I would willingly
drown, enveloped in the fragrant
tides, lost to the dark currents.
In stillness I flourish.


my heart is a monster
do not call to it with your sugared
words for once the bait is laid it will hunt
your wine stung lips; its hunger engorged
can only be spent in destruction.
only in deprivation can it slumber.


do not smile, I cannot bare the light,
but I would wallow in the pale moon
of your skin. the pitch pots filthy spew hide
the black holes of my eyes but can never disguise
what my hands want. feel your way inside of me



.

mercy

the wolves cry love, that misguided
knife that cuts at the boundaries of sense;
with fear that runs up your back and
longing to move beyond comfort.


it is love that pierces the throat
of the winter starved doe, lost to the dream
of the first green. collapsing into the warm
spring of her blood, the final music of winter a long
ribbon of snow scraping over snow, the breath
of hope free at last outside the intersection of desires.

subsiding

the place where we will always be together is

rancid in despair. You can beat me

as long as there is no forgiveness;

it is a narrow spectrum.

in the the dream two snakes twist their arms desperate

to hold the laughter; it was me who was left with the weight.

I have been beautiful in the slowly

sliding scars of a glacier, that golden breath

held somewhere in the moraine.

it is a long walk

.

single minded

I remember the fires that came
through this field. the winter dead sunflowers
folding at last to rest, fence posts
wearing thinner with each lick, and
the sky pillowed with rich black smoke
rising until caught by a single minded breeze.
when the dry summer stretches out to meet
idle hands we are hidden below
the horizon of the grass. I am anchored by your nearness
and the small touch of your fingers
when passing the cigarette back and forth.
your eyes are lost in something hidden by the cloudless blue sky,
mine are consumed by yours



.

unfinished

I angle my teeth to catch the
splintered stars. Their light fits
me now. is there any softness left
to you, curves to guide me? I have
faced the wind too long.
I am all loose footing and
scree I cannot touch you without
breaking. lets leave this less than
done so there will always be
something more



.

anything approppriate

I quote my own silence in an effort to explain what folds

around these hands. there has been different skin, collapsed like a mortuary

shroud, the thinnest breath of shelter floating in the fluorescent air.

the hardening lines of earthworms

dead on the concrete borders. It was an easy lie

to follow, washed away from the dark to wither in the slackening flow.

I have been in the choir, mouth formed around pennies

others threw. breath expelled in four counts, staggering

through the false harmony.

way over the line a dead coyote waits by the interstate for

a new hunger to consume it. I leave a fortune cookie

in case there is anything appropriate 

. 

no more

I cannot bear this light. put your hand

over my eyes and tell me the sun

is no more, hold the pennies

in place until my blue eyes

are stained green with the thin urgency

of grass growing in the moonlight. tell me,

do the blades hunger any less for softness

.

crush

crush the fruit of your lips

into me before the last

breath of this land is gone.

kiss the mouth that lies and

drink the new wine.

maybe I'll remember
your name, maybe I'll scratch
new lines in the dirt, or
maybe I'll find an ax so I can reach the noose.


let's boil this down to a better purity
of malice, two small deaths
irredeemable to any surrender. Lets
be relentless in our mistakes



 .

tonight

Tonight the only headlight squints into the desert passing at it's own pace. The motor thudding a fetal rhythm. White lines are faint suggestions while mile markers peer out of the darkness, specters to remind me of the distance between two ends of nowhere.

I didn't mean to steal your necklace, but you hair had tangled in it and my hands were convenient. While you complained and danced I opened the latch, and pulled the hair until it broke free; you were gone. A gold filigree heart now spins from the rear view mirror catching the pale light of the dash.

The speedometer needle shakes in the vicinity of the truth, the gas gauge refuses to give a fuck and has fallen through the red becoming less than empty, and the clock is satisfied with 3:36.

There is a styrofoam cup of of what used to be coffee, I rinse the residue of smoke, stale booze, and pointless talk from my mouth with a swallow.

Your mouth a red blur drunk on laughter swims through the stream of your hair. Wearing the dress that shows your collar bones, arrowheads shaped from shadows indicating the direction to your heart. I cannot afford to think that smile will ever touch me, my poverty is complete.

The animals come out at night, cloaked among the weeds that encroach on the road, colorless beggars skittish in prayer for any meal

A pile of rocks marks the turn into the twin ruts through the barbed wire, the place of bomb craters and wasted munitions, the place I sleep.

.

digging

digging holes in the permafrost
on nights when mosquitoes are
lost in the wind.
I am hoping the mud
and ice will restore the rawness.
my hands have been
too long in the sky hunting
the light that curved around you,
they are stained a kind of blue
that is lost anywhere else.


the wind tugs at my beard
almost pulling my gaze past
the past, beasts frozen in their
demise waiting for release
from this idea that the past
must remain



.

the burden buried beneath skin

1
under these pelts, somewhere beyond
the prodding roots I am untouchable. the undergrowth of a new skin
knots itself to the virtue of darkness,
safety from the suffocating light.


2
a kiss between weeks and the weight of warmth, the dream of lips and legs held in the embrace of winter.


3
like the sand, wet
from the rivers tongue your skin hides things as well,
there are the stones gathered in your softness, worried
smooth in the fingers of lovers, that knew how to remove edges
but not the weight of desire.


4
I hoard what I can not take; more emptiness,
never arbitrary in its completeness



.

found

We used to trip over the edges of sunsets
landing at the endless horizon of night,
but there is no faith in the tangible.
you took my hand to guide my tongue,
teaching me the words you wanted.
Touching on the silence of ruin.
the loose trail of days left behind
dog the present, fraying in the wind
as seasons cross imaginary lines.
the twisted roads of this river are filled with
deserted footsteps. Phantom limbs
that still find me



.

hallelujahs

1
Have you been close enough to see his vaselined
red streak fury of eyes, heard his voice breaking
over phlegm? cracked lips bleeding mad blessings,
fingers jumpy with nicotine hunger and cured with tar
and sun and too much shit. the glory of alcohol soaked BO,
loose change bottle pacts and found butts with something left.
Don't you know we are an idealized creation?


2
show me your heaven, the collected reliquaries
of crippled silver, not for an eternity but
more than a glance at an empty cup.


let me know your hands, the bones
of every finger, as you envelop the blind
gold shape of it, counting out the promises
of your ascension.


let me hear the prayers whispered, your tongue
an instrument for the gods you keep. The incessant
desolation of their need written upon you



. 

respite

no truer cathedral than the light's
soft radiance through the vaulted
reach of trees. the unexpected weight
of tranquility, a green nave to wander.
shadows shiver with the hymns
and industry of those more permanent.
I am allowed a temporary reconciliation
before being lost again among men



. 

the first morning of August

the first morning of August
was already dark; another
season slips out of hand.
the trees settle in to
shake off their leaves.
gold for the fire waiting
in the vestibule while
sparks of memory gather



.

lie still

lie still and allow the sun to shine.
give the wind its rest, all the directions will wait.
breathe now belly to belly with the swell
of the dirt and grass.
let me count
the hairs falling down the small of your back
with forgetful lips always starting over 



. 

path

an exit wound at ten thousand
frames a second. the playback of one
cell exploding, a flower of
mitochondria and DNA blooming
through the coarse of years.
a body persists in its habits


the shade of your words and the slippery
cool of your tongue easily ignited.
fluorine and ground glass, impossible
reagents to hold what is left. Cindered,
there is less of me than remembered.


I hollow my bones into a semblance of flight.
Cross my fingers, cross my path, bridge any
measure of the distance between desires.
the stars point in every direction at once
how can you pretend they guide anyone?



.

consumed

we lower ourselves into
our consumption. the blood
of time spills from drunk
mouths. the easy words
meaningless in their abundance
until tongues grow knives
and cull the weak. lead me
by the handles of desire
to know the death that is offered,
the blinding of self in an animal
of limitless color 



. 

where is anything

we sharpen sticks into dousing rods.
finding more than water among the
coarse rocks and broken edges,
questioning surface tension and its
curve against gravity. is the
potential for integrity in such
small bloodless lies redeemable?
where is heaven when you have
amended your body to the fallen sky?


soundless allegories dissipate
into the secondhand knots
of everyday hell



.