always

a bunch flowers dead in an orange juice can
cries wrinkled petals when I bump the table.
stolen from a grave I was passing. the dead
in the ground just mumble, the ones in my head
sort of respect the the silence.

fucking up, always fucking up... hence the flowers.
an offering for the chance of a small peace. a half-assed
kindness is better than none.
for shit's sake, you were already gone.
I guess it worked




.

pages

the pages of your skin drift free

in the smallest touch of an excessive sky.

the air's profuse disappointment

tints hushed eyes and twists a

smile that attracts with concealment.

It would be wrong to say you hold prayers

but what is it your fingers seek

within hands forgotten to themselves

my desire is not for ears to filter the gray voiced

lament but to be found hiding in your hands

do not be beautiful to me

I have folded myself over lines,
the clean edge of white titanium exposed,
a struggle to right myself
from the counter-weight
of memory. What is
the azimuth of truth? Desire?
A compass points magnetically
to a shifting north. But there are
no paths. The flesh of the god
I seek will not bruise under the
dent of my reverence, no ink dried
vellum crumbling prayers.
The persistence of need is more
than the next breath, fingers sift through
an empty mouth




.