30

In every breath there are

hidden knives, thin brittle

steel with points twisted off,

high carbon rusted with neglect,

a pig iron shiv finally freed.

My blood shifts to red as my

lungs begin to fill. I learn to hate,

I learn to wait, I learn to sing

the softest poison. While I sharpen

the coarse edges of my breath

.

29

The dream is simple, it is morning,

there are birds outside, the light

is calm. It is twilight the light is

tired, the nighthawks feed. It is dark

the moon is. The moon is shining through

the dead leaves of a different season.

You are asleep, you are in bed breathing.

You are of the moment. The crowning curve

of your ear peaks through your hair. There

is the warm machine of your breath.

Your skin gathers the light, your skin glows.

A Perpetual illumination in this half light.

I am captured, helpless. I am unwilling

to move. I am content to linger. I let my

breathing fall into tune

.

28

I haven't had a dream in a long time.

Sleep only comes in broken pieces,

frozen slick roads with a subtext of sin.

Something always slipping, something smashing.

Sometimes you have to take the bottle

in both hands and point the headlights

towards the nearest catastrophe. if there

is any luck left I'll blind-side a guardrail

and explode into a fireball near any of

your more curvaceous roadside attractions

.

27

Soft, no calluses, but strong.

Vein work embossed and proud.

Pale golden hair radiant

on bronze skin. Manicured

nails cut close. I really do

have beautiful hands;

the throat being crushed

struggles to agree

.

26

Mad with a martyr's desire we burn on
holy ground. The crumbling architecture
of burned out cathedrals, ribs opening
to the sky. our hearts the fused
stained glass free to shatter again.
Iconography reduced into a fine ash,
carried away with the final breath
of reason. The slumped gold of a gods
dream looted. With the ecstatic release
of trapped prayers let us crumble
before time into the ruins of each other



.

25

I made you a queen. A piece of my hand still

stung with the wasp attached. Two stones

that will never touch, the strings of their

polarity are knotted though. A scrap of paper

that held all the first words I said to you.

Willow bark still smoldering from the bosque fire

we lit for fun. A vial of river water as a witness.

There is a plinth and some marble dust from the

last pillar I made. A humming bird at rest and a

rusted lock that might never open. Each placed

in a raw hide bag to \ache against your heart

.

24

1

It's been bad lately, the wind

is fierce with no time to take it

easy; and all the blue sky doesn't help.

Flowers are just sprays of noise.

2

Do you fly kites?

3

What colors have meaning

when the landscape shifts sideways,

an abstraction smearing without a canvas.

4

the hands of trees tremble

as they bend their backs to the face

of the wind. The small leaves

are fearless in their youth.

5

A wild virulent call, low frequency

longing as desire rubs against need.

Discordant distress of a swollen

chemical urge, animalistic and unsympathetic.

6

My mouth is sore, like I have been chewing

twigs, stripping willow bark for the

analgesic effect, a little pain is worth

some relief. Splinters in my gums

to keep my tongue still

.

23

drunk on my blood, you left

me carrion, a scavenged city

of bones. rent memories of ruined skin.

my mouth a black wail, insensible

and forsaken. fingers splintered

into bitter tributaries feeding

the rot seeping from the shattered

bowels of heaven. I am lost from

the mercy of death, there is no final

breath, only ash grinding me to silence 

. 

22

There has to be point, an instant when 

the direction becomes leaving. Where 

are you? The smoke pulls towards the 

wallpaper as if the flowers want it, a 

respiration that gives nothing back. 

There is a car door and a dog bark, but it 

wasn't close enough. Is condensation 

leaving or joining. I part the curtains 

with the plane of my hand, there is no 

resistance, the fabric isn't covering 

your thighs as my hand moves between the 

softness. There is no car outside and 

clouds have sealed the sky. A quick 

scratch then a pop and a paper match is 

lit. The flame grows without 

confidence, I give it a bit then inhale 

it through the tobacco. I let it fall 

wishing I hadn't replaced the carpet 

with hard wood

.

7 7 7

7

In the silence I can almost hear

you breathe. The walls exhale the

memory of your perfume. My hands

do not close without pause to

wonder where you have gone.

7

A violent shining hour and a box of

wine. The glitch of nicotine and anxiety.

Words wind remotely. Hands flit nervously

never landing. A plastic cup falls spraying

concrete with watered down blood. But all the

bleeding was internal.

7

Your are richer for the

dust on your skin. My kisses

bloom, darkening into momentary

shadows, the fine coating

of sunlight rippling

.

20

We have left the gods behind, the crocus

cannot part the asphalt lips, the wind is

a howling emptiness. Thinly disguised rituals

offer nothing inside their dime store wrapping.

The wine is only wine. Barren is the night

offering only flickering fluorescent dreams.

We are nervous children clinging to our

golden plastic crosses

.

19

The backyard of the house where I
first kissed a girl is down the street.
I detour to drive by, it is red brick.
I remember sitting in the dirt and the diamonds
of chain-link. I don't remember
the spin the bottle kiss and I lost track
of Mary before highschool was done.

I guess I learned to hold on with
the sweep of a second hand



.

18

How long can I wait for something to change me. I have

loosened the lug nuts until the wheels rattle in their

sockets. I shimmy without rhythm.

There are poets hiding under ground, dog-eared cyphers

of root tangles and low frequency riddles hidden deeper

than I can feel. But my toes tingle.

Some sugared emblem stolen from a preachers dead eyed

daughter. The thorn still pricks my thumb. But it slides

easy into the form fitted leather. We both shoot

blanks this way.

A thousand, thousand spines broken in questioning. Ink

rubbed raw, pages bruised with insistence, fingers return

empty. There is no pattern recognition in the silence.

My eyes close in the spaces left

.

17

Sometimes I need to pray. An old 

cigarette machine waits while the 

pneumatic arms makes sure the black 

painted glass door closes. I stomp my 

feet and clap my hands. A shamanistic 

practice to expel demons. I lower 

myself down inside the neon store 

front and swallow two fingers of 

whatever is closest, do it again. The 

liquid is antiseptic and tastes of 

kerosene. A warmth seldom found wraps 

around me like some usable truth. The 

breath that leaves is heavy with 

burned out prayers. The glass is as 

smooth and warm as somebody else's 

blood. But that doesn't happen. There 

is no value in hands that cannot melt 

April snow or hold a god close enough 

to believe in. I wonder when will this

day will end

.