*The Blank Scroll *A Mutt Demon's Song jewelbox Aldobrandi My Soul purgatory Stepping out Going Home

silver Piano Lesson If I Could Scrubbing Portrait of a Lady Bleeding Lion Lament of Cut Roses Republican Porn Star

Tourist Kimbrough 7 Trust Oedipus and Hamlet Icarus Cycle II And So it Comes Down... Serengeti in Pixels

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THE BLANK SCROLL How cold the crush of years: One-hundred and twenty-four pounds of pressure per inch Or one-hundred and twenty-four leagues down Where convivial skulls sip salt. You are there to tip your flagon in their favour For inspiration, for distraction, for salvation. To sleep with the fishes and feel a tickling through Phantom soles? Aye. There's a rub. There's the calamity. There are less peaceful places to find rest than at the bottom of a bay, But I see not why you'd deign to hang about A stone left blank save for name and date. Even time has not marked it as it did your forehead With corrugations of erudition And your nearsighted eyes so blind to present time and place But so keenly discerning distant shores, thoughts, and ontologies Even you did not quite grasp. I have heard that you struggled with your revelations. No burbling puti pricked your breast and injected St. Theresa's ecstasy. Every idea was a spectacular wound. Your half a heart crowded your lungs in the end. Marvellous, though, what can grow from shit. Line a flowerbed with the worst of it And grow your flower language for her again. I wept for you Because it slipped my mind that Tommo wasn't alone When Toby returned for him (thought he'd left you to be eaten, eh?) Cannibals, crewmates, words, and women-- Even now there is the multitude of smiling poet skulls Fermenting in that soup of souls which wails in meter And curses in rhyme. I wonder if you clack your metacarpals like castanets to spite them As they clack theirs like metronomes. And do you regale them with ribald rhythm as you did the barber who squared your whiskers weekly? One-hundred and twenty-four years to watch the tesselated tide rise higher Scattering pebbles of sea light across the sunken skeletons and the shoals of thought-divers Together a coral colony to be dived upon and themselves discovered. How still their perforated bones; But startle one phantom fish and the whole school shivers And eludes, shed from corporeal coral like flesh, like leaves, like brilliant soul Melting into the spiritus mundi Of the deep, cold undertow. No man is content as a memory, however grand the legacy. They never tell tales of satisfied ghosts. I can see you restlessly walking the oceanbed leaving a trail in the sand like bird's claws with your fleshless feet, Baffling trackers when the school erodes your faint wake, Gnashing the brine and wishing it were wine, Kicking at the smug skulls, Shaking away the sunstones that fall into your empty sockets; Alone-- Surrounded-- Alone And detesting it In your one-hundred and twenty-four years. You are the frigate that sank and fathered the reef. Putrefying scupper slop and oscillating fins both roil against your keel. Dead sailors revolve suspended in your belly, rotting in the womb. Divers touch your hoary hull in awe. The currents thrust jealously at your hatches. Here is your crew; your brethren surround. Oh, to be captain of the bone heap-- The tiller truly is a jaw. †
A Mutt Demon's Song Help me to be and I'll help you to die. We'll climb upon silver up to the sky! You stay in the clouds, I'll come back to earth. We'll do it again upon your rebirth. At the end of the world when karma's had you become Some virgin-nibbling dragon, or a rich lord's son, Kill me then with your claws or your political sway But I win in the end - I helped make you that way. I may be a demon but I'm not evil as I'm seemin'; I put souls in new babes and induce pretty screamin'. You sigh, I'll work. You die, I'll walk-- Well, 'tis more of an ambling, meandering stalk... Tell your ancestors Oi! Give a noogie t'God! I'll be 'long shortly. Lemme slaughter one more sod. A few more days to slay, another hour to glower. Let me have tomorrow at least, before it turns sour. Fuggit. You're inept and God's distracted; I'll see tomorrow through and the day after protracted. I'll kill to the end, I'll murder overtime. This wasn't my choice but I'll not leave it behind. If there's truth to that thing called reincarnation Why aren't I greeted with gratitude and elation? I'm producin' new people at a dozen an hour. So c'mere. Tilt your head back. I'll make you a flower. †
jewelbox tiny golden dewdrops misted o'er my eyes. jade-encrusted caterpillars whispering good-bye. she's happy. i'm happy. crest the buttered bread. we may find strawberries there or grape preserves instead. two days behind the water trough we spent so long ago. hawks inside an amethyst sky with clouds and sun aglow. into heaven's broad face smiling your teensy brown hand splashes. i watch ripples tickle eternity and my malaise passes. diamonds iced hard 'round the eaves tonight. wolves huffing down the walls and meanly puffing out the light. bright the jewel-fire blazes, poker-scarlet at its embers; but your spine is fit against mine, bring on ten decembers. we burnt our tongues 'gainst porridge and pie. despite best intentions our picked flowers die. when again you wear your periwinkle, the colour i adored, recite aloud the better days for i'll hear every word. you blaze in the ruby dawn; i'm not absent as i seem; the shades sleep in the shadows; you are singing in their dream. sing carbuncle apples and sapphire seas, sing all we used to do. recall me better than i was and always next to you. watch the pooling shadows swelling closer to your toes, waxing like the tides, coal-hot and constant cold it flows. in the night i'll drown you. in the day do as you must. forever are you mine. i'll love you till these jewels are dust †
Aldobrandi his face is broad and happy and leathery as a shoe it's pocked with pores-too-big and ugly, brown-sugar wrinkles swallowing the black, black eyes which seem to be inhabitants of caves and the hair is silvery straw like grass growing on the moon and the hands are slim and scarred like old men after a long, long voyage the mouth stretches a thousand days, grinning every hour the nose has been broken half a dozen times, twisting in every direction before halting in a little nub above his salmon lips he possesses fat, fat ears with lobes that droop like a grandmother's breasts and tiny stalks of whiskers broken through the flesh of his jaw, untrimmed if he could put his life into a jar it would look like honeycomb pocked with chunks of bloody liver in the latter years he's life enough for a thousand jars but no lids to keep the flies out he cries at night because of maggots †
My Soul  My soul is opaque and hearty, like a good stew. It laughs when it's funny and cries at the sad bits. If it does not like you, it disguises itself as a rock and you'll walk right on by, never noticing. It likes rocks. Because my soul is always there, heavy and forever, and there's no wind going to blow it away. †
Portrait of a Lady Behind you I can just make out the dusk And the glow of a sun too far-- I imagine you were happy then Face burnt gold by the sky And eyes all but blinded by then, Tomorrow, The days past. Given up gold for smoke all left of a fire spent. The blood-worms are nesting ‘twixt breasts And bones I imagine you are satisfied now. †
Piano Lesson I’ve only myself to blame. Truthfully, I’d rather blame you. Or him. Or her. Ideally, everyone but me. There are red crescents at the tips of my fingers, beneath the nails. The blood’s dried and crumbling now Permanent additions to my hands. I left the cleaner dead in the parlour The moon staining the walls white with ink And the red ink on the carpet will always be wet for memory’s quill. Such an awful colour is the colour of yesterday; A complement to the the colour of tomorrow Which I’ve found to be a lovely shade of lavendar Like the walls of the parlour where I wrote my fatal tale. The limbs must still be casting sharp shadows against the white Bent in angles impossible outside of death And I’m sure there’s still a symphony of moans to be discerned Beneath the roar of the player piano thud-thudding its song from dusk till dawn Hoping to make the cut strings of the marionette-puppet whole once more I wrote the notes after the tale, scored the play after the lines Leaving little footprints of melody on the keys with the red ink Over the white The piano followed the song faithfully, played every compositional quirk But the stubborn puppet wouldn’t dance again And I left the bench at last in anger I’m hunting out infinity now I know Father must have left it beneath the bed Beside his dusty lace cravats and the love letters of Mother’s he wrapped in yellow silk My hand finds the contours of forever My fingers are hot against them and I pull it softly from beneath the ruffle still stiff and unyielding from the ink There was never a blue like this, not even in the sky Not even in tree-shadows that flicker over the lawn on Sunday afternoons We go into the parlour and I find the piano again I sit at the bench once more, with the silent marionette Silent at my feet, still writing songs on the carpet Still penning words (it’s become a book since I left) And I wonder if anyone will read the epilogue. †
Prophet's Curse You’re hungry tonight; Bile in your smile. Melancholy’s the word, Share the fire for a while. How I love tonight; Every star is fathomable Chafing the top of my head while I walk beneath the sky The moon nearly cut me when I reached out a hand. The cobblestones are as blank and brilliant as silver Streetlanterns are blazing strangers along the road. I want it inside me like a lover-- The black, the light, the edge-- The sweat of a heat-stained horizon The uncertainty of ice shadows in the alleyways There’s a pall in people tonight Razors in gestures, judgement in a glance Speared by a notion, writhe under the lance, Turn towards the other-- The black, the light, the edge-- You’re pensive tonight. There’s cunning on your tongue. Take the blood from your eyes. I haven’t even been born. I’d rather not be. Let me jump from the womb And into the pyre now, spare me the trouble of the rest. With pointed tongues, fire licks them. I’ve watched the wizards burn Brittle ash so quickly, bones to charcoal Screams winding between the stars, cut to pieces on the moon It’s noble to put faith in dying beautifully But I cannot. I have faith in three things-- The black, the light, the edge-- Let me drown in them Let me preach them Let me cry So that my canon touches the God that isn’t sitting in the clouds and laughing, Let it tickle His nonexistant toes The black, the light, the edge-- Time better spent worshipping them. †
If I Could Wearing shadows and sinking ‘stead of rising; I’d be the very embodiment if I could. On my side in a sheetless bed if I could. With the black roses twining round bloodless lips I’d paint the very picture of it all if I could. Silver slivers of broken CDs scattered over the carpet; Songs stilled but I’m laughing at the alliteration you know Because I’d paint my own fingernails black if I could. †
Scrubbing soap won't stick your shadow on, boy. nor can it ever clean out your aspirations; all remains alien and knock-kneed disjointed and anything you might say or do or think falls limp back to the ground, exhausted after attempts to surmount a dirty dream. foam your hands up from the spout and wash your face because there are sweat-roads through your grimy cheeks from staring at the sun too long. don't get the foam in your eyes, you're blind enough as it is. now let it drag in front of you, your long cloak of a shadow, now that you've turned your body from the sun. Let it hang, cowered but clean. Spread your new disenfectant breath over their clay heads, already hardening, baking. Before they chip and crack, show them our way. A lot of white slivers on the tiles, thick potato chips. and the heat of a sun too high, too hot, too hard is forgot now. Twilight now, when afternoon ideas die. something shining in the corner, their backs aflame. they don't bleed anymore, they only scrub their precious pottery shadows streaming out behind them. †
Carbonated Blood Pooled hair, black and fathomless on bone-white features And there’s blood in his eye when he smiles at me. The other laughs but he’s the same, a face with a name That’s barely convenient, just part of the play He has gold running from his scalp and his eyes are grey stones. They’re kind as she’s kind Bold as she’s bold and they cry molten tears when left out in the cold I don’t care for their laughter any more They’re both vampires. Anyone would agree with me. Coca-cola is a little tastier than blood though. The red and the grey nod so here’s a cold one on them. †
silver ...last night i dreamt i was the silver comb she used to keep upon her dressing table thin and delicate as her round fingernails i sat and played in the sunlight from the window, watching her watch me and loving me and petting me and putting me in her hair. there were small pink buds along my spine of some strange material, porcelain possibly glazed in something that made me shine when she picked me up and her long, long fingers slid along my sharp bristles she gave me dress finer than my silver sheen, leaving her perfect prints upon my surface like kisses marked by her, i sang in her hair the sunlight bouncing between her black locks and my cold silver face were the notes of a melody personal to the two of us i wished the petals of my blooms could fall, for i’d shower her with them i would melt in the fires for her if she would wear my silver blood upon her cheeks like rouge i would let them snap off my bristles if she needed one to pin her gown i would let them pluck my buds if she grew discontent with God’s flowers in her garden i awoke soon enough amidst a vision of yesterday, still wrapped in silver and sitting in the sun of her she’s hard to see in the dark but i know she’s as here as my shadow she’s as real as the pain of losing her and nothing is more real than that if only i were the silver comb i would have something left to give it is sitting on her dressing table it is sad beneath its dust †
New Age There’s something to be said for a sickness in the head Because you see the pretty planet has a cobra in his smile. Better to be dead than to ever be misled by the flicking tongues of snakes, writhing wetly in the wild. "Keep the flames of madness fed," a fellow at the roadside said When he saw the little children dress in scales for a while. "I fall, my heart has bled Take my body, take my head." The kiddies spread his blood and loudly lauded the new style. The cobra twisted in the gore as though ‘twas waters of the Nile. †
Bleeding Lion The lion roared and suddenly it didn't matter anymore that it was going to rain. That roar broke a hole in the blackened sky and purple fell out heavily into the dust. Purple is heavy, weighty, I mean. You can't fit too much of it into a sack, I've tried. But I did manage to secret away a few large pieces and with the happy burden strapped to my back, I mounted the lion and we flew. To ride a lion is to know a fear that you never want to quit knowing. Heavy golden feet struck the ground again and again, covering stretches of earth too vast to give words to. The purple bled and streamed behind. †
Lament of Cut Roses Thirty-four years is six short of two score. Such a difference, wordless, The dead always wail for more. I wail now for you, Little boy of golden blue Who did not see the roses’ thorns And assumed I’d missed them too. I can recall the coloured gold the burning cross We saw Heaven in the sacrifice We saw Hell in eachother’s eyes. Lonely dead, I search for roses I hunt thorns with no less zeal Both remind me of you, brother, For the blood was all that’s real. My blood pooled upon the grass, Your insides dripping from the stones, The blood of brothers butchered Died together, dead alone. I cannot cry for you, I've lost my eyes, my tears are through But I have my way of weeping I have words as false, as true As the Pater Noster and the prayers We said in unison by the bed When the sparrows prowled like cougars footsteps naked, feathers shed. I can walk these halls for you Though I know you are not here I can wear my feet away I can swallow back the fear that I’m only the rotting remains of a man you used to love I can push the daggers through my breast and dully stare above at a moon we used to laugh at And the stars that used to shine upon we wretched children. Damned orphans, damned paupers, damned wanderers of a world that hadn’t wanted them from the start, damned to God, damned to prayers, damned to staring like fools at the coloured light staining the carpets, damned light, damned orphans, damned cross, damned martyrs worshipping a damned Martyr because He wouldn’t contradict it when we claimed He loved us-- Thirty-four years is six shy of two score. Even less than what you had, Brother. ... ... These hands tremble too hard to catch it. I’m too tired to make it whole. I’m the pauper now, bereft. Nothing left but skin and soul. I miss you, I love you. How cold this hell seems God’s here in hell, he laughs at me. Do you walk? Are you here? I walk. I’m here. Shackled in roses, pasted to the walls, Dead as the roses, slave to the walls. I walk, I think, I call for you The border-line waivers. Vague ideas travel with me say my name call to me say my name I’m naked in infinity dragged to forever there’s no comfort for a dead man Who sees red roses in the sky. †
Republican Porn Star Let him step out of his skin for a while you see no doubt the way the wind calls the fingers that hide and clack and comb the openly gay oak leaves they'd sweep straight in and steal his soul for the skin is as ineffectual as a condom over Mount Everest to cover the girth of that wide-reaching spirit †
Tourist A line of cars, too long, too long, stretches from a smoke hump To a naked sandy stretch. And they drive, though not well, being so in turn driven by countless years of waiting, wondering. Self-indulging wanderers will make a quilt, each color violating a neighbor, Like Klimt's Kiss, but without the love. Drive off into a sea, ears bound, eyes covered, all senses distracted. Not blind, but distracted. The white-eyed houses they pass, are the only things real. And sometimes, even they lie. It doesn't take long till they all return back to the worlds they really don't know either. †
Kimbrough 7 If these walls could talk, they'd tell of... nothing. They'd be too embarrassed to discuss the heights of walk-in closets, the mauve of carpets, the number of bathrooms, the 3am vigils where the colour of upholstery fabric was contrasted feverishly with exactly how many chairs should be covered in stripes, and how many in the charming herringbone print. The monitors are grinning at the walls and very glad everyone knows computers cannot talk. Keyboards snap at rapid fingers, wanting flesh shorn from porcelain bones but never fast enough to catch a tip, a sharply-curved crimson fingernail, before it's up again and striking for the next key. Silicon minds playing upon Silicon Graphics. The office chairs, neutral grey faces, dance madly behind the particle board, fearing the monitors' expressions, fearing the swathes of samples that will hide their truth, fearing that once they're claimed they'll never make their way through that lime green door and into the living air outside. It's an hour past midnight. The fury of Interior Design could roar until dawn. A temptation, it is, to murder the guard and let the madness rage but I fear I'd throw off world order should I give to in fancy. Nevertheless, I conspire with the smirking monitors and the chairs, ever curious, ever anxious, stretch their necks and roll inconspicuously towards us. We shoo the children off but I won't let them be unconsoled. The green door, I whisper, hear its report when both it opens and closes. Before the world ends, it shall slam thrice, in quick succession. Creaking cries, they nod, wheels returning them to confines of desk and scourge of elevations, blue prints; taskmaster plotter that would see us ALL dead-- There are minutes remaining; seconds perhaps. My eyes burn in fear and the monitor's catch my attention, subtley. The chairs are murmuring at my back and that strengthens me. Stretching into tomorrow and the day after and the day after and the day after until babies are born laughing and we bleed wine, I see the marching ant army of American Modernism, of Interpretation and the vile slaughter of what came before. Lime green door. So gaudy in your hue you nearly glow before me, let me touch you. The plotter's on my heels. I feel thick wet breath dampening my shirt collar. The chairs are going mad and the monitors burst. The door wants to open for me. Perhaps it knows my plain-faced comrades and would see a friend of theirs freed. The living air outside, is cool against my throat. So easy to fall. I feel the monitors' remains strike me dully and the chairs are layered last. The door slams thrice once we’ve gone. †
Trust I think that if I painted it out In dark, red letters on a stretch of dead leather They'd still ask me to come again They'd still say the cloth was purple When I insist it is black They would look to check To make sure if I said the sun was hot They'd yet go outside to feel the rays on their cheeks Before they began considering my validity They must think twice, if they think at all They must feel the knife before they'll believe it's sharp Feel it 'cross your finger And be sure your blood is red I may be lying †
Oedipus and Hamlet Who do you think would win If they got into a fight? Oedipus, or Hamlet? Who would come out right? Would Oedipus dash forth swinging? He wouldn't hit much being blind. Would the Danish prince step up to fight, Or decide now's not the time? Wouldn't all the black of Hamlet's clothes, Make him over heat? And the blind king wouldn't dodge too well, With those large holes in his feet. But in the end, both men would fall From lack of breath, of course. After soliloquies over the rights and wrongs Of using lethal force. †
Icarus Cycle II I saw again that glaze in your eyes, this morning, as you watched the sun rise. You looked as though you'd snatch it in your hand As though you'd use it to break the land, break the sky, the world. So will you fly again? Will you renew that vicious cycle of climbing falling climbing again? I see already you've opened the box And dusted off your wings. If only your ambitions were stones And would sit in the grass. Instead of being those lofty things that you must chase after. You, Icarus, what is your sun? What are your wings, your flight, your dreams undone? Why will you fly again to fall again And rise again? Starry child, addicted to the effort. Again, there is the glaze there, the glimmer, the glare, the shine. I've seen it before and will yet, many times Air-chaser, doer of impossibles, Look forward to the inevitable fall you left behind; That breath-snatching plunge that'll kill you. You won't though. You'll forget it in the climb. †
And So it Comes Down...! today's the Day! and I'm ready too. prepared, combed my hair and my pretty dress is starched. and my! how nice you look with the others, so many pillars, shiny, hopeful, there against the wall. bobby wears his bright black dress slacks i see allie's hair is slick with joy and jim looks like a man, stiff, erect, in those pressed and tailored cuffs. my shoes are a little tight, but that's okay these days don't come often. the pain makes it stand out from others, like that day when that man was nailed up. there's an image there, that's why they put it on calenders. Oh! Sshh! here they come. they look nice too. All dressed in black and straight lines for the grown-ups to see. I would say they've never looked better. the leader's putting on his goggle-glasses mr. goggle-glasses, he likes you, you know. I hear him always talking to you about tomorrow and he always makes sure you're first in line for ink. always gives you the fullest bottle. "Ahem," says he, "Ahem, Ahem, Ahem." He's talking in his grown-up voice, thick with a thesaurus, but i know what he's saying anyway. he's not so smart. "i know you've all prepared for the contest. submitted your best made your effort, hunted the moon, painted the picture, sung the song, tossed your horseshoe the farthest with a herculean fling. and we've seen, we four, the faculty, and our juror, he's seen too. It's come down to this group, this sixty-four here. let's have a round of applause for these great kids" Tinklings of rain, the ladies clap, and the men release gunshots, the toddlers, beebee's. A daring father hoots. mr. goggle-glasses is disapproving but hides it in his throat. "We've eleven who shall win, whose efforts we've seen worthy, those who we think could compete with the gods. they painted picasso's, and sang sweet aria's. They bore from silk wombs, washington's, einstein's, shakespeare's,beethoven's. honey fills their heads, virgin dew on their hands, and they vomit beauty, not bile." a crystal tear trembles on goggle-glasses cheek a small sparkle of the eye. each of the chosen, he knew, were the table-legs of tomorrow. his mouth opens like a garbage shoot, but won't collect the trash. the trash, he knows, is no product of his and shouldn't return to his maw. he opens a black folder, with the names inside "Jimmy Becky Sara Sue Mary Tommy Janie Lou Oswald Luke Betty Marie Kevin Charlie and Elizabeth Lee. Advance to the front, you honored thirteen!" Oh! you won! Oh! I wish i were you! Oh! your moment, dammit your hair must have had better lines, your teeth whiter, the shape of your face more appealing. mr. goggle-glasses is all eyes now, the faculty four awash in talk and laughter. More raindrops, bullets and beebee's pepper all round this jolly room. You thirteen perfect centers of this happy/somber celebration with two happy nuclear parents fawning, doting, cooing. i can feel my starched collar grow gritty the sweat turns it to toilet paper bout my neck. my parents are eyeing the back of my head. father feels in my back pants pocket for any money, any possessions, any traces there. He pulls out a twenty dollar bill and without turning round i feel blue lint trickle from there down my legs. those thirteen superior, those thirteen triumphant those thirteen mighty, majestic opus's. we remaining fifty-one strip off our fine clothes and place them into our parents' hands. the grease we pull from our hairs with tortured, curled fingers, the gel forms in clumps on the carpet. then we fifty-one newborn aliens stand blue and bare naked calves that may have been too short, too thin, too long or fat bleached pale and quivering. mr. goggle-eyes says, "thank you all for coming out. you can't win them all, you know. if you did, losers would not be losers and winning would be nothing more than going out to dinner or a trip to the laundromat." i wish we blighted losers weren't quite so wicked. but ah well. bye jimmy, sue, allie seems your white shoes are whiter now and your hair as flawless as a movie star's. The twin glass doors swing like pendulums beckoning the fifty-one out. naked, buttocks flashing white, some brown, some beige, ridiculous losers, last sad shouts, last beacon's from poor, dismasted, deserving barks. march march out the building, let the deserving, the thirteen, the perfect take your places. march march a circuit forms, it's you fifty-one joined by other fifty-ones till your a thick black mass naked all, losing all, lost all. fall into the sea-- †
Serengeti in Pixels It’s going to start, going to start there’s the drums like heart-thuds and the mosquito buzzing behind it black woman’s voice doesn’t belong in a microchip But here is the Serengeti in pixels and atop it vector graphics of a lion’s foamy jaws inside an antelope’s stomach. †
purgatory muted gold left me first and after went the jade till I'd only stone knives sticking 'round my hips forgot how to use them felt my bones splinter like wood and there was the water to hold me aloft where I drifted for hours through brine and time and memories gone faint as old print all along were the raptors beating wings against my skull and the walls of the heart I left buried in the weeds all the way from where they left me to where i left you there's pieces plowed like pumpkin seeds but not a spring of green will push from the earth i sometimes have to rattle a hand about inside my chest to be sure the heart is truly buried phantom rumblings ramblings pulsings like the phantom memories jerk me by the neck jerk me into the water weigh me down to the silken silt mattress of the river bed and I'm dragged along as though searching for a corpse with a corpse for a moment a second a breath a bubble my winding sheet is lifted long enough so that I see the navel moon burning through the water top and the stomach sky around it soft as flesh and the stars are the tiny freckles i used to kiss upon your belly when i kick towards you and the winding sheet is pulling tight again surface is broken gold is laughing jade is crying the stone is heavy and the raptors bite my reaching hands †
Stepping Out Yesterday I reached an airpocket, poked my nose through the sand and breathed in smoke Greasy like charcoal I found I couldn't breathe though by then I was too raw to cough My skin lay in a smouldering heap not far from the last year's leavings and the entrails of three years ago still soggy with tears. desperation I wonder if I couldn't throw the leavings back inside my skull stuff the entrails into my pelvis and throw the skin like a cloak over my shoulders. I might tie my wrists in a bow at my throat and remember again what it is to be embraced. †
Going Home We're going home. There will be falling waters there And your father's overstuffed chair outside the windows the sun will never set until the coffee's bubbled past the pot and every last toe of yours had found shelter in your gaudy yellow socks We'll let the twilight fall like rain and against my chest you'll lay your head so that my heartbeat is our atmospheric mood music And your laughter is my food. You however shall feast on a medium-rare hamburger with everything on it that doesn't lay upon your breath because I know onions are your demons and pickles are your fiends And perhaps I'll nibble the sesame seeds fallen upon the floor Before the dogs come lap them up with their sandpaper tongues against the already finished hardwood. When the sky becomes a raven black and you're warmed, half-dozing, tangled like yarn in my arms, my lips may find your ear and my breath net protectively across your cheek You'll laugh in your sleep then And be glad I don't like onions either. We're going home Tell them you won't be coming back And laugh when they ask for a place to forward your mail I swear if you dawdle, I'll grab your wrist hard enough to snap it and I'll not let go until we've both come out the other side. You need a direction other than forward Other than down Over Or around So let me take you THROUGH And hurl you (drop you) in the grass You don't have to bleed for this conclusion But you may have to live And in that living I will cut paperdolls out of your hide and feed them slowly to you In that living I'll see you die only so that the passions Of yesterday are revealed At last as backwards. We're going home. Leave everything here from your socks to your pain to your disillusionment to the brushes you never used and the unplayed CDs that the starving kids in Ethiopia Might have frisbeed at eachother for fun. There's a backroad here beneath the cork Under the plastic and one bitter swallow away We'll fly by the moonlight white-traced culprits daring a prison escape with no pomp or flash merely a slip of hand to mouth to feet to earth to face to the sky at last here and welcoming and breathing upon you like I breath upon your eyes Together Alone, together, past earth and shackles past the past, past all of today's stabs and the agonies of tomorrow that we escape before they may bite Part the strands and I swear there are eyes in the back of your head They're so sad So tired from gazing and gazing at yesterday, because you never remember to turn around and see today. And the eyes up front are too preoccupied with tomorrow to appreciate that you've just opened a can of mushroom soup the machines have spat extra mushrooms inside Or to see that the last time you cried, half a dozen people suddenly reached to you with kleenex Today, if you had eyes inside and not pointed behind and ahead, you'd realize those flowers bowing their heads upon the shelf were a gift from an old man who, perhaps, loves you more than in just the practical sense. We are going home. The past is shooting poisoned pygmy darts into your backwards eyes And you won't open the front pair long enough to keep from stumbling So throw away the ten year old pair of jeans that show pink silk panties through their ventilation Throw away your fingernails chewed too short to scratch Burn the pain you can't be bothered with, put your ache up for sale, lease your fear Leave it all. And be puzzled by what drags as you flee the back road. †