Jagged Parts

I kept returning
to the point before
you were gone.  Returning
to the previous plan

studying its lines, tracing
my finger along each certain

bifurcation altering what
could have been-

erasing a way back,
a way in.

But something happens
to the heart when it it's not
where it should be.  A sudden
starting or stopping, 

a deviation at the point 
where no is a good thing
and yes means ramifications.

Love is like that.  

Frankenstein's father who
would rather sew jagged 
dead parts together

than bury them.

Land Based

Seen from a distance in a doorway
like a fossilized dragonfly in amber,
a small thorn in the spine, the statue

of a silver magician I gave you
on the nightstand.

Remember I told you to be confident
despite the marks of your father,
his wounds in your skin.

You're going places.  For the rest
of us, this is just some place;
to you this is source.  Where all things
meet to rest or play or kill.

We must believe in transience
if we are to believe in destination, 
in escaping gravity.  Nature's fist

beats her children into submission
catches them in traps then releases
them injured.  On alternate paths

at times with collective vision,
we see faces of our own kind, recognize
the deformities and struggle 

to heal them.

Snow White

The moment has passed
when the word was consent.
What was taken in deadly silence
has been taken again.

This is not time or chance.  This
is something else altogether

like back-lighting against
a mythical creature or
a blind man dreaming

of his death.  Like
poison in the blood

or swirls and twisting
of snow on the shore
of the frozen lake

in perfect circles.

Arrested Light

Some light escapes, the rest
trapped beneath the surface
reserved for shadow-making-

holds the soul to its mask.

There are those who need
explanations but love believes
without understanding

like a parasite lives
with its host
without killing it.

Just as the moon clings
to its night so the heart

to its only window.

World of Contradictions

The coffee is still hot, the glass
melted.  Vibrations of evidence
everywhere.  Are you ever
going to tell me what we are?

I'm having problems
taking this apart.  Why
do these pieces look familiar

like a puzzle in the dark?

Why are our faces emitting
cries of emotional stress even
when we're sleeping?

If anyone needs me
I'll be walking the hill
where you last remembered

the position of each star,
a map where they died.
Time ticking on both sides

like a child shaking
a stone in a jar.

Black Beauty

Again, the good night,
the dark night, the quiet night
has practiced its thievery.

Dark matter, that black
liquid sky feeds all lovely things
then eats them; 

your deletion a hole
from the same space 
from which it grew, deeper. 

After all, we are the uncivilized
watcher of stars. Wildness
its purest form, crouched

in its shadows, sewn
to its side.

But this night, even
with its most heinous of scars,
I miss you.

Force of Nature

Because you're strong, 
no one will try to save you

in a sea of wasteland and you,
a tiny, splintered boat, 

each wave's effort to claim you, 
shake you from the salty wood

hones the tool.

The irony is:  You are the source
of storm as it rushes through you, 

clings to your bones like wings
to the whirl.

Addict of grief and love's cycle,
the eye, the wheel, the crest, 
you are as stone is heavy yet

you never let go.  

Royalty

There were four wolves.  Only one
ruled.  Structure is a part of nature,
its cruel order, insensitive survival rates.

Yet order saves us;  how we struggle
against chaos, why we entertain the King,
how low we hold our bodies beneath His. 

Voluntary submission. Worship.

On the tail of each wolf, a unique
pattern of fur, like a fingerprint,
like the odor of self.  Recognition.

One theory is interesting:  if you're searching
for distinctive signs of royalty 
look to those who serve Him.

The Garden

Devastating, the wild world, its visible light,
its forbidden unhappiness, unholiness;
a transitional passage to the other side.

In the same way, I forgive my father, I forgive
myself.  Absolutely. The doorway holds
two faiths.  Entrance, exit.

There is a God.  For each blonde-white star,
each radiant end, every wilted heart there
is a beginning, a middle, a finish.

And then return
to the garden
we were made for.

Fighting Gravity

Each night, she must be watered
as if she were a flower.  She is not
a flower.  The needle placed just between
skin and muscle;  sometimes pain
is love.

Sometimes pain becomes a skill
like falling gracefully or slowly
just like things-that-fall-slowly.

Gravity.  Sin or Grace.  Punishment
or relief.  The only surviving victim
learns acceptance then chooses:
drink or choke.

You too will lean into that heavy
flow and flow.  Like a petal
on a river current

floats.

The Trap

From a place above the mud,
a bird fell and struck, a force
pressed down to slow spilled blood.  

Sometimes the safest spaces
are the ones that hold you 
indefinitely.  You learn to love
what traps you.

So say the stars whose bird-like bones
sewn tightly to its thick, black fabric
frozen stiff and still like photographs 
of falling snow-

stagnant, light-filled, beautiful. 

Until you know the meaning
of forever,

stay here.

Terrible Distance

However disappointed or impatient,
the moon rising round, silver painted
its terrible distance minimized by a crescent
shadow-  the world's body

not its tiny bees and lakes or wolves
absorbed in the shape of a cupped hand
held over a quiet light as if to say

"these are the secrets
we cannot share".

Who knows the size of a thousand
evenings woven loosely like a sweater
whose red hood hides a witness, what
she covets from who she fears. Why

does she live in darkness, when
what she feels is fire?

This night, many nights, so many
wounds have healed by luck or
prayer or preparation.  Perhaps
the moon will slip or slide to its destruction
before she disappears.

Perpetually Interesting

This is not how they told me
this would happen:  how things
would change without changing:

each beautiful smile a warning
to observe closely, to interpret, 
to entrust.  

Don't forget to believe thus
you will become a part of
perpetual deception.  

See how pure and clear the bell
rings, like the heart struggles
to keep up.  I know the name
of each flower, bird and bee;

they won't save us.

But they will remember that
clear, blue day which in your world
is but another turned page

as if the book is short, sweet
and interesting.

One Heat Hides The Other

Artifice of fire on stones, the cold
surrounding that which burns it
like myelin sheath around
the core of its nerve.  

I won't remind you again of 
what you've struggled to forget
since you were ten years old.

I believe we came into this world
to rectify the falseness.  Like a swarm
of locust hides the sky or devastates
the crop, clears the field.

When the flame dies down, the odor
of charred meat and wood, ash 
fine as our bewilderment, the color
of our hair, the mystery solved

we can hide each other.  

Sometimes I'm Thinking

How often comes thunder
where there are no storms?  That
black and white rippling slowly
peeling back the water's skin;

what is its purpose?

Or the deepening voice of 
the beast rising to splendid
singing changes the patterns
of dreaming

like a perfect wheel rolls
down the smoothest hill.

By Itself

Loneliness.  One testicle, a missing
finger.  A small, black bird in a leafless
tree.  No clouds, a pitch-black night,
a sweater without any sleeves. 

The whooshing sound from the end
of a long, dark tunnel.

Or me.

The Message

They can say what they need to say
more efficiently.  Over the sound of cars
or the ocean, very distinct if you're noticing,
another sound:  

like a shoe being pulled off a foot
or the monochromatic hum of bees
whose DNA is precisely magnificent.

One hole is enough.  What falls in it
isn't particularly important.  The act
of catching the wary off guard, shooting
a bullet just missing the heart

or pulling the string that unravels
the ball is far more interesting.

Fools won't hear the message over
the noise of their mouths.  Nor the singing.

A Few More Shouldn'ts

Shouldn't drag the beast
when it's mouth is open.  Shouldn't
shoot the owl;  it's twin will hunt you.
If you're made of paper, you shouldn't
dance in the rain;  its very messy.

Shouldn't look for ghosts
they might find you.  Shouldn't
break the bread before the bells
have spoken.  Shouldn't be afraid
unless you've lost your footing.

Shouldn't scratch the surface;
what lies beneath may be unleashed.
Shouldn't talk too loud when saying
your confession;  your enemies are listening.
Shouldn't tease the hungry wolf or
wake it when it's sleeping.

Shouldn't take to heart
another's hearts rejection; two like
objects are always boring. Shouldn't
wait too long to be in love;  there are
a finite number of buses.  

Accidental Autopsy

The time comes.  The cleaver falls
to target.  Have I dreaded this moment
longer than I've enjoyed it?

Don't judge yourself.  There is
a greater love who knows this better.
This life, the air that moved it;  where
it landed.

When it goes, something goes
with it. On four feet with jaws that crack
the bone.  That cuts the whole
into two unmatched pieces

that were organized accidentally.

As Once It Stood

Today the wind said "now these
forgotten walls remember sky".
An old building flattened to rubble
dreams of its disconnected bones.

So too, the needle of a compass
young, long,whitened fingers point
to what had been as its heart
loses all sense of direction.

On the way through the hills
one stops often to rest even
falling to knee where doubt
becomes a root, green bleeds

as once it stood in full blossom.

Where Are They Now?

Here is the key, the weight
of an anvil.  The door too is heavy
as if every cell of its wood infused
with gravity presses in on itself.

Implosion is a form of escape;
the question is where?

Things that were once free
are locked away.  The more I know,
the tighter I hold;  the stronger
the body, weaker the soul.

But what do I really know
about leaving?  Those who have
gone will never tell.

The Unseen

walk this road,  black hood down
while somewhere in the universe
the golden Galapa-Clackits mate
inside their molten fiery egg.

Every point in this world
has an alternate stain, every soul
a separate set of strings.

Have you seen the square-shaped
moon, velvet purple veined like
spiders poised in a milky web?

In a room made of voices,
these walls have heard strange
pulses like drums or heavy boots
the sound of lead and bells 
dancing across the neon arches.

I'm not crazy but we are together
twisted, two hearts whose mouths
have never kissed, whose fallen lives
two separate dreams. I know who
you are.  I wish I could have met you.

I've seen the unseen-

have you?

Claw-Shaped Stars

What about the terrible
incongruent existence
of stars and wolves?

To a certain degree
what shines prowls.

What crouches glows
inside itself
within shadows.

How can you love what's cruel?

Under the vigilant night,
her saw-toothed babies cry
with cavernous throats like

deep pools of oily water.

See the pinpoint lights,
strangely attractive, small
diamonds in their eyes

reflect sky.

Do you fear beauty made
of darkness, of sorrow?

The tender heart
is no match
for the claw.

What Rests

Why do you want to speak
so clearly when softly mystery
sounds of wispy, silvering things
swimming through darkness?

Come, sit awhile beside me
your eyes sewn shut, your mouth
still water in a cup, feel the night
and how it vibrates.  Us.

Them.  The missing ones who
hide the light, the sound, whose
bodies guard it. Swallowing
what rests beside it. 

The Old Dog Leads the Way

Everyday I gave you
meat & water, oiled
your wings, pruned
your fan-like fur.

Don't worry creature
you weren't meant for
this world.  I've been
where your going;

follow me there.