Wednesday, July 7, 2010

fatigue sets the table

i walk between
ankle and toe
stepping over veinous valleys

mountain ales quench
between tongue tips and teeth

to hold you beneath any
great deal of me seems a
definite moment
of betrayal, of bewilderment
begging to be broken by
beginnings

but once you start and head on
i see not one lasting minute of
forgiveness

i only find it difficult to apologize
just before we kiss

i only find it difficult to kiss
when you don't know i am apologizing

hospital blues

one of those mornings i'd
won over the last of her mouth

four hungry eyes
for feeding through late hours

three days passing
there in slow, deliberate silence

eight more thoughts
ate away at my favored conscience and

two stubby fingers
to peruse my beard
too long now for it's own shadow


Tuesday, July 6, 2010

a hundred lives

brick and mortar.

he picked his weapons
pushed his shoulder blades
as far back as he could push
his shoulder blades


he rested on the mostly fallen
leaves
the mostly fallen leaves rested
on the freshly fallen snow
the freshly fallen snow left
to rest upon the freshly frozen
grass

beneath the grass were footprints
beneath footprints were footprints
one step from fire, one step from
the pull of immense weight,

this earth had been scorched.
this particular particle part of
earth had been left to heal

beneath the heel of this earth
my heart beneath the heel of my heart

Saturday, July 3, 2010

miles is a drive

It sometimes was not my place
to speak
up and at 'em.

With closed mouth i scratched my eye
browsing the compact space between us.
Looking for a way in, kneeding away at
our silence.

A cold scratch from my finger
nailed the minor bruise of our "worries."

Our companion
shipped out and between buoys,

that light before you isn't blinding anymore
i've stared and stared and started to stare
in the face of that light.

It dies before i do, but i will still look upon it's
glow as i pass from this world
back to the nothing i was before i was nothing

before,
i was nothing.


underline

"Underline."
she scampered to my hip

"You must understand,
underline."

i wasn't sure she knew that i
was hearing everything she said.

each perfect syllable climbing the
ropes into my canals.

wishful thinking was our wish.
our common denominator upon which
we whistled, and for this i can't hear a single word.

to be or just to be

You don't have to be the first to clap
just a part of the applause.

It's ok to be the last one to smile
so long as you share the joy.

You mustn't be the first to jump
in line.

She spoke to me these words and i
was confident she said three were's.
I took her speech lightly upon my heavy heart.