i would, i would, if welcome i was, for they loathe me every one.




uncannily clear his eyes and ever
will be his hands a particular
quick clean

sadness which speaks through strings

and it is greatly
and much
as it was

reeds
yellowing scum
wool yarn tied
at the pond

sealed now with hardened wax
trapped
in sap

theirs are years dissolved as
honey hers in a dust blue house his

in what is his

sanctified enough for
both of them torn
far from candle and a
ouija board

wicked thoughtless faith
one pays in pain

now smell the struck
match measure
the heft of the hematite

turn the looming
latch crawl into the night

crouch

beneath blankets a petrified spider

stare in terror at your chest with
maddening mistrust
do not expect

that it will reign gently just and
such and such

heed scrawl on an
apple's parchment skin
browning bloody curl

do not defect

not for the world

a poison blows from the
bellows leaned
lazy at hearth
 
below the cupboard of
liquors ageless and

acid with sorrow

Canada

To little
girls they attempt to teach grace from
an early age. Lips sticky with the wax of
fake orgasms. Roses upon completion of display.

If your bedroom
is your mind, do you mind?
If you mind, mayhap you
should rearrange.

On application of the hypothetical
law, mine is a Persian rug of
mockingbirds, seven bared
breasts. Memories

are flecks of silver and
light caught in a lens,
only the past is material,
tell me where it all went wrong.

Tell the heap of flannel in my chest
how it could win Helena. Whisper
to my tires that they will reach Canada.
I fell into a love for her.

If my bedroom is my mind:
(I note the absence of Helena.
Tentatively, surely,
she must appear.)

For now I nurse a nausea,
track a pulse in my thigh.
Rain came. An acid bramble
bloomed in my stomach.

I dreamt of
free fall.
Death was imminent until
the river.

Of little
girls little is expected. Sex speaks
a language in time.
They find they are fluent.

Tell them where it all went wrong.
Whisper to their tires
that they will
reach Canada.

stay the course

if you ever get lonesome
and you're down in san antone
just beg, steal or borrow
two nickels or a dime
and call me on the phone

i'll meet you at the alamo mission
and we will say our prayers
the holy ghost and the virgin mother
will heal us, as we kneel there

in the midnight moonlight, the 
midnight moonlight, midnight.
in the midnight moonlight, the
midnight moonlight,
midnight

if you ever feel sorrow
for deeds that you have done
with no hope for tomorrow
in the setting of the sun
and the oceans are howlin'
for things that might have been
and the last good morning sunrise will be
the brightest you've ever seen.

in the midnight moonlight, the 
midnight moonlight, midnight.
in the midnight moonlight, the
midnight moonlight,
midnight.

with crickets

directly applying salt to a belly wound
every night. measuring the sting.
oh all i have known.

tired accidental daughter of a
couple in love peers at the
sky a charcoal smudge.

i shall not limit myself.
i've seen what that does to
limbs, cramped,

seen what that does to
turtles in tanks and
sad sun-deprived succulents.

we both got sober
without
the other knowing.

i could not kill
the child, she was too sweet.
only one alternative.

roll the pewter
boulder off of her chest.
breathe into her lungs,

squeeze blood from between
her legs, give her fifteen lovers and
three friends.

no mama problems
here, red guitar, i've
been talking to God.

dreaming of forsaken
eucalyptus trees swaying beneath me
like shifting balance beams.

i feel like snake with a new skin,
shuddering rapture faint and
almost-glossolalia


like alone in my nightie embracing
my bed, the child again but
this time whole-

my love does sing with crickets all
the night long.

dreamcatcher

now that i know i will be leaving, i can see
oakland.
there's a lot of cement. broken
glass and tire stores. i
see myself most sharply maybe
at the gas station across the street
from my house, its sweet
stray tom with the gnawed ears
and those cashiers that don't
leave me alone.

the dishes have been piling up
for a week. when i see them i sing
i'm guilty, baby i'm guilty, to myself like
randy newman. i just dread the scum.
i hide in my room, on my belly, like a
fat snake in a hole and stare
at my dreamcatcher.

i burn a stick of incense and the thumb
of white sage justin gave to me.
i think i most likely wont ever find jesus,
but i guess if i do he'll understand
what took me so long.
more likely i'll find some porous
red rocks, a river, a tree with
needles to bleed for.

i can't wait to get the hell out of here.
i don't care much where i go as long as
it's somewhere i've never been in my life.
kept myself from the mud for too long,
the city is not my favorite color or
anywhere close.

today at the warehouse i read poems
on the sly and felt like i was stripping my
employers of a resource.
then i laughed. i was so happy
to learn that you can write poems
about anything at all.

after the apocalypse

listening to leonard cohen 'coming back to you.'






the room is cold. when you were here 
when you were here
well, you were here


my bed was made so neatly 
sweet slim fingers beseeching 
all the wrinkles from the sheets


now i'm slumped. on the bare 
mattress and the shawl does keep
the naked body warm


only the shawl to keep
the naked body warm. the aftermath
of the apocalypse 


amounts to twenty six ounces of salt
twelve ounces of honey and i don't really 
care what they say,


the box was between pandora's legs
the box was between pandora's legs
all along


and i don't really
care what you think, 
it's my box 


it's my box 
and what you thought of me 
when you loved me less


than most of the time
was probably 
true.

most recently i have thought:

1. 
There was not music to them all, or perhaps there was. Some strange discordant song (of whale?) for every ribbon of flotsam drawn ashore by the tide. Some ending in silence. Some in earthly echoes.

He knew the ancient composition of sand. It brought him closer, maybe, to its song. Off to Singapore now.


One of the gods was appeased that morning, or two. 








2. 
No one wants to give away the thing they love. I've only known one person who has, a woman. I can not speak for her.






3. 
It became apparent that there was something wild within her. That someday, she would need a lover who also possessed the wildness, that fluid. 


"You're going to sleep in your jewelry?" he asked.