I Keep Myself Going

I keep myself going
through a combination
of clever handiwork

a series of good recipes

carefully timed distractions

mailed to arrive midweek

it's the thing about dying in parts
you see it coming

and tie down what will be whipped by the wind
lock doors to rooms
lose keys

turn down beds
turn off lights

to let darkness settle in 

Tu M'as Trouvé

for M

It is there, now
in the spray of dark hair whispering wild
across the crisp white expanse of
linen

In the scent you caught -
bruised lilies and
something
much darker

And a hand folded gently into another
and the painful hiccup of magic
couched in an easy kindness

The Hand of Ice and Glass

They say you will be lost, in a world of winter and white. As fast as judgement, the ground beneath you will betray you. Quickly now, think!, before the world of sun-bleached sky and snow tumbles hard, away. The hand of ice and glass will dash the breath from you.

There was no time, you think, as the darkening grave sets around you. And the rules and laws that you used to carefully govern your existence have been wiped away. Perhaps a part of you decided, somewhere, and slipped against that heavy tide. Your limbs are held fast, and fading to a strange, sleeping cold. There is an ache like hunger, for sleep, and it coils heavily in the haze of breath pressed to your face.

If there was a beacon, it seems unlikely rescue will ever come. So it lies with you, to fight the press, and to warm your skipping heart.

To Reach that Seaward Strand

there are laws
that guide the slipstream
of even the sleekest boats

so I built this one
better than the last

before the shoreline
hides the stubble of broken rock
and the skeletons of hulls split wide

I build the finest ships
of teakwood
and brass
and finer things than have names
known anywhere near here

I trace the shape of that coast
against my thigh, even asleep
I whisper the names of those coves
inlets, and bays faster
and with more force
than my own name

I will not reach that seaward strand
but I build the finest ships
year after year,
of teakwood
and brass
and finer things than have names
known anywhere near here

Pour Casser, Pour Mettre Fin

Yes, I got your message. I felt the shiver of fear at the unknown number, and I surprised myself by going through the menus to check it. Before I even realized it was you, my heart was pounding hard and I had fallen to my knees. Your voice ripped out, brought to me across the miles, tearing through the distance, cutting across time and wounds not yet healed. How long it had been, since I heard your voice. I try, still, not to think even of your name.

Strange, the spell your warm breath whispered out. I shivered and suddenly you were there, lips brushing my ear. I expected honey and grime, but your blighted breath brought poison.

What did you have to gain, by letting me loose, and then to end it this way?

What's done is done

I give in no longer to that spark of hope

No longer pull closer to the sun
Instead I wane, and wane and wane.

Too Far Under Grey Skies

I have driven too far,
slept under grey skies
wandered from dark countries
into darker places, places unknown by human hands

I have found the deadly growth there
burning through new leaves
spores carrying far on dry winds
to settle and burn

I have seen the specter of the coming season
and I turn my face towards it
crawling slow into the darkling horizon

I'm not giving up, I'm just giving in

How Not To Be Alone, Step 1

forget the white flash of the half smile
the hiss of skin on linen
those quotidian pleasures are no longer yours

you trade the mortgage
the company-matched 401(k)
for a small apartment in the city
and trading barbs at a wine bar

and you will walk home to that glistening glass building
heels clicking on the concrete
the sound carrying far on the empty street

The Odds Catching Up

"Our loves are nothing," her voice flitting dangerously high
I nod, and agree
and what I had kept long hidden
twists, sharp, deep in the belly
I reach for the door handle
gagging for air
slipping from the car
my legs disobedient
crumpling to asphalt
and the taste of blood and broken teeth barely occurs to me

I try to whisper

"This was long overdue"

The Dark Hand in the Garden

There is now,
     a dark hand in the garden
chewing sky and earth
to fallow field.

What will we eat, come summer
     if spring's bounty lies churned into loam?

What, then, in winter,
after we have gnawed down the paltry bones of famine?


What fertile soil the next season will bring,
sown with the turned-in crop of the last
and the gift of our bodies
and dust and ash.

The Riptide

the danger is in the struggle,
they say
to fight the sharp edge of the water
cutting across
and always down
"lean in
lean in," she whispers, "and
slip, weightless beneath the dark waters"
You will turn and churn
and churn in a froth of salt and
the cloud of crimson rising
from wounds you could not find before
hoping
having seen the sun-bleached bodies
litter the shore
staring blankly,
the soft flesh of the eye
fallen prey to crabs
and wild dogs

Tired

A friend told me, not long ago, that he was tired. That he was ready for it to make sense, for joy to sidle up or slide away without his sideways glance.

And I am tired. I find myself unable to listen, the dark stalagmites occluding vision eventually kiss the floor.

Iron Creeps Beneath My Skin

I find iron creeps beneath my skin; the subtle pallor of winter wins against whatever limping spring I escaped. I've salted the ground beneath me, sown brittleness made from the lingering hopes kept too close.

I set the compass down; the magnetic center of the earth sure to lead me home. Instead, it spins and spins and spins and what walking and waiting I've done seems to have lead again into the dark wilding wood. And I move from a dark county into a dark country.

I lean

Watching the darkling horizon
straining for the spark
I lean into wind
grasp the crumbling walls
blood and ozone heavy on the tongue

Je ne vais pas l'accepter.

Without stirring, you grasped my hip, anchoring yourself in the rolling sea of my scarlet bed. You brought your chin to rest on my soft shoulder and the soft susurrus of your breath whispered strange poetry.

Would that I could keep that silvery lamplight resting on your face and shoulder.

Un Oceano Sconosciuto

I urge you now; don't choose the difficult one.

Don't choose the one who laughs like bells, wakes you up at midnight to read aloud from the biography of Murasaki Shikibu. Break the thrill of satisfaction that tremors in the heart every time your key clicks home in the lock, but before the sliver of golden light slips from the open door.

For you, I want comfort, the way of softness as easy as falling. It is too late, now, for ideas as sharp as flint arrows. The surprise is a small thing to trade, chose instead the one who is plain and sure. Choose simplicity, as direct as a ripe apple.

She is not for you, that one who sails a faltering ship into the unknown ocean. No, not the one whose voice growls low or honey-sweet. Not the one whose path is littered and dark, fraught with sparks of sun. The one who plans, careful, whose plans are unfurling and uncoiling like flags, rippling into the strange wind that blows you ever towards whatever's next.

There is a girl who does not unfold from a matrix so complex your searching hands might never know it. There is a girl with dreams which do not whisper and hold, a girl who speaks languages you know. Reach for her, now.

I believe in love.

I believe in the three am phone call, the pull of dread and spike of fear growing rancid in the belly. I believe in laughter, skittered across the magic of satellites finding a home with a shy smile somewhere far.

I have thrown my own soul down through love, prayed to imaginary gods for redemption by love. I have torn parts from my most hidden places; I have destroyed what is left in me that still might be worth saving. I have built up riches, my heart bursting with a treasury of love still unspent. I have traveled far but the city of lights flickering on the horizon seems to grow no closer, and this is occasionally a dark, dark country.

But still I head out along a wildering way.

Mental Math

Ask me your portion of the cheque or the tax rate in Massachusetts and you're certain to be met with a blank stare, at best. However, I breathe in and calculate complex formulae known to the ancient Sumerians, only recently rediscovered by modern mathematicians – the silent language of abomination, the science of decimation. I lock my keys in the car, but can't manage to forget the way the rain painted your hair, sparked blue in the dark halo of your eyes and face. When asked my age, I stutter and estimate, but remember the precise shape of the strange puzzle of your bones. Molecular weights, the Mohs scale of mineral hardness, they're all gone, but the burst of white and gasp that exploded as you tossed your head and laughed that night it stays and stays. My own birthday slipped past, but the wet, warm crumbling wood of the park bench beneath me is as fresh in my mind as though it had been this morning.

The Greatest Thing You'll Ever Learn