| i. | ii. | iii. | iv. | v. | vi. | vii. | viii. | ix. | x. | xi. | xii. | xiii. | xiv. | xv. | xvi. |
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those silver eyes; the
jewelry beside my bed is growing in number, gilding my dreams. |
conquering myself as much as
the next girl always had the opportunity to leave but never the will to forget, the way she turns to see me when I enter the room, the way she watches me walk |
how does one learn to open? where do my eyes go at night, among skylights and stars. music comes from sparrows' wings, daffodils. i put one letter before another, sometimes out of sequence, and my Qs taste like js. between subways and street corners are stop signs. drums and nostalgia. the sexiest thing a man can do is shave, all in its vulnerability. there are things a man cannot do alone: breathe, brush teeth, stress. what man does alone: play games, sigh, relax, smell nice. i forgot her name, i was looking busy. put pressure on shoulders and silence. Rise.
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you know these things.
tables. chairs. making rooms. inside our nestled village. who cares, anyway? the whats we have forgotten are noisy saturday nights caught in the glisten of a child's lens; how the world solarizes at its strange touch. I am without. I wear the below of my shorts extended. outside I am the magician, disassociating. I don't know how to feel that way anymore. |
i've no more to give
than the shallow waters of man the treaded earth, sullen, seas parted like a child's hair trapped inside a bosom is a flesh we can love, breathe, soar above and live within i've no more to give than the violins and doves at sunset the prickling of the hour from clock to wish and dear a heart beyond our time and longing history it is in the eyes and the touch a science lofty and wild between the ears of our lover there is a concerto where a fire would blaze; a gasp where a finger had laid, a smile where a smile is needed i've no more to give a dragon-pair of nightmares |
a soldier knows
what hands to hold what skin to touch what fetish i have in the strength of man between myself and his confessions |
those who sleep in ruin
dare not dream those who sleep deaden by chance, timber and lust; they shiver |
enough time to think
enough time to breathe to make a smile on a face it was in light that i first saw her in the morning, pausing afternoon lips that could push memories her turquoise rings, put out bare i have seen into those alien oceans i have been before their vision within a softer breath of time I could see an edge of her reality walking along its infinity in circles tightly drawn like dormroom curtains hiding sun and stars from skin, naked flesh, supple and entwined i have laid a hand on her breast, a kiss on her thigh, a thought between her crossed legs those are all the ideas i have all the fingers have touched stretched up toward the sky |
I am creative when others write
towards sex, after beauty-sense on long extensions into the sea |
what girl of mine could love
this love when love has expiration how through our guarded heart is a date and a time and a place what edges, what bones, what flesh I love an unfolding love steadily withering precious in descent |
daisies in a mechanic’s pocket
dancing on the reynolds’ lawn placing devils before their due softness of opiates, dread pointing patterns upwards then falling down upon my head |
a bishop’s hovel
is small, dense, and dark like God mulberry bushes crimson poison altered communion of unsleeping flesh misdirected, alone fresh like death |
tidied my heart with scissors
replaced their blades with fingers from the hands of diggers rough from hands to holding is a delicate breath, a smile worn to wear and chosen a glass of water, break of bread these are feelings I might accept an unwed mother, a silhouette |
they drain the park-lake in march;
I find myself midstep in streets wondering where I am in water watching two dogs tied together chase each other, these last bitch-throes of winter april’s blood-mixing drinks between scarlet and emotion are sensitive remixes, brothers fighting over girls; i am the last bottle of the night having forgotten the way home |
of all red doves
the children have all gone of all red blood the distance has all gone in all red blood the distance has never gone in my red blood the distance has always gone for my red blood that distance, gone in my red distance red doves gone |
all this time I've had it wrong
how I've been both proud and strong bright and sly just as a song how you've worked into my arms riding trains and carousels shaping stars and great beyonds hair like yarn in plastic bags inside your eyes out of my mind yank the heart from my insides |