Our innocence lost in slamming doors and thrown crockery, we ran, jacketed, into ready offerings and prurient teachings. My brother, you did not live long enough to forgive the teachers or cry for the warring giants. [Art by Hugo Simberg]
Daguerreotype is the day,ancient as I drive. Beside me she is a ghost,and I can’t speak to the veil-the closed idiom of her soul. OrI am the ghostand have simply lost the languageto this often-paved way. *** They got into the car just the same, even though this was a frivolous trip. Even though she […]
Cast your line into the soft static of six days from now. Feet up, warm cup, and let someone in. One who’s been down. Yes, that’s the one, my love.
Nights at the round table!Spouts of hot teasloshed into cups of tiny china.Cards and clinking glasses,glinting toothy smiles!One nods offafter too many Jameson’s.Piggyback up the stairs,unfold him into bed, hah!Open a window, will you?What, tired already?It’s only two!
When I woke upthis morningI laid there for a bitIdly went to scratch my nosethen nearly had a fit Someone else’s hand was there,with skin of ebon brownI ran my fingers through my hairIt felt like eiderdown I went to find the looking glassto see what face was thereExpecting not the veritasthat I was meant […]
Each of us wanted safety.Father, from trouble’s horde.Mother, from father.We chickens, from the storm. All of us were running,and love was hard pressed to keep up.Adolescence held confusion, guilt,and strange desire. I looked for yellow bricks,on the cusp of a fireworks life.
I will want my eyes open if I can, when it happens. Don’t stay if it’s too hard. But if you do, you might see, in my dry eyes, a struggle of the soul. A sea-change, as I watch the silver sun, and all that’s earthly folds its book. For I’ve already peeked at the […]
If you would, talk some sense into me. Or, just talk some sense. I am in short supply, you see. I have broad and muscled shoulders from clenching the etched-in tension. A hard head with a coconut brain to unveil the dumb mornings. Those that move in this captivity are bound to me, but we […]
I know why you couldn’t shave anymoreI used to think that you couldbut needed to be touchedI think, now, that something told you“What’s the use?”and you agreedand your hands and knees agreedand next morningyour shrunken headcould think only of hard rivers of nerves.
Why’d you lead me into corn-stubbled hills? This mind of mine swirls with overthink. Come on, old man. We’re supposed to be waiting by the highway for that Buick to pick us up. It is to take me home. You’re just a distraction. Suggestibility is a downfall of mine. I’ve followed too many false prophets. […]
Aremyfeetofftheground 