NOTHING HOLDS ME

The sky lashed tight
to bright-stitched stars,
a glittering skin that cups down.
Off in the distance, a late
clatter of geese calls.

We never know what holds us here.

My breath steams against the cold,
snaking away in grey-shoaled shards.
I pace back and forth on the back deck
and watch the sky grow darker,
the stars bright.

Nothing holds me here.

CONCEIT

Are we not men?

Far from it!

The milk of human kindness?

Excuse me, do you have a 10% off coupon?

The airports are full of detainees.
There’s a scratch ‘n’ sniff form pertaining to their release.

Heaven has been violated.
The rest of you, just file through.
Nothing to see here…

FECUND

Don’t you hear it,
in the sea-shelled howling of night;
a single bloom unfolding in its’
flesh cup, a withering of tendrils,
a grazing of fingertips, a brush
like seaweed against the cheek,
a hush in the breath
of the oldest ocean?

CHASM

Wine-jug moon, misted incandescent through the twining strands of rain that want to pull me in one direction, then the next.
No Jesus, no Buddha out tonight
on cat’s feet, to lend a hand,
no scribbled scripture
to hold this skin together.

Oh Chasm, old friend,
you’ve found me again…

PROFILE PIECE

This fever passes from one to the other
like a tainted bake sale.
This roadside attraction is now
an independent republic
with a banana-based economy
& me a tyrant worried my imported
tin plating will not pass inspection
& may contain trace elements of lead
which could endanger the very children
I swore to protect on this, the eve
of my blood-soaked inauguration,
where “allegiance” is now both
a state of mind, & an accessorized
cologne, & that down payment
on those dowager virgins is actually
none of your damn business---
Did I mention this interview is over?

LIBERTY ASHES

…rolls by, emblazoned on a truck outside
my apartment window, right when I’m going to step
into the shower. Absolve, absolve me!
Of that grey-sheened dusting, parchment-thick.
Let me speak words that haven’t already been burnt.
There’s just a smudge left on your cheek,
in the last grasping rays of sunset---
Excuse me, do you mind? Can I reach?
I want to wipe it clean…

HIDES

We heap them upon us
to keep warm in cold months.
We ask them to lie with us
when we are dizzy and sick,
when the tented skins only
provide so much, a construction,
a place by the border we tilt
to trap the sun, a shadow
we harvest, an empty robe
for someone else to step into…