Tuesday, January 20, 2009
CHALICE
We come here delirious with thirst.
All we ask is already too much, that
the poison be lifted from our lips
as bitter hymn, that the band
strikes up a little bit toward the end,that the chalice is passed, and beginsits’ healing work, that we fill it as it fills us.
All we ask is already too much, all we drink
more than any could give, but still,
our thirst demands the cup…
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
EMPIRE OF SLEEP
Its’ shorelines are jagged,
its’ inlands smooth,
just like ours, but there,
the impressions make impressions
of themselves, and the leaders
are endless; the handshakes
and name-checking lasts forever.
There, knives draw milk,
and the pitchers pour sorrow.
There, they light up tent stakes
at dawn, and say goodbye
to the insect-winged shiver
of shelter’s promise.
There, they pitch funeral pyres
into the surf at a newborn’s
broken wailing, and consider
every alphabet sanitized
if it can get past, “Hello.”
There, a smile is like
the whale’s rib, curving
continuously downwards,
until its’ very weight
is the point of breaking
Monday, January 12, 2009
RECAST
Can’t you see the horse-drawn cart
before your eyes? How you traded
in your elders for some flash and pan?
Can’t you see you’re a stone’s throw
away from being recast as the first
stone ever thrown? That you’re
the missing link to the misanthropic isotope?
That the narrator constantly re-shuffles
the deck and starts again? Can’t you see,
my fine, neutered rebel, that you’re already
part of the bait and switch,
of this hollowed-out shell of a game?
Saturday, January 10, 2009
SLAVES
The slavish wantons are already claiming
that you’re a lost down payment
on what we hoped for,
that you’re already the sum
that’s less than its’ parts,
already a discard, a mask,
a skin better settled,
a gift that breaks apart.
The slavish wantons, with tongues
tied like rust-gummed railroad tracks
to a past they haven’t noticed is behind them.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
SPUTTERINGS
Has my tongue been registered
in the coming convergence?
Has its’ oscillations been properly
adjusted for? I keep hearing you
named in the wind, off in the distance,
howling like we were born to do.
I keep wanting to parse one second
from the next, stripping you down
to the barest signal, that teletype
between breaths, that lip
of a grin just abandoned,
that structure I wrote off
as unsound…
Thursday, January 1, 2009
DIAGNOSIS
I am willing to accept the diagnosis
of my most maladied doctor.
His pacemaker runs off low-grade
plutonium, he should be able
to hum a few bars, and keep a tune.
I am willing to accept scurvy
as an unforeseen side-effect,
and degradation to the outer hull,
that social niceties are the first to go.
I’m willing to accept that.
I am willing to accept that I’m less
than completely on message,
that escape clauses only have room
for one, that this sickness
can’t be wished away.
I am willing to accept that
as I’m tied to the mast,
plunging into storms that only
know my name, I will be the last
one left speaking it…
Sunday, December 28, 2008
POTENTATE
You called me the golden calf
but I ended up with a silver tongue
where the knife has started
that’s where I’ve begun
no shortness of breath
no palpitations
this corpse immaculate
upon inspection
I speak no further than this body
and I need no further reach
I’m the bankrupt slaughter
every fear that’s ever slipped past
I hold the lease
Friday, December 26, 2008
BANKRUPT
I am the father of many skins;
I wear them duly, in the procession
they were meant to be seen in.
I can’t abide a wayward son,
stripped to his skivvies,
and guessing the capitol of Mexico.
I am a free-range thinker,
and it’s thirsty work out there.
I carry the goblet, you provide the rain.
I’m a miracle worker who’s lost
his devoted flock, I’ve gone bankrupt.
I am the father of many names…
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
TURBULENCE
You are beside yourself on the tarmac,
taking an illicit snapshot as evidence,
proof you should be at work, or home in bed,
anywhere but here, arguing
with a switch-bladed matriarch
about the very validity of a claim
to “the Friendly Skies.”
We’ve all been robbed.
Saint Peter’s in foreclosure.
We trace the tainted line
on the map closer and closer,
drawing our breath to match
the wagon trained limits,
till we get to the red scrawl
at its’ center, the arrow that points,
“You are here.”
You are beside yourself.
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