observations #1

observations #1

would that i could give

my ears for rain or heart

for mists my eyes for pink

painted in the cloud-

gaps with aimless strokes; watercolor

spilling over the brims onto

dry, whispering lips

kircher in the rhine

kircher in the rhine

numbness fills

the body empty

                         hands stay

loose in an

      anchorite's

song he

         heard of light

frozen, holy, s

weeping fast

               away from his mother's call

he is, the ice is

                        a thousand stars white, blue

but within reach

pulled from a snowy bank

he has a cold and GOD

hands

hands

paired shadows cast
long under a ruthless spring sun
one lingers, still
believing in the other, entombed
in sepia. words and
skin enough
shared to make a life of
sorts
they could never get the hang of holding hands

smuggler from avalon

smuggler from avalon

i am the thief

        under

              paladin

eyes with suspicion

from the shrine's

         darkness lift a song

for a loaf of bread

and the pleasure of cliché

is heaven such? a place

prepared, or travels

                it with you?

i've not the heart

to say if you look out

           your door

there find it returns

          and the truth with it

metallurgist

metallurgist
after the first day

i learned

to work in truths as others

        work in metal;

under great

duress, purity won

by heat seething in

reprieve

repeat

even

shod in denial to

tear the living (soil) from

       the earth with each

step toward you my feet

        ache so

     stones in

the path cut

i, just,

have nothing

         left to give,

returned,

               taking

she who whispered

she who whispered

she, who?

        whispered me by softer

     names and time she found within

a book      far older than any i

had read though her gaze spoke

               youth no lies, nor guile to

fashion rude tools i did use them well ill upon

                     recalling her pleas i play

stoic to the vignette, a

wooden man and thereupon she is hangs

breathing until naught

                naught, as she'd will for me of the swill-black

brew overflowing my rusted cup

apology, by a certain definition

apology, by a certain definition

envy, innocent, peers
past locked

        gates locked for good reason

if any at

    all could be justified

were its reach longing

it would say it regretted only what it did

              not grasp

anesthesia

anesthesia
administer silence

measure din

               ages shown through

a vial

                                   men remembered

their motives
                      whither

                      they tire or not

to sleep dreamless, by arts

alexandra

alexandra

at rest within

    hands

              slender, pale

do their work upon

              my face, never pleasing

these are sacred

         thoughts not yours, to

question or dare you

                   stain them

by realities, fickle

wordless nature

               vindicates neither

man nor woman

only happy

        when ghosts

tread, and be

gone from here

terms of a reasonable trade

terms of a reasonable trade

my skin is

soft shall remain

so years yet

                   i would

                      give (it to you)

                              now and hence

                                      such offerings as

to earn my hands purchase                   on your timeworn face

and fleeting pass aching fingers through           coarsening gray

                                                       if only i knew it certain

sill

sill

in younger times
i tended flowers on a sill
sunbathers on the white beech
every day the glass was like water
they grew towards me inch by inch
could i have known?
my house chokes on green
first petals in relief
sharp as the teeth of the fly-traps that make my bed
clear as the window's pain shining
                                           against the morning
         light rings
in the cambrium keep time, remembering that
i grew the life that sat on a sill
and made this room a church
i gave no thought to decorum,
idled in the sun alone with them
i paid no taxes, never worked a day
answered to no man and killed
hours with ink and paper
i tended flowers on a sill
they grew towards me inch by inch
aren't they lovely today?

ode to a japanese urn

ode to a japanese urn

there was once a man

whose name cannot be known

nor guessed

his words, long forgotten

his bones, dust

even so

his hands

his furrowed brow

heat on his face

curls of gray from the dying embers

the morning after

these things are eternal

keeper

keeper

you have left your charge
                                          in the envelope, where things best forgotten are
waiting grows tiresome, no?
                                              way to return to then
                                                      you wrap your hair around your finger and i

would speak in abstractions but i have too much

time to be so impressed while waking
                                                             so what can i keep from it?

if (what)

if (what)

if in

    a sick man

   's dream you

    from whole cloth

were fashioned

                         late for everything

loose thread

bares           the truth out

         beautiful embroidery, regalia

speak to me with that filthy mouth,

a whore for language

          and i

               rip the fabric

memories, gossamer,

fall

to the floor, a pall for

a sick man

dreaming if

if (what)

culpa

culpa

you sang to fill me with sleep

                at your table, i drank your brew

thanking you not

               that you ever questioned

               and set aside so,

did you think it not

your place? at the window we shared

      the splinters of the frame

(you) in my hair

                          (i) in your back

the moonstruck

                          out your eyes dimming with the mists

you kissed my neck and I touched your

       faith mis-

       placed in the engraving is

                  permanent that

would survive this blinking

           habit of hours

                     in proving you a fool

i, myself, a thief

   with a vacuum

                           between had no recourse to

                   voice or         breath ending

there

throngs of protestors gathering atop the piles

throngs of protestors gathering atop the piles

wretches in a

                   charnel house speak
at me though   imperatives
          of your
                      signature trillion-fold

        and ancient bid them

               not i
                     have dispensations for just
such thanks to her

a silverlit nightmare can be as gentle as

a silverlit nightmare can be as gentle as

a portrait of a child
   neglected
pale as milk
from some unknowable
                 mother
and she is beautiful
                so beautiful
                             so dressed
                             so poised

                  cracks through
which i saw(,) as a boy(,)
secrets are yet in her eyes and yet is always
yet
she moves
to me, at l(e)ast she is flawless

           small body comes
to rest, awkward and cold and pained
            i AM when her lips brush
she takes                the red
                     so poised

and when i wake i will
                  need        not find

rhetoric

rhetoric

i appeal to my chronic language
the sole part of long-drawn years
am given table scraps

whole worlds are built on
such sage leavings
        rarely questioned
and what might i ask that is not(?)
       second-hand

sweeping in a full arc
               souls under the table
pass unnoticed or if noticed, unmourned
                       still we are
lightless-deep in our fathers' runes
cowering, i too
                 for the asking
       would be naught
                  courage less
                i wanted an answer

material suspension in vitreous solution #5

material suspension in vitreous solution #5

slow writhing down the omens

                     chains of possible things

fears or

        promises any sense of

        knowing must pass

fast writing down the omens

       a speed this medium is unaccustomed

                    to warp and align perception

with reality, petty as it is

                           and unknown to it

       are these musics?

naught of time but a rhythm

           yes, it holds them fast and turning black

no ministrations may refresh it nor composition command

a certain sobering respect for

                                        the living

silences the mouths of the dead

             passing down the omens

sanctioneering

sanctioneering

between vectors the ribaldry ossifies

sufficing to the lower and not

             along its swath,

encumbered numinous and the chains

                                   of the drunkard

who pilots the fire-ship sinking,

                 waxen mired your talk soaks

                                     the bones

           through betrayal of sanctum investiture

     the splintering overreaches command how

                           it must be

as with eye and searing black against

            rigor in whore-flesh masks

no pretense can unwind the maelstrom plummet

     to earth, rotting before e'er the sores to meet

                             a slough of disdainful syntax wrought in

steel about your finger or depravity in your teeth