where once were wings

A lonely road runs through where once were wings. Some spacious sanctioning of the heart, this blood all boil or tumble. Some reach that spurns the infinite, this wild and insistent wind. They say it is only the excess of grasp that makes it seem so hollow. They say it is only the breath of want that makes it all so hard. The light grows dim, the lights go on. The rest just the itch along the root of sight.

The clarity itself is the comfort, as the details stick. The only ease that comfort run down from gear and spring. The stretch of a shadow, the crack of a spine. Breath at last a relevance, the flesh a sudden the spirit sung in time. Bones knit and brows furrow. Kisses almost close to true.

The road runs as parley against the map. It goes only where it seems to go, and so seems rough and pure. Some Disney scented princess, full of song and spine. It is the reason and the rock, the story as it unwound. It is all touch and covet, and claims bound by oath and blood. The twilight blue and dismal hunger. I only want and want.

magnetize

Somehow you always manifest when the right light comes along. Somehow you always draw me down, sparse rainfall or laden dusk. Your eyes are another world, your gaze its klaxon call. You sidle through the hush and sway, the rhythm of your walk the heart of hypnotize. I wake to that crush of losing you, the air where your touch once weighed. The silver of those slipped kisses, the blessed breath you left. The night is always so long, and forever without you.

There is always some darkened hallway, always the sudden suspense of breath. You are always close, whatever might be missing. You are always there, nearing the tip of my tongue. Hold my own in some one way conversation, the plots of my dreams crossed with the clotted voices in my head. Somehow together in the depths and narrows. These endless streets and dim lit windows. Somehow always almost home.

The crow comes down with the sky not caring. The wings expand to grasp the air. Some soft passage, some worn down horizon. Stars and fireworks, and always some moment more. Sleep and the condensations of culture all call you out. My heart falls out and skitters along the dismal floor. Somehow you always magnetize, despite distance and indifference. Somehow you always are drawn down, lightening always needing something to strike.

Dulcinea

There is a lonely in the bright of the light, a sadness in the relentless sun. The sky falls apart, full of birds and prayers. The wind isn't much help, kicking dust in every eye like the bully in all those Charles Atlas ads. Only there is no muscle strong enough to stiff arm away the brutal breeze. Even the restless heart surrenders to the relentless and the loosed. Even the surrendered heart plods on, life allowing no excuses. Even the secret dream stirs, all salt and selective memory.

Mostly I have forgotten everything, your eyes, your voice, the persuasion of your spine. My rheumy thoughts caught in the cobwebs and the candlelight, kisses and confessions and sudden surrenders. The ply and ache of entanglement, the longing for some story I did not know I loved. You remain the soul of unbidden attraction, the scent and scuff of human rumor. All these half wit passions derive from your river that flooded my origin story. You remain the only super power I ever interred.

It is a life without forethought, all hope lost to some uncharted sea, all likely outcomes all pitiful and bleak. So much of me feeling like a settled bet, with only the payout left to the accounting. So much of me lost like luggage on some disastrous journey, I cannot find you even in my lies. Just these fairy stories left spilling from my lips. Just these simulacra of kisses that arise like blood and tears from the statuary. The sadness of another sunny day, the providence of your memory skintight and as merciless as the hungry wind.

Eleanor Rigby

You arrive still a list of broken things, dead pets and broke notions, those dismal displays of faith. Your pockets are empty, save a knife and fire. Those old skill sets still a dull murmur in your bones. All the roads as yet unchosen. The sun low every morning, midnight given to the bust belly moon. You weren't asked to be here, but you show up with your wings and your medicine bag. No-one asked, but you shoulder your way on in.

Six geese turn half a wheel above a field, winging straight through a roil of swallows feeding in the morning light. They honked along some other seam, flying fast and low. The swallows rise and fall, seemingly pursuing glints and flashes in the bright sunrise. It's no big secret. There's something screwy going on. History's best lessons always start with something screwy.

It's not like you kept the old ways, more like the two of you caught up a little somewhere on the road. The complaints of age and the retorts of ache are there in every stay and stride. Footprints on the beach, paths marked in the sand. Always a little further from the fire, always a little farther down the shore. Time huddled up and gave you the play. You always feel like you forgot a reason, finding another day. You always feel like you're out to sea, wrestling down another crowd.

the paperwork

It's been a dry spell for all the rain dogs, the sorties of spring and the summer's retreats. Every bit of steam stole from some sliced up indignation. Every bit of bile choked out the hard way. This illness is always overtime. This sickness stays up nights. I write a little less every time. There are only so many words that stick around.

Every other story is stuck in some desert. Every other mouthful is thick with dust. The dry air slows down the cycle, rot crawling in seasons and alongside pipes. The history buried already, without the impetus to dissolve.  These desiccated places always leave something. The treasure that nothing living could stomach becomes the proof that providence meant. The dog sick in the tall grass becomes the god of all tomorrows. The garbage heap kept far from the river the halls and barrows of ancient kings.

All my thoughts rot away like fruit. Everything I ever said is lost on the wind. The dust bucks and the shadows lean, the air painted in sparkles and shit. The sky wants to take its toys and go. I lose word after word, spilling them into keystroke. I lose words to sentences and lines. Each impulse, each touch, each abstraction. Stuck in the spark before the fire. Stuck in the anticipation before every open book. Always the lost that somehow linger. Always longing to skip all the paperwork, and go right to the end.

like hot wax into water

The whole scene is too familiar. The whole scene is something I have down too pat. Kneeling in e examination room, the old dog sprawled on the blanket right before me. The old dog a bewildered skeleton, his body a series of cruel betrayals, his mind scattered to the wind. I scratch his head on his favorite spot, trying not to feed his fear with my own sense of sadness and failure. I don't even bother trying not to cry. Tears flow while I talk casually to the vet and the vet tech. Hold the old dogs chin and scratch as the vet finds a utile vein. Hold the old dog's chin as the plunger draws that first bead of blood into the syringe, dog's blood that floats and coils like hot wax into water, blood that is slowly forced back into the vein. The slow and steady compression of the blood and amber liquid, to stop the dog heart from beating. The steady depression that ends the old dog's life.

I am sitting and smoking, watching the wind kick up the dust. I am sitting and smoking, listening to music with headphones on. Johnny Cash and Joe Strummer singing a song by Bob Marley. Two dead men sing a dead man's song, redemption so far away it might as well be another country. Redemption so far away it may as well be from Mars. It is the way love leaves us, one way or another. The way our love leaves us, even when it stays. The list just grows and grows, encompassing all we lost. The wind just blows and the smoke whips wildly. The wind blows and everything snaps and sways.

It is the same each time, save for little details. The twitch of a leg, the weight of the air, the strange heat of some stranger's consoling hand. They shuffle the numbers, they shift the dates. Each small collapse closing up some doorway. Every tiny flicker another era past. Fingerprints pressed among the ashes. Toothmarks scratched upon old bones. So surprised at the prayers that found and failed me. The dog still warm as the blood stills and breath fails. Sitting in a parked car, watching traffic pass.

context

They could try to find me, if they had a reason. They could try to find me, if they had the nerve. Look all they want, it wouldn't matter. Look right at me, I'll still be gone. The trick is to stand on the seams of your shadow. The trick is to leave nothing they would want behind.

I am always out of sorts. I am never where I am supposed to be. My reaction shots read like stock footage. My lips never sync up to the things I say. I grumble though the days and slander every night. I never bet against the house until I've seen it. Every time I call a bluff I lie.

Now my last cigar is smoke and cinders. Now the finches all invade the pines. I listen as the wind releases. I listen as the diamond dies. The sky dies down, like love  or speeches. The light leaves just like they said it would. They'll never find me, though I mostly mark the map. They'll never find me, though I think I'm in the book. The smoke runs circles, and the little finches don't mind. The dusk seems certain as I slip right past.