nuremburg

The list of crimes goes on and on. It makes it so hard to choose. The light that leaves, the lamp left burning.  The story that never seems to fit. The words just silk between your fingers. The line stitched directly in the skin, read aloud to the cold cruel sky. This is how you meet your maker as he tries to lay you in your grave. This is how you know your place, finding none left for you.

I feel the weight of the absent sun, the press of the sorrow in the walls. My name only written ever in dust. The reasons all me flailing, always a little far from the shore. The lesson my undoing, every stroke more evidence I need erasing. Another room to be lost inside, another door to hold me back. I feel as if I should say your name. I don't know what I am learning.

We are what becomes of justice. We are each of us someone's last laugh. The story never where we left it, while we held our breath the world moved on. Somehow the thought so much the burden, the only thing lost hard the thing that will never be. The days all dust, tomorrows all scattered. The names and numbers the only lie left. The shadows swallow every ache, the sorrow every wonder. Our sentence served interminable, the future too far to follow.

crossed

There is a trick we all endure, moving as we do from place to place, leaving blurry constellations of spittle  and ash at our feet. There is a glint of recognition there in these landscapes we only know from dreams. These wild intuitions, this animal abandon. The maps we make with our mouths and our fingers, the maps we learn inside another's heart. We sweep the path and scatter the ashes. Every day always the one we have just begun.

We are here until we reach the limit, then just as quick we are long gone. The evening shadows reaching towards the street, the setting sun another wager placed, easy money twice as easy when it goes. The shadows stretch in swathes and fingers, grasping every ever-after by the throat. Close your eyes or loose your tongue, in the end all reasons wind up equal. Our time always running down, stars burning into oblivion, sand skittering down the fitted glass. Our time always a bunch of words we gather, and whatever we have right now.

Take my hand and I will lead you. Take my hand, you have nothing left to lose. The blow by blow of each carnival attraction when all you wanted is a home for all your heartache. The dull remittance of every sin when the anguish and the sorrow were your only crimes. The stories they tell you are true enough, and as for worries, legions of them are waiting behind every door. If you pay attention the odds are always against you. Our fates are made already if there is no choice to find. Our crossed stars are right there in the sky. But if the chances are ours to take, why not start with love?

utility

I'm never there until I'm needed so I'm never really there at all. Just the scribbling on an envelope, the press of pretty words. Just the answers to unasked questions and the rigors of the clock. All the rules written to hold dear and clasp tight. All the lies alright as long as we get what we want. Even the reasons they claim are past believing. My life story, and I can't be bothered to show.

There is no try, there is no trust. Everything laid out right there on the table. Every story told just to tell you so. The heart wants and wants with the discipline of a pendulum, the river of blood and the river of tears indistinguishable in this light. Sift through the shards and stir the embers. Someone might speak if the words work out. Someone might begin as if there was still a life.

I will sit and write my letters. I will keep my promised paperwork. The day begins so dull and broken. A life withered down to a husk stirred by bugs and wind. That forever Jack O Lantern feel of always being on the wrong end of your reason, the season seems so cold and dry. Useless, I extend my stay, unwanted and unasked for. I arrive a little too late for exposition, this story only meant to meet its end.

tending to the tide

I wake early, but at least I wake. Dreams slowly drained from the inflamed and confused senses, the drift of self like a symptom of some chronic condition, the weight of identity embarrassingly heavy draped across my limbs. I shuffle into whatever shoes are closest, push through the tangled thrill of dogs into the hallway, to the beacon light of the bathroom to see if my kidneys are still working. I make uncertain water, so very aware of the years pissed away, painful and pitiful and utterly without surprise.

I cough clouds of fitful steam beneath these plots of clouds and stars, familiar constellations lingering on the roof. I stumble with lock and key, pick up whatever paper the morning means today. I scan the street, see where it sleeps and where it is stirring. The stage is slow but full of furtive witness, whether the first early bird of the morning or the last stragglers of the night. I go inside and search for clues of your coming in every place that isn't here. I start my day between wish and ache, wanting you before I have a name.

Somehow the mirror is still there staring. Somehow the sun slips its fingers in, always ready to pour it on. I drink my coffee and I keep my place. The world dances on and on. I teeter on the balance board of utility and ruin, scuffing along this dull calling. Scraping by on the bones cast off by this ravening nation of ghosts and demons, sifting through the stars and words until I get a glimmer of condensation. I mind the ancient proprieties and speak your name out loud. The spell is cast, the die is tossed, I am tending to the tide of all my tomorrows. Every day I choose my poison, always wishing it was you.

So long, cool words

So basically I am a very depressed person with some literary pretensions I can't shake. The end.

curtains

Do I see the stars all aligned through broken branches? Do I know the distance to you as brushed by the wings of a crow? The days of sun unravel with winter still sniffing at the door, this dust and dust, and so much dreaming. The footprints danced into a circle, your story stitched into the spell like ink. Those dizzy tattoos everybody is lousy with, something always other must this flesh declare. It is enough to know I love you, whichever word or way.

I touch the warmth of electricity and metal, the smooth insistence of your charm. To flit and leap the whole word over. To spark and step and never know just how alone. It is digits on the television, seraph on the font. The weighty fruits of some diverse oblivion hanging heavy from every vine. These stubborn percussives, this gilt sibilance. You are the words as spoken, the hand as it must be played. You are the spell unbroken, a lavish idyll and the endless hush of rain.

The night alludes to its usual ghosts. The lamps all glow, the TV mumbles. I suspect that you are sleeping tangled in all your dreams and worries. I suspect that you are sleeping beneath those stippled constellations. You are so much closer, and so much farther than flight can say. The dance is always run in cycles, the reel goes 'round and 'round and 'round. My hours burn down, my hands are empty. I love you as you are swaddled in all your sweet tomorrows. It is enough to know I love you, whatever you may say.

hubris

Is it any better to think you will not fall so far because of your limitations, that because you aren't worth a second glance the gods will just let you slide? Why should the mighty suffer so when you can take spill after spill? Why should any slight be overlooked by such a touchy and heavy-handed heaven? Every success, every bright leap of love, every thrilling dream come true all owned by these jealous reckless ghosts. Why believe that you can ever be good enough when their disappointments will tear all the meat from your bones? The gods do not tell us but are contend to harvest, all our bounty already remiss.

The stars come out as imitations, the light that shine so weathered and true. I can taste the smoke of each conversation, the silken coil rising from the candle just snuffed out. The language of lamentation birthed from the bitter on the tongue. Expunged chances, murdered hopes. The fires alight in the crushed of broken bones. The fissures set down until the fevers release. We bow and scrape as way of explanation. A prowess to redress any given worth to pay this debt in blood. I lean against the cold worn down timbers, ice seeding splinters in my every touch.

This is not the only story. These words were never meant to be set just right. Only to seethe from these cracks and sadness, bitter remainders and ancient complaints. The grievous injury set against the splinters of fearful smiles, teeth another set of leavings, the way this life has at you. Knowing that your sins are never punished enough to free you. This press of omnipotent lips against blank brows, this hum of blood and plunder.  To hope to live without respite for every slip and misgiving. The foolish rise above the fray as if the stars would worry.