The dry pine leans hard into the hot blue sky, severed roots and broken branches. A stifling wind seeps between the fence boards, giving the feeling of a crawling motion to the stripes of sunlight painted in the dust. Sweat holds its convention on my flesh, trickling down my dirty face like unearned tears. It is a sad song rising, thirst and hunger and clinging heat. It is the still air stirring, dancing upon the grave of all tomorrows. The world in an uproar, and I only ever talk about the weather.
It isn't the ache of existence, it isn't the hurt in heart. The sickness endures every fact and intervention when it arises from the hole in my soul. Good days and bad days hardly change stances. The fight is the same, however bright the stars or blue the moon. The difference ends up only in degrees, frying pan pr fire. The world moves on whether you are ready to ride. The world doesn't worry on those that it leaves behind. It tumbles through the heavens, riding what rails it may. It spins and speeds and collides with the debris of creation, any god there is one of cosmic desolation and abrupt extinction. All the pieces might fit, but no horse or soldier can fix them together once they are so sundered.
The wind shifts, stirring leaf and needle. The sky is a fever, the day a feud. Somehow the lack of evidence still incriminates. Somehow pretending hard enough makes it so. All these fits and seizures, the speeches paused to wait on imagined applause. The dull weight presses inside my skull, the words falter while the blood ignites. I creep through the indifference and the trash, bruised and beaten and as comical as can be. The silly onslaught of this relentless poverty, an infection culled by design and neglect. Sorrow only so much shifting sand. Roots dig and branches reach though the tree is already dead. The calendar fills with contradictions, each prediction a mouth full of dust.
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Friday, September 28, 2012
crickets
There is a rustle in the deadfall, there is motion riffling the leaves. The birds on high vie for the tender underbelly. The dogs down here dig up treasures by the trove. We make our marks, we check for signs. Foot prints on the middle path, commotion amid the stars. I take my share of ink and scarring. I shed my shell and make my claims. It is a wonder that anyone is watching. It is a miracle that anyone can see at all.
The work is always there, the vast collapse unfinished. The work is always there, if money is no object. The idea of reward, the scant fact of compensation, rattling the windows and banging on the door. Waiting for that lucky moment, thinking the timing must be just so. I collect ache and incomprehension. I only ever gather what I sow. Lost cities and storm warnings. The labor of recall footsteps upon the hot and shifting sands.
Time has its reasons, time has its say. The clock translates the message, the countdown bound to the writing on its face. The stage is set, the audience if it's out there always in the dark. I pace the boards, practice my craft. I spell it out in blunt letters and dull tricks. The world tumbles, the sky falls. The earth can not stop shaking. Messages come by the bottle, missives stitched onto the skin of the wind. The light burns low, the day runs down. I speak my peace in brittle little pieces. The curtain comes down, and the rest is crickets.
The work is always there, the vast collapse unfinished. The work is always there, if money is no object. The idea of reward, the scant fact of compensation, rattling the windows and banging on the door. Waiting for that lucky moment, thinking the timing must be just so. I collect ache and incomprehension. I only ever gather what I sow. Lost cities and storm warnings. The labor of recall footsteps upon the hot and shifting sands.
Time has its reasons, time has its say. The clock translates the message, the countdown bound to the writing on its face. The stage is set, the audience if it's out there always in the dark. I pace the boards, practice my craft. I spell it out in blunt letters and dull tricks. The world tumbles, the sky falls. The earth can not stop shaking. Messages come by the bottle, missives stitched onto the skin of the wind. The light burns low, the day runs down. I speak my peace in brittle little pieces. The curtain comes down, and the rest is crickets.
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
invisible hands
So the shovel splits the earth. So the absence of the ghost leaves us with nothing but dirt, the soil sweet with the mumblings of decay. The lights go out, and bright flies begin their shift. Busy wings and pale maggots, the crawling tide of life abides. From dust to dust, these slow circles all spinning away the world. Over there and back again, the wheels turn and turn. Standing still, and still standing. Each distinction a shade of sameness. Every word spilled upon the ravenous ground.
Dig a hole, make it deep, fill it up with reasons. The air hangs there, hot and dense and slowly seeping. Heat and brevity and the soul of discretion. Something comes from splitting the surface with hands full of grief. The salt of sweat, the salt of sadness, these fields full of rocks and bones. Nothing slumbers beneath this labor. Nothing comes along to take away the empty. Every grave dug is a kind of surrender. Each grave filled with a measure of your sacrifice. Pieces of your head mingled with pieces of your heart. Each loss leaving its stitches and scars. You always bury who you were.
The hours dwindle, the sky an afterthought. The ground is littered with cool dust and crisp dead leaves. Tree limbs reach to catch what sun still lingers, the last green and golden aspirations before the season casts its spell. The work of the world grinds on. We idle in our sentiments while the sediment endures. These hopes and wishes that once swarmed our every motion now stuck in the firmament along with all those absent stars. Pinning wings where shoulders were, flying and falling all the same until the end.
Dig a hole, make it deep, fill it up with reasons. The air hangs there, hot and dense and slowly seeping. Heat and brevity and the soul of discretion. Something comes from splitting the surface with hands full of grief. The salt of sweat, the salt of sadness, these fields full of rocks and bones. Nothing slumbers beneath this labor. Nothing comes along to take away the empty. Every grave dug is a kind of surrender. Each grave filled with a measure of your sacrifice. Pieces of your head mingled with pieces of your heart. Each loss leaving its stitches and scars. You always bury who you were.
The hours dwindle, the sky an afterthought. The ground is littered with cool dust and crisp dead leaves. Tree limbs reach to catch what sun still lingers, the last green and golden aspirations before the season casts its spell. The work of the world grinds on. We idle in our sentiments while the sediment endures. These hopes and wishes that once swarmed our every motion now stuck in the firmament along with all those absent stars. Pinning wings where shoulders were, flying and falling all the same until the end.
Monday, September 24, 2012
prognosis
You imagine it as a passage, the hour turning untrue in your thinking, the numerals tumbling up the slow ladder on down. The slippery periphery, the halo and the sunspot, these words endure the vacuum. The thoughtless compartments amid the void, the residue of all the places dreams touch your skin. The avatar and the intercessor, the invalid transitions that happen just the same. Oh earth and everafter. Oh the songs of stone and sleeping giants. Oh claim and caution, oh covenant and cross. The dark recess of this thrifty midnight. The dull remnants of this reverent end.
The flower dissected still hides its mystery. Shredded petals and severed stems. This brittle bouquet of tooth and bone withering on the mantle. The slow decay sinks into the sugary water, the bees give way to flies. The shadows remain where the sun laid too long, the impressions left by melted flesh and rotted vegetation, all form surrendered to these fossilized thoughts. Peel away the pretty, the skull still glistens. Carve away the promise, the secret still is kept. The earth below a dream you haven't had yet. The sky above an abyss in your heart.
It is still the clock, it is still the wreckage. The morning star floating on the restless tide, the waves crashing somewhere behind your eyes. The hours pass as salt and shimmer. The hours fold into this ache. Another sundered moon, another shattered cup. The carnival arcade that bangs on and on. This is the place where language leaves you. This is the place where the stories stop. The backlit x-ray like some TV show. The prognosis you know is waiting in the next room. The closed door only there for the next entrance. You sit there, waiting for the curtain call.
The flower dissected still hides its mystery. Shredded petals and severed stems. This brittle bouquet of tooth and bone withering on the mantle. The slow decay sinks into the sugary water, the bees give way to flies. The shadows remain where the sun laid too long, the impressions left by melted flesh and rotted vegetation, all form surrendered to these fossilized thoughts. Peel away the pretty, the skull still glistens. Carve away the promise, the secret still is kept. The earth below a dream you haven't had yet. The sky above an abyss in your heart.
It is still the clock, it is still the wreckage. The morning star floating on the restless tide, the waves crashing somewhere behind your eyes. The hours pass as salt and shimmer. The hours fold into this ache. Another sundered moon, another shattered cup. The carnival arcade that bangs on and on. This is the place where language leaves you. This is the place where the stories stop. The backlit x-ray like some TV show. The prognosis you know is waiting in the next room. The closed door only there for the next entrance. You sit there, waiting for the curtain call.
Sunday, September 23, 2012
float
It would ease my mind a little to see you as we spoke, the light easing into your eyes, your fingers flicking your hair away from your face. It would make it a little easier to know you were you, not only words lingering in the dark. I scan the line, I read alone, I turn the loud music down low. Your voice rises and falls, clinging to the cobwebs in the corners, walking these hallways like yet another ghost. I get lost as the words drift by, imagining them leaving your lips.
I have gone so wrong that even blessings are a burden. I have gone so wrong that even a kiss would cut me through. The dry green season losing its hue as the rhythm section reaches the bridge, a lovely tune held aloft in a language I do not know. The melody all the meaning I can find as the winds rise and night falls. Scolded by scrub jays and mockingbirds, wounded by my will and the mirror, I tread the thread of reason. One thing, and then another. These wishes, then the world.
Leaf and needle, stone and dirt. The season does all the work. When daylight is left the gutters skitter and hiss. When the night is upon us all bets are off. I listen to the subtext, deluged by the overflow. Reason and reckoning, the details you spare as you spend your breath settle in the corners, rattling the chairs. Dish and spoon, cow and moon, the crow decries my simple sanctimony. I wear the same ruined skin, the same dull hostility, blood and bone and this latest incarnation. You speak that silken incantation, and your mouth draws down the sky. You speak those slow delicious words, and I cling to the trembling air they elude. I am lost again, everything falling down like stars.
I have gone so wrong that even blessings are a burden. I have gone so wrong that even a kiss would cut me through. The dry green season losing its hue as the rhythm section reaches the bridge, a lovely tune held aloft in a language I do not know. The melody all the meaning I can find as the winds rise and night falls. Scolded by scrub jays and mockingbirds, wounded by my will and the mirror, I tread the thread of reason. One thing, and then another. These wishes, then the world.
Leaf and needle, stone and dirt. The season does all the work. When daylight is left the gutters skitter and hiss. When the night is upon us all bets are off. I listen to the subtext, deluged by the overflow. Reason and reckoning, the details you spare as you spend your breath settle in the corners, rattling the chairs. Dish and spoon, cow and moon, the crow decries my simple sanctimony. I wear the same ruined skin, the same dull hostility, blood and bone and this latest incarnation. You speak that silken incantation, and your mouth draws down the sky. You speak those slow delicious words, and I cling to the trembling air they elude. I am lost again, everything falling down like stars.
Saturday, September 22, 2012
all tomorrows
My hands are always empty, my head is always split. Years of beatings shaping knuckles and skull, the depth of earnest bruising a shadow cast by every smothered hope. Finger reach and fingers grasps, somehow always slipping, somehow always bereft at the moment of contact. All the holes bored through the brain by the usual demons, neglect a crop with deep roots and sharp thorns. Even the words grow sick, grown in such questionable soil.
The flesh errs, mistaking sparks for soul. The hunger and strife and ache and error, all these dead leaves and dying flora. The blind trembling tissue, the busy cells, the burdened blood. It is all downhill, this human tale. From the tools of myth to the conceit of religion. From the plains to the mountains to the forest rife with ghosts. From sea to sea, these shining symptoms, this splitting pain. The example elaborates, the rule never proven by exception. Down from the high mountain, the words of god dead on arrival.
The sky is blue, it sweats through the dismayed spectrum, resonance and bandwidth and the writhing of this mortal coil. Heat is drizzled through a sifting breeze, curling a cruel lip to reveal such brilliant teeth. I hunch and shuffle through the light and dust, head split and heart just soaked with regret. Stones cluster in their station, singing a song of lingering dissolution. The earth mutters its mad promise, flood and fire and certain doom. Waiting for yesterday at the bottom of the sea. Sad and certain, and in this vast decline. The sun devours all tomorrows.
The flesh errs, mistaking sparks for soul. The hunger and strife and ache and error, all these dead leaves and dying flora. The blind trembling tissue, the busy cells, the burdened blood. It is all downhill, this human tale. From the tools of myth to the conceit of religion. From the plains to the mountains to the forest rife with ghosts. From sea to sea, these shining symptoms, this splitting pain. The example elaborates, the rule never proven by exception. Down from the high mountain, the words of god dead on arrival.
The sky is blue, it sweats through the dismayed spectrum, resonance and bandwidth and the writhing of this mortal coil. Heat is drizzled through a sifting breeze, curling a cruel lip to reveal such brilliant teeth. I hunch and shuffle through the light and dust, head split and heart just soaked with regret. Stones cluster in their station, singing a song of lingering dissolution. The earth mutters its mad promise, flood and fire and certain doom. Waiting for yesterday at the bottom of the sea. Sad and certain, and in this vast decline. The sun devours all tomorrows.
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
the one that got away
The last days of summer bunch together, creased by the wind and knotted with clouds. The winter constellations all skip auditions and start previews in the early hours. Sweet kisses turn treacherous as the sun settles into office hours. Promises that only seemed to ripen begin to rot. Now all the radio knows is how to ask for money, it whispers across the ragged distance all its offerings and premiums. Now no-one knows how to work their eyes, the light strung still in the high branches of the wavering trees.
Come along and call down your consolations. Come along and give the emperor your high sign, buttered bread and flea circuses. Let your voices rise up ringing, let the anvil of tour breath clang beneath the hammer of your heart. Make your claims to the crowds and the beasts, shout your wished for triumphs out as if it made them true. The pundits will bleat and gloat, they will gripe and blather. Another season host what feasts it may. All the bounty of the fields and the seas laid before us. Only gratitude is gone.
I save this for the good old days, the ones they keep for the telling. The valiant fight, the winning run, the way her smile collided with every definition known. The tales where we are so terribly clever and so terribly kind-- would that the world could be so wise and brave. Hard times, but so very noble and so very pure. The seasons change though their borders are settled in skirmishes of colored leaves and battles of maybe bring a sweater. The wind descends, setting dervishes whirling through the dust. The days are numbered, then the numbers begin again. I lose the long campaign through the usual foolish sorties and the attrition. My best days far behind me, someone else’s right there everywhere you look.
Come along and call down your consolations. Come along and give the emperor your high sign, buttered bread and flea circuses. Let your voices rise up ringing, let the anvil of tour breath clang beneath the hammer of your heart. Make your claims to the crowds and the beasts, shout your wished for triumphs out as if it made them true. The pundits will bleat and gloat, they will gripe and blather. Another season host what feasts it may. All the bounty of the fields and the seas laid before us. Only gratitude is gone.
I save this for the good old days, the ones they keep for the telling. The valiant fight, the winning run, the way her smile collided with every definition known. The tales where we are so terribly clever and so terribly kind-- would that the world could be so wise and brave. Hard times, but so very noble and so very pure. The seasons change though their borders are settled in skirmishes of colored leaves and battles of maybe bring a sweater. The wind descends, setting dervishes whirling through the dust. The days are numbered, then the numbers begin again. I lose the long campaign through the usual foolish sorties and the attrition. My best days far behind me, someone else’s right there everywhere you look.
Sunday, September 16, 2012
making angels
The ritual comes from some other childhood, the one spent in a different era in a different clime. Those landscapes made from Christmas cards and Peanuts specials, the seasonal face missed in the rainy winters of California. Laid out beneath that mythic sky, raking arms and legs n the snow. The dismal call of creation pealing through the names in play, we settle on angels. The world is not what we call it, the words so slick and without purpose. The facile tactics offered up to call down heaven.
It is the hour of the crow, the raucous calling of roost to flock, black wings and harsh laughter filling the ambivalent skies. It is the season of the brush fire, smoke clinging to the periphery of the brightest day. All around these narrowed eyes and widened roads gather these ghosts of fear and fire, the hollowed out hearts that make such plaintive hopes. I swallow the last measure of my coffee, tying my spirit to the seething of nobel gasses. Binding my soul to this imagined reckoning of the gap.
The romance is over, but the band plays on. Maybe you are broke, maybe you folded, but the game does not end. You breath in air, you exhale dreams. This is the trick of culture, it is a feature of the mystery. All the high-toned talk and these earnest beliefs, it is still the story that fills the gaps and chasms. Dirt on your face and blood in your mouth, you loose your tongue and call down all the stars. The gutters are glutted with leaf and bone. Such a card, such a caution, these brittle sheafs of spells and kisses gathered and spent like burdened limbs. Without an angel in sight or mind, you see them everywhere. Without a course or a clue, you surrender to the torrent, keeping what wings will have you.
It is the hour of the crow, the raucous calling of roost to flock, black wings and harsh laughter filling the ambivalent skies. It is the season of the brush fire, smoke clinging to the periphery of the brightest day. All around these narrowed eyes and widened roads gather these ghosts of fear and fire, the hollowed out hearts that make such plaintive hopes. I swallow the last measure of my coffee, tying my spirit to the seething of nobel gasses. Binding my soul to this imagined reckoning of the gap.
The romance is over, but the band plays on. Maybe you are broke, maybe you folded, but the game does not end. You breath in air, you exhale dreams. This is the trick of culture, it is a feature of the mystery. All the high-toned talk and these earnest beliefs, it is still the story that fills the gaps and chasms. Dirt on your face and blood in your mouth, you loose your tongue and call down all the stars. The gutters are glutted with leaf and bone. Such a card, such a caution, these brittle sheafs of spells and kisses gathered and spent like burdened limbs. Without an angel in sight or mind, you see them everywhere. Without a course or a clue, you surrender to the torrent, keeping what wings will have you.
Saturday, September 15, 2012
territory
The dog barks at the front door, he's done by the time I get there. Some stranger left a package; some stranger left the gate open wide. There's a lesson there somewhere. There's the fitting and the full, each moment another worn out mirror, another plan gone awry. The porch full of spiders, the yard dry as the vast expanse of empty high above. Gardens of stars, stripes painted by the light seeping through the fence boards. The dog isn't worried about intentions. It is what was done that had him in a lather. Transgression and impunity the sins he reviles. Territory just another name for respect.
You might know me by the splinters in your hands. You might know me by the counter-punch. The spill of myth and reason, the hungry tongue and the greasy spoon. These words stacked and counted. These walls ready to crumble for the right touch. Must I paint you a picture? Must I ring bell after bell? I cross each dismal border, gleaning smoke and ruin. I invade these suspect thoughts, every blemish and blessing collateral. You may not know me, save from these bottled letters, the save-our-souls tone gathered like kindling for a fire. You may not know me, save by the stagger of my stride and the bruises on your throat. Some passages are built only to support the architecture. Some bridges are best left to burn.
The landscape tells you the story the map thought to hide. The rise of a hill-side, the failing of a forest, the rough embrace of curb and wheel. The lofty escarpment of soft skies and green branches gives way to haunted hills and stony fields, dust and deadfall and a detail of useless truths. Back fence gossip and front porch gall, these are your tribes and flags. Claim what you may, wave what you will, the world does not keep track of these names and borders. Oceans and mountains and deserts of wavering will abound, all the alcoves and abutments dots and dashes. Save your threats and your prophecies, save your second guessing. Leave your gifts and your confessions, your certainty and your conceit. Mind your manners and slow your roll. There is no telling what line you are about to cross.
You might know me by the splinters in your hands. You might know me by the counter-punch. The spill of myth and reason, the hungry tongue and the greasy spoon. These words stacked and counted. These walls ready to crumble for the right touch. Must I paint you a picture? Must I ring bell after bell? I cross each dismal border, gleaning smoke and ruin. I invade these suspect thoughts, every blemish and blessing collateral. You may not know me, save from these bottled letters, the save-our-souls tone gathered like kindling for a fire. You may not know me, save by the stagger of my stride and the bruises on your throat. Some passages are built only to support the architecture. Some bridges are best left to burn.
The landscape tells you the story the map thought to hide. The rise of a hill-side, the failing of a forest, the rough embrace of curb and wheel. The lofty escarpment of soft skies and green branches gives way to haunted hills and stony fields, dust and deadfall and a detail of useless truths. Back fence gossip and front porch gall, these are your tribes and flags. Claim what you may, wave what you will, the world does not keep track of these names and borders. Oceans and mountains and deserts of wavering will abound, all the alcoves and abutments dots and dashes. Save your threats and your prophecies, save your second guessing. Leave your gifts and your confessions, your certainty and your conceit. Mind your manners and slow your roll. There is no telling what line you are about to cross.
Thursday, September 13, 2012
sizzle
The name arrives unannounced, the gutters cluttered with coffee cups and cigarette filters, a worn-through brake-pad whining on by. It frames the rustle of the leaves with that slow cool breath of a dusk breeze. It paints away at the worn out sky, stipples it with the sharp pointed stars. The rush of night, your flesh a fever burning on my brow. The dismal span between all those bunched up constellations. The salt of a secret just there upon my lips.
Traffic lights and broke down cars, a quick press to the next best curb. The long yawn of night descends, crippled in the color of dozing crows. Spoke like an oath, worn like a story, shining inside out. The name burning meaning down, a forest for a match. Some reason for these dispatches of ash. Some motive to all these pretty beads and lights.
Soon the wounds all hang from the ache of battered bones. The very spark struck to see devouring the scenery. The saga now a smoking husk along the side of the road. Were these stitched on smiles and merit badges all the mystery allows? The very bluff and thunder of prayer the body and the blood? The numbers strung on those crisp bitten voices of mission control, static rising like steam in the shower. Say it aloud, to the walls and the windows. Your voice rising with all those heaven high hopes. The moment from that first baptismal drizzle to the sizzle in the steak.
Traffic lights and broke down cars, a quick press to the next best curb. The long yawn of night descends, crippled in the color of dozing crows. Spoke like an oath, worn like a story, shining inside out. The name burning meaning down, a forest for a match. Some reason for these dispatches of ash. Some motive to all these pretty beads and lights.
Soon the wounds all hang from the ache of battered bones. The very spark struck to see devouring the scenery. The saga now a smoking husk along the side of the road. Were these stitched on smiles and merit badges all the mystery allows? The very bluff and thunder of prayer the body and the blood? The numbers strung on those crisp bitten voices of mission control, static rising like steam in the shower. Say it aloud, to the walls and the windows. Your voice rising with all those heaven high hopes. The moment from that first baptismal drizzle to the sizzle in the steak.
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
force majeure
I cut the sky into pieces. all wild blues and transient greens and birds speeding by. Think what I might, my eyes keep their own counsel. The lesson plan of reaching limbs, the steady pull of a bending back, all those flowers I will never know well enough to name. Forget the reasoned portions, forget the reckoned reply. The sunlight weighs upon your shoulders, the press of petals mingled with the bible verse. I never see what I want to see, though I spend a fortune looking. Eyes wide open, the wasted day always looking up.
The boat goes out to sea, beautiful and pea green. The owl and the pussycat enraptured by the moon on the water. The owl and the pussycat almost certainly gone too far, the rocking waves, the bottomless fall. Head on out to see the lights, spilling stories from your lips. Tell yourself all the endings, reasons floating on your breath. Once it is said, there is no undone. Once it is witnessed, it doesn’t go away. Look at my finger, look at the moon, pointing does not make it so. Write your name wherever you want, it will not make it yours.
You deny the fire and the riot, I sink until I am out my depths. We each have our work cut out. The air thick with scent of your kisses. The sky flooded by the color of your eyes. Why these claims of blossoms and honey? Why the burden of the simile when the truth is so much more? Loose your bricks and epitaphs. As the facts take root you let your tongue fly. As we swear our oaths the sea grows dark and fierce. All those pieces do not mean a puzzle. All that cost does not assure a prize. You can always find my mark with the proper focus. Every fall remembered for the impact. Every flag wears the same face in the dark.
The boat goes out to sea, beautiful and pea green. The owl and the pussycat enraptured by the moon on the water. The owl and the pussycat almost certainly gone too far, the rocking waves, the bottomless fall. Head on out to see the lights, spilling stories from your lips. Tell yourself all the endings, reasons floating on your breath. Once it is said, there is no undone. Once it is witnessed, it doesn’t go away. Look at my finger, look at the moon, pointing does not make it so. Write your name wherever you want, it will not make it yours.
You deny the fire and the riot, I sink until I am out my depths. We each have our work cut out. The air thick with scent of your kisses. The sky flooded by the color of your eyes. Why these claims of blossoms and honey? Why the burden of the simile when the truth is so much more? Loose your bricks and epitaphs. As the facts take root you let your tongue fly. As we swear our oaths the sea grows dark and fierce. All those pieces do not mean a puzzle. All that cost does not assure a prize. You can always find my mark with the proper focus. Every fall remembered for the impact. Every flag wears the same face in the dark.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
the siege perilous
It was in the way we were all found wanting, the silence and sedition. It was in the hope held in storybook verses, the body and blood little more than another name for the dish and the spoon, heaven held favor in every account. The tyrant of happenstance reigns supreme in the real world, cracks in the pavement, fissures in the firmament. We climb that hill, we roll that stone. The chair remains empty, the quest unfulfilled.
Terror runs wild, sudden fire, stampeding horses. Hearts unable to beat back these restless fears, they strive to find a story they can sleep on, a prayer that tells them they were loved all along. Armor vacant, standing in some dusty corner. Justice found only in books and the relentless statuary. The dream invented becomes the dream endured, dust and blood and the butcher-work of ordinary steel. Towers fall as towers do. We scrape and scramble without the fortitude of ants. We crawl and gutter, blame the breathing of others for our flames going out. Towers fall, and mostly we lose our minds. The grail is as gone as ever.
The hour draws as hours do, all shimmer and labor and ghosts. Politics is the art of alibi, the heroics of the peacock, the way of scarecrow and beggar and goof. Duty goes derelict while our sainted intercessors policed wedding beds and urged on crimes of the fiery sword. Duty another fairytale word while we worshiped our own fear, as if there was sanctity in the cowering. One day the sky falls down, we spend the rest of our lives blaming the stars. Chance is still the champion, the siege perilous still empty. No Percival, no Lancelot, no Galahad come to claim his place. No grail, no redemption, only more words for posterity. Lost in a dark moment, we crowd the stand with myths.
Terror runs wild, sudden fire, stampeding horses. Hearts unable to beat back these restless fears, they strive to find a story they can sleep on, a prayer that tells them they were loved all along. Armor vacant, standing in some dusty corner. Justice found only in books and the relentless statuary. The dream invented becomes the dream endured, dust and blood and the butcher-work of ordinary steel. Towers fall as towers do. We scrape and scramble without the fortitude of ants. We crawl and gutter, blame the breathing of others for our flames going out. Towers fall, and mostly we lose our minds. The grail is as gone as ever.
The hour draws as hours do, all shimmer and labor and ghosts. Politics is the art of alibi, the heroics of the peacock, the way of scarecrow and beggar and goof. Duty goes derelict while our sainted intercessors policed wedding beds and urged on crimes of the fiery sword. Duty another fairytale word while we worshiped our own fear, as if there was sanctity in the cowering. One day the sky falls down, we spend the rest of our lives blaming the stars. Chance is still the champion, the siege perilous still empty. No Percival, no Lancelot, no Galahad come to claim his place. No grail, no redemption, only more words for posterity. Lost in a dark moment, we crowd the stand with myths.
Monday, September 10, 2012
externality
Before the counting is over, the share is always more than yours. One bird kept, one counted, until the bird in hand no longer seems enough. Why not each and every bush that offers shelter? Why not every bird in the sky, now that claims are getting made? It isn’t that our nature is all that bad. We are cruel and we are greedy. The trouble with counting is that there is always more. Outside our sight, or minds scarcely venture. The kiss, the star, the fish that eludes the catch. A head full of figures, we miss more than we measure. The cluttered constellations reckoned for our crown.
We only live in the feast of the moment. We only feel the crest of the wave. Riding so high we all stand in the stirrups. Running so wild we can hardly ever meet any eye. We will know the wounds of famine, going over every step and stumble. We will know the weight of every hoof, trampled inevitably to the ground. We count, or we don’t, and we fill out what ledgers are left. It is a matter, or it is not yet, the reckoning never settles at enough. You never know what tomorrow might bring, you never know when this fortune will fail you. With everything so uncertain, be certain what you want.
It always ends up coming down to genies, that magic condensing of motive and means, language only wilder once it is loosed. Those riddles and incantations, the clockwork stricture of these equations, that machine with nothing better to do than call down the gods. The shorthand scribbled into shortcuts, the word mistaken for the way. Our abrupt economies so scripted and unreal, numbers among the most imaginary of all the ghost. The glanced at average out with the imagined. Stolen kisses always returned in legions, drops in the ocean, sand upon the shore. The inference only a little closer, the blessing of limits never known. It escapes our calculation, absence of that which never was an absence all the same.
We only live in the feast of the moment. We only feel the crest of the wave. Riding so high we all stand in the stirrups. Running so wild we can hardly ever meet any eye. We will know the wounds of famine, going over every step and stumble. We will know the weight of every hoof, trampled inevitably to the ground. We count, or we don’t, and we fill out what ledgers are left. It is a matter, or it is not yet, the reckoning never settles at enough. You never know what tomorrow might bring, you never know when this fortune will fail you. With everything so uncertain, be certain what you want.
It always ends up coming down to genies, that magic condensing of motive and means, language only wilder once it is loosed. Those riddles and incantations, the clockwork stricture of these equations, that machine with nothing better to do than call down the gods. The shorthand scribbled into shortcuts, the word mistaken for the way. Our abrupt economies so scripted and unreal, numbers among the most imaginary of all the ghost. The glanced at average out with the imagined. Stolen kisses always returned in legions, drops in the ocean, sand upon the shore. The inference only a little closer, the blessing of limits never known. It escapes our calculation, absence of that which never was an absence all the same.
Saturday, September 8, 2012
unmentionables
Strange they do so much of the heavy lifting, there’s so little of them to see. Just a hint of ribbon, a whisper of lace. So little left to hold every thing in place, just that furtive struggle of fabric against flesh. So little left to the imagining, yet the imagination just won’t quit. The subtlety is the sophistication, everything said so succinctly and so well. There are words left, to be sure. It is unsaid, not unsayable. A solemn box, some hint of tissue. Every delicacy has its demands.
The stricture holds the tongue in place, turning into scripture through these urgent, ardent repetitions. Say any name long enough, something is bound to answer. Wealth conserves our ignorance while poverty strains indignant. Plaintive crosses and endearing charms, the way of flesh always in the winding down. The whole convention all hint and hide, the slow gaze and the careful mouth. The entire tradition dependent on knowing the signs. Stopping for a moment when the signs say stop. Going until the signs say otherwise. The law lingers around the borders, the letter never held for long.
Peel away these dull particulars. Bear the wary burden of these suches and these sooths. Feel the air rush in as your dress falls away. Always that flush surprise of how very much more less becomes. Discretion gives way to distraction, the abrupt silence that erupts every time you enter the room. The weight of every stare presses against the fact of flesh. All the veils and pedestals shameless paraphernalia of the heavy tread of a hurried heart. All words and etiquette cut from the cloth of that delayed reveal. Say what you want, you can never say enough.
The stricture holds the tongue in place, turning into scripture through these urgent, ardent repetitions. Say any name long enough, something is bound to answer. Wealth conserves our ignorance while poverty strains indignant. Plaintive crosses and endearing charms, the way of flesh always in the winding down. The whole convention all hint and hide, the slow gaze and the careful mouth. The entire tradition dependent on knowing the signs. Stopping for a moment when the signs say stop. Going until the signs say otherwise. The law lingers around the borders, the letter never held for long.
Peel away these dull particulars. Bear the wary burden of these suches and these sooths. Feel the air rush in as your dress falls away. Always that flush surprise of how very much more less becomes. Discretion gives way to distraction, the abrupt silence that erupts every time you enter the room. The weight of every stare presses against the fact of flesh. All the veils and pedestals shameless paraphernalia of the heavy tread of a hurried heart. All words and etiquette cut from the cloth of that delayed reveal. Say what you want, you can never say enough.
Thursday, September 6, 2012
course correction
You wake up and you’re still at the wheel. No-one can say how long you’ve been driving, no-one knows where you need to be. It won’t stop them from making up stories. It won’t stop them from telling you where to go. Sure you can keep your eyes on the road if you want to. Sure you can tell them where to go yourself. It might not be the road you’ve chosen. It might not be a road at all, but there it is and here you are. Waking up is only part of the battle. Waking up is where you are.
The scenery unfolds, from tree line to strip mall, from asphalt to billboard to hazard lights it goes on and on. There are maps and there are guide books, and sooth both said and unremarked. The head dissembles while the heart denies. The heart provokes while the head plans and plots. You can choose to listen. You can choose to speak. You can choose to drift and to drive. It isn't a matter of miles per hour. It isn't a matter of daylight left to burn. The timer is always on, the count is always down. The road either stick or swerve, one way always spent for another. We only ever believe in one direction at a time.
If you really wanted, you could stop for something. If you really wanted, you could go all night. There probably isn't a reason, there probably isn't a rhyme. Fate most likely didn't need you here, and that voice that told you wasn't really God. Still, it is nice to have a plan. It is nice to have all the numbers ready if you want. Dawn long gone, and the night will soon be tugging at the skirts of dusk. You might as well head towards someplace better. You might as well follow that unseen star, the one with all the wishes wallowing in its wake. There's no telling how long this will take. You might as well follow that dream, now that the dreaming is done.
The scenery unfolds, from tree line to strip mall, from asphalt to billboard to hazard lights it goes on and on. There are maps and there are guide books, and sooth both said and unremarked. The head dissembles while the heart denies. The heart provokes while the head plans and plots. You can choose to listen. You can choose to speak. You can choose to drift and to drive. It isn't a matter of miles per hour. It isn't a matter of daylight left to burn. The timer is always on, the count is always down. The road either stick or swerve, one way always spent for another. We only ever believe in one direction at a time.
If you really wanted, you could stop for something. If you really wanted, you could go all night. There probably isn't a reason, there probably isn't a rhyme. Fate most likely didn't need you here, and that voice that told you wasn't really God. Still, it is nice to have a plan. It is nice to have all the numbers ready if you want. Dawn long gone, and the night will soon be tugging at the skirts of dusk. You might as well head towards someplace better. You might as well follow that unseen star, the one with all the wishes wallowing in its wake. There's no telling how long this will take. You might as well follow that dream, now that the dreaming is done.
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
all this fecund magic
I speak the spell of no forgiveness, I loose the breath I took from you. These narrow halls, these apparitions. Plate glass windows and eyes like tombs. Words condense as if on a mirror in a shower. Slick impressions left shining in the gray. I keep this pace in place of ghosts, my tongue dull and slow. I keep this pace beneath the surface, where the writing meets the way. The venom of this lack of charm, never more subtle than failing every strength. Palms pressed to bear the burden. Words burning out little fires in the rain.
Memory eventually steals away the story. The mind shifts away from the heat and the light. We slip into our earnest verses, we slide along each lie. Light condenses against the blinds, painting out a drag and draw. In justice we strive to show each flaw, every sin striped and chained. In clemency we forgive ourselves our blemishes and brawls, our reasons always angel winged. The least crime begun with when the alibi arrives. So starts each seduction, remembering what we please.
I wrote it down first to bend the tension. As if time would abide by the music. As if the declaration was any less because the seams are so hard to see. Then it was the habit held to wear down the adhesion of the order. The blunt incantations stone, cement, and bone. The brickwork winds down into suggestion. That furtive glance, that vacant ache cinched on a bit too tight. The romance told in florid third person so every angle gleams. The light collides inside my eyes, spilling spark and wish. Pressed against a photograph, all this fecund magic.
Memory eventually steals away the story. The mind shifts away from the heat and the light. We slip into our earnest verses, we slide along each lie. Light condenses against the blinds, painting out a drag and draw. In justice we strive to show each flaw, every sin striped and chained. In clemency we forgive ourselves our blemishes and brawls, our reasons always angel winged. The least crime begun with when the alibi arrives. So starts each seduction, remembering what we please.
I wrote it down first to bend the tension. As if time would abide by the music. As if the declaration was any less because the seams are so hard to see. Then it was the habit held to wear down the adhesion of the order. The blunt incantations stone, cement, and bone. The brickwork winds down into suggestion. That furtive glance, that vacant ache cinched on a bit too tight. The romance told in florid third person so every angle gleams. The light collides inside my eyes, spilling spark and wish. Pressed against a photograph, all this fecund magic.
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Alice (dreamy weather)
The moon hung so high I could hardly see it, still stunned by all the stars and secret words. The day crawled along, toting that bale, dragging them chains. Dawn drawled by without any complications, my eyes jumping from bird to building. Every brick and feather seen and believed. Every tree and car parked just so, the revelations all small and patient. The mystery worn so thin it all but glows. It dreams and shimmers, pretty as a pile of wishes. If it wasn't for my color-blindness, I would swear it was the color of your eyes.
You are a smile upon a midnight winter, a beacon in a season of ice and ruin. You are the moonstruck cliffs, you are the clockwork tide. You carry a thousand patched up sacraments, the bittersweet trinity of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. You are the smoke and the sear, the rattle and the rail. You are the sweat of love and labor. You are the song set free in the wind. I know you are caught red-handed like the rest of us. I know you leave a trace of trouble upon everyone you meet. Your fingerprints and footfalls have all gone missing. With-in these clumsy margins, the world so broke without.
I am that hour of poison upon the clock of no hope. I am that land where you cast your shadow, walking off into the setting sun. I am the line stricken through, the candle flame lit. I am there in the burning empty hours, written upon the lining of your ghost. Sharper than salt. paler than false pride. My name waits unspoken, an incantation entangled with your tongue. That welt of light that paints the bare flesh of your mornings, that ancient craving amid the savaged bones of your nights. A glistening upon your skin, a crease bourn on your brow. Always there in the clot and flow, carrying your busted crown. Always so close you could call out across the thousand miles. I am with you in this silence, as near as any dream.
You are a smile upon a midnight winter, a beacon in a season of ice and ruin. You are the moonstruck cliffs, you are the clockwork tide. You carry a thousand patched up sacraments, the bittersweet trinity of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. You are the smoke and the sear, the rattle and the rail. You are the sweat of love and labor. You are the song set free in the wind. I know you are caught red-handed like the rest of us. I know you leave a trace of trouble upon everyone you meet. Your fingerprints and footfalls have all gone missing. With-in these clumsy margins, the world so broke without.
I am that hour of poison upon the clock of no hope. I am that land where you cast your shadow, walking off into the setting sun. I am the line stricken through, the candle flame lit. I am there in the burning empty hours, written upon the lining of your ghost. Sharper than salt. paler than false pride. My name waits unspoken, an incantation entangled with your tongue. That welt of light that paints the bare flesh of your mornings, that ancient craving amid the savaged bones of your nights. A glistening upon your skin, a crease bourn on your brow. Always there in the clot and flow, carrying your busted crown. Always so close you could call out across the thousand miles. I am with you in this silence, as near as any dream.
Monday, September 3, 2012
errant
It’s all a blur. From the parking lot to the produce section, it is all odd forms and strange words. Bright colors from the cars to the beverage aisle, slivers of shine pinned to acres of dross. The found poetry of the cereal box, the practiced elegance of the butcher’s case. I move from aisle to aisle, section by section following my script. I pull each item from its place, leaving holes and gaps. There is nothing I want, and little I need. My cart still ends up full.
Look, I know my cup is overflowing. I haven’t been thirsty for years. And the people don’t mean to assail me-- they are ordinary everyday jerks like me, just going about their business. They only seem to think the world turns for them, blocking lanes and shouting dumb words into their smart phones. They only seem to believe they are immortal, crowding a character like me. I navigate through all the lapses and hesitations, calculating the least impediments and the least impeding possible, ignoring the blood bath in my head and ten thousand years of bad habits. I lean into the precipice where all the years of lucky breaks and good history ends, the world painted in such desperate hues. A shopping cart and a pocketful of greenback dollars aren’t enough to secure this purchase.
There are walls of wealth and providence. There are towers of sustenance, mountains made of loosed desire. There are hours burning in the open, sight leaving every eye alone. The list asks on and on, never ended, never emptied. The parking lot clangs with car doors and shopping carts, the tarmac scolded by a loud and caustic crow. The heat crowds the air away, every breath fast food thick and exhaust flavored. The lost cause and the emptied cart, I have nothing that I wanted and less I will ever need. I check each item, I look and look. The list will never end.
Look, I know my cup is overflowing. I haven’t been thirsty for years. And the people don’t mean to assail me-- they are ordinary everyday jerks like me, just going about their business. They only seem to think the world turns for them, blocking lanes and shouting dumb words into their smart phones. They only seem to believe they are immortal, crowding a character like me. I navigate through all the lapses and hesitations, calculating the least impediments and the least impeding possible, ignoring the blood bath in my head and ten thousand years of bad habits. I lean into the precipice where all the years of lucky breaks and good history ends, the world painted in such desperate hues. A shopping cart and a pocketful of greenback dollars aren’t enough to secure this purchase.
There are walls of wealth and providence. There are towers of sustenance, mountains made of loosed desire. There are hours burning in the open, sight leaving every eye alone. The list asks on and on, never ended, never emptied. The parking lot clangs with car doors and shopping carts, the tarmac scolded by a loud and caustic crow. The heat crowds the air away, every breath fast food thick and exhaust flavored. The lost cause and the emptied cart, I have nothing that I wanted and less I will ever need. I check each item, I look and look. The list will never end.
Saturday, September 1, 2012
dragonfly
I know you only as the dazzle in the air, as the shimmer of your fuselage. Such a tremble in the air, wings all buzz and work. Such a bolt in passing, the hunt forever everywhere. The rules are older than we can know, all the evidence in the architecture, the traditional perfect armor of endless trial and error. It is a shine without time, painted all in hotrod sparkle and helicopter cool. It runs along yet another vast border, between me and all I will never know. This life so much more than we ever use, it stuns to think of how much more is more. Use and beauty reasons too many to count.
I walk less than wade, the tense and circumstance seem to fold and mingle, the time a clumsy 3/4. I confuse and misremember, noting mostly my gravest errors, my most brazen mistakes. I ramble and stammer and never seem to need the point I missed. Love is on the long ago, love is a reflex hard to unlearn. Still you burn and burn, flesh and scent and lush intent. Still you whisper from the wilds and the hovels, lingering half aware in my desolation. A flavor still hinting at my lips. Designed to hold the heart and trap the mind while the eye delights. The champion despite all these contenders. The lost limb of the story of my life.
I want to watch the stars at night, to see the pretty girls pass with each season, to mark the sun in its demise and ascent. Heaven a direction, a lode pole of human longing, a ratio of want and grasp. I want to sing along to the song in my head, this retinue of ghost and ache the bent of a lost cause and lapsed belief. The tangled depths of language speaking to me with the common natal tongue. I want you without sense or reason, without law or limit. That sense of perfection, that distance, that primal desire. I recognized a wonder, and was at once rewritten. I saw you and could not look away.
I walk less than wade, the tense and circumstance seem to fold and mingle, the time a clumsy 3/4. I confuse and misremember, noting mostly my gravest errors, my most brazen mistakes. I ramble and stammer and never seem to need the point I missed. Love is on the long ago, love is a reflex hard to unlearn. Still you burn and burn, flesh and scent and lush intent. Still you whisper from the wilds and the hovels, lingering half aware in my desolation. A flavor still hinting at my lips. Designed to hold the heart and trap the mind while the eye delights. The champion despite all these contenders. The lost limb of the story of my life.
I want to watch the stars at night, to see the pretty girls pass with each season, to mark the sun in its demise and ascent. Heaven a direction, a lode pole of human longing, a ratio of want and grasp. I want to sing along to the song in my head, this retinue of ghost and ache the bent of a lost cause and lapsed belief. The tangled depths of language speaking to me with the common natal tongue. I want you without sense or reason, without law or limit. That sense of perfection, that distance, that primal desire. I recognized a wonder, and was at once rewritten. I saw you and could not look away.
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