hiatus

This on-going exercise in clandestine exhibitionism known as the Blood/Ghost Ratio will be on hiatus for the next week or two. So will all of my tiresome repostings there of, giving us all a break. I am going to be re-evaluating the public writings I have been doing, deciding which to continue and which to fold. The Ratio will return this March, in one form or another, to a more predictable publication schedule. Don't everyone get all excited at once.

of the distance yet unmeasured

The hours drain from my eyes, ink for the unwritten tome. Steady shadows mix with flashing lights, growing and shrinking every import I know. What I see, how I feel, the trembling music of old passions and burnt ash. What ever there is in me left, I offer, absent of any other visible choice. What ever I haven't written, I lost in whole. The words left trailing me, I lose with each instant.

I must wait, for all the ache and lonely. I must wait, for all the numbers to crunch, the eggshells I must pace, speaking bluntly to the wind. If you had it in you, you would have spent it by now-- some lucky strutter or some spattered flame. If it was there, it is entirely out of the range of casual sacrifice to the empty and the night. Bouncing only the balls I dropped. Catching only a hint of the ruckus bound to defy expectation.

Tell me now, despite the inconvenience. Tell me now, despite the stained breath of desperation and this last sustained note of lost music. I ask you from these sticks and stones, the wrecked scripture and the destroyed homes. I ask you from these houses built of green kindling and doomed straw, from the smokey depths that seem inevitable. Take my word, or take my hand. Wait with me through these hollow motions. Wait with me until the east lights vague and the rain rules the streets. I only ask for miracles because they are all I have left of praying.

the word

I am the least agent of culture, the abetting eye, the animal agape. Mostly fury with only that brief tepid spurting of sound, the steam of lung and spirit. I sweat through each touch, worry away every intimacy with my endless questions. Always that breathless command, that sudden wall upon all your possibilities. The word, barely aimed, ringing true.

So goes the burden of speaking, the attempt to make a consensus of meaning and granting it that crown. The last spattering of hesitance forever gone, once the chanting starts. Where the heart of prayer is squarely kissed, chosen for the grazing of the lips. Where the grasping only ends in by quick consensus of said and done. Omission and commission become one and the same.

Let the trumpets sound, let the fireworks stream--! Every sense gets their say, every meaning strays from its error given enough time. Bend and stretch, touch and taste, I am awash in variations. Take all the time, then make some more. The word will wait out all your endings. The world will begin with this shape.

paper hearts

Another moonless night, another velvet sky riddled with the uncertain assertions of stars. Secret lights pushing shadows out into the trees, the wind jostling every hair and limb. The tart smoke of burning pine sweetening each breath, out here on the rusted spire, out here on the broken spoke of gravity. It seems the farther you look, the less there is to see.

Rough red paper and safety scissors. Candies of chalk and chocolate, of marrow and caramel. Lucky charms and liquor quizzes, voices lit with wax and vapors. The bit lip and bitter kisses. Pressed flesh and bible flowers, the reminders and remainders of all this wishful reaching. Paper hearts lingering longer than those of flesh and blood. That tattoo of hope that beats on, alive in each slipped missive, in every beaming glance.

Eye close, weary and coffee black. Tired of watching the littered sky progress, the owls wings and spectacles of all these far flung spells. They open, fixed on that hidden horizon, that day as of yet unlit. The haunted halo of these little cities, the silver ribbons and tattered palms of peripheral California. Roads unseen laying open in the vast distance, welcoming all the troubles that have left, and all those driving all night to arrive. The love letter yet unwritten, the romance of split stone and sore muscle still lingering along the border of hope where all possibilities begin their ceaseless marching. The night as dark as eyes, as lit by all this ancient and unlikely shine.

true love in gray and blue

From the rain falling like the dancing of angels to the rain falling like the ministrations of gnats to the gauzy droplets of stars seen through the mesh of a fog stained sky, the steps seem predictable. All the old tricks, right there on the table. All the small pleasures, bearing the colors of your heart. Taste the metal on your tongue, smell the oil in the air. The dripping car idling beneath the street light. Morning papers wrapped in plastic, casting drops of light.

Sometimes it is the curve of her spine. Sometimes it is the trickling of smoke from her smile. Sometimes it is the inky wings she wears upon her shoulder blades, granting wishes and leaving traces. The air will smell of her just as it will sometimes smell of rain. Waking I can taste her whisperings on my tongue. Every day I breathe out something I should have said. Every day ends just the same.

Things are never sorted out with mildewed poems and stiff legged promise. Things are never better for the time that has passed, but for the miles on the memory. That warning light that is stuck somewhere behind your eyes, the dashboard gleam I swallowed with your shine. I tangle in phantom limbs and spider silk, knocking the dust from these old volumes, invoking the usual hosts and flames. Somewhere you worry a lamp shade or crease a pillow with your dreams. Somewhere there is one touch that lingers long enough.

the ghost is gone

This is the price of pale, painted walls. Of rooms that are always empty, despite those that pass through them. The barest electric light shining, beckoning the works of moth and spider. This wan art of possession, this pale craft of inhabitance fading even as the blood flows warm, and the press of fingers claim each detail. Eye flat reflections, even seeing becoming mimicry.

So shone the temples beneath the bright moonlight, so shone the alter sticky with burnt flesh and offered blood. So go the unmarked graves of war and blank aggression, the odd missions made of human sacrifice, the death welcomed to preserve or to free. The sickness that arises from the abundant replicated errors, the roots of compassion all begot from these ancient pains and small measures. Love the bullet as we love the blade. The knowledge that all sustenance costs some life smudged with the greasy grit of funeral ash, to feast is to one day become food. Life devours, and so it shines.

Throughout this night our lucky star still burns, and we spin and spin. Gone are the paths I followed, gone are the words that served to sustain me. Lost hallways echo with the tricks of worship, the dose of death portrayed as mercy, the blank cannibalism made blessed through magic and priestcraft. Worse than the lack of heaven, worse than the friendless shadows, is the lack of enmity. The hours given over to the living dead, the dwindling of meaning once all the old games have ended. The flesh perseveres, long after the ghost is gone.

ritual

I walk down empty streets, cold beneath bright constellations. Trailing steam and wishes in my wake. The clinking of house keys and dog chain, the link after link of steel fencing shine. Trees still graced by the clench of rainwater. Sidewalks cluttered with mud and debris. Houses sleep with their people stirring inside. Everywhere windows and walls.

I cough and sputter, gravel in my gut and tinsel in my lungs. Weeks past decoration days the eaves still cling to strings of light. I clear my throat and spit, the dog trotting alert alongside. Every bush could hide some enemy, every car might shelter a cat. Trouble might be anywhere, the dog is hoping. There is a clamor of stones in my right hip and left knee. My knuckles burn in the morning chill. I am all the trouble I seem to need.

I drop a few letters in the mail, cross the street as traffic burns on by. Coffee steam by dashboard lights. Ill-lit faces blurred past recognition. Step to the curb, duck the wounding branch. Live out this day's end at the edge of night. See if dawn will let me sleep. I smile and greet a meth-fueled thief, each of us finishing our rounds. Wandering towards home, I am lost in the dreams of the too familiar. I am forgotten inside the haunted house of self. Counting sheep never put a wolf to sleep.