in pale moment     cut/half

midnight pictures     thread

them on string stolen

from the master’s drawer     days

counted out     go full

circle to draw pictures of red oceans

where horses pace out

minuets     borrowed/taken from

the celebration of

sunrise     prayers caught

in our heads like choral music    and

secrets in the caravan

dunes     their hidden

numerology     count by two’s

to eleven     count

back again long past zero     our

nameless sons lay their

cheeks     their lips

on the mudsill     their eyes

on cherry trees burn at the foot

of the lord’s mountain

like a face in the

mirror. like a face looking

back. but how

is that his look? how

are those his eyes

and cheeks and not a woman

bright under

vernal sun. she lies

by a crossroads. today

and tomorrow. come

far and far, and still far to

go before reaching

a peaceful river

and free

to sail away.

swallow panic?

wonder about ill-fated circumstance

when it’s more satisfying to paint

fields of bluebells?

we’re always angry with the

sky. but is that the sky’s fault?

and when longboats

sink into the sea,

when birds nest in smoke, is

that the time for us bow towards

the east with the grace

of eagles?

              know what               I know that

                                                                 sunlight never

       falls in neat lines even               when

it does

                                                                              after the calamity of

                     storms                when becoming

                                                                         a series of endpoints reaching

                                                             down the mountain

                                            the mountain that

               knows               what I

know that               discomfort is a

      concept                evolved

                                             by hope

                                                           in a church               whose corners

have been planed

     smooth

the church that              knows

                            what I know

                                             how perfection sells             itself

                                                                            on unlikely corners

                                                                                          everywhere and

                                        nowhere on any               map

                            we might scribble               while reeling from bad

                                                                             wine

when we lean back against the

overpass railing, collect raindrops

on our fingers and name children

never to be born. engage in

arguments with green lightning.

your obsession with electricity.

your love of atmospheric

molecules hellbent in disarray.

that connect us as diesels blow

by below in a rush of petroleum

wind. we load our pockets with

static flame. fall weightless

into forty years from now and

a remembrance of thunder’s

haunted soliloquy.

fly again     into the realm

of crows

bird-brained

and blank-lusted     taken in by their

glassy eyes and oily wings washed

by damnation thunder     becoming

(willingly)

a brief wisp

of the hellish weather

created by

sullen angels

but what it is, before

brain tells hand to move,

before thought inspires.

but thought, or random

impulse, or glitch of

electrical origin,

or formed by someone

else’s imagination.

the uncertainty to follow

vague whims, take one

of many roads. draw

near a destination

not on any map.

While hold your

breath.

Exhale into my hand.

A time of

time, squeeze your formic

tears.

We can do better.

A matter of

will.  A willingness.

But within our nature to

excel?

What you and I and

the both of

us. That we are

fallen away into

formations swollen

at the seams.

Let us start as we plan to go on. For

where there is conspiring resistance, where there are

plot-points to morality. In fact a form

of recklessness scribbled on stained flyleaves.

But remiss, later accused of healing the

human race without first asking

permission; this, in the palace of green wreckage

with silent courtesans arranged in the vestibule.

Why be afraid? If touched by Diana’s arrow, ask for

more. No, not a daughter’s faith or insignificant

suffering of imbalance. No, but staggering exhausted

on the saturate shore. No, but no.

But blood?  Blood flowing on July wind? How is it

blood? How is it wind? As we shrug into shrouds

before slamming every door. As the echoes in

the rattle. As they rattle through broken transoms.

Why the invention of mood, a tragedy

we could have bypassed?

shaped by gravity

                             gone-gripped

out of bounds

                             in quick seconds

hemmed with hemp

                             promised deep sleep

through long hours

                             a metronome’s hum

scratching for wisdom

                             vaporous unmoved

if lent two prayers

                             cast in thin acute

cirrus-locked

                             lost to reason