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
That’s us. Let in the August storm. Let
blow open the windows. Let pulse wind
bring about a typhoon of wicked actions.
Call the tempest by its secret name.
Name that envelopes the mountains
where time goes to sleep. We celebrate
another birthday in the dark. You don’t
want to be there. You are there. You
remember a poem born from flame.
I recite it backwards and close my
eyes. Caught in a breeze heavy
with smoke.
forget the surf still damping
our shoes. forget the soft curve
of drowning eyes. drink the
seaside road, drink the dusk and
follow chains in the sky. or
instinctive memory of solar flare,
of careless sight. for sun. for
afternoon fog as humid breath
puddles the road, walking with
us in a worry and tied in loose
knots. under drowning moons.
the final pages turned, umber
words, out-of-fashion howls.
forget the concept of names,
the naming of objects requiring
names, the objects themselves.
Less than the other, we spread.
Has in the saddle, heart on a future destiny.
Out/into fine voices
and turnaround, catch sun,
finger and discard.
When is time
on the edge, then clocks fall
towards yellow.
And light is gone, is never was a
mysterious lion, she
devours the days. Her countdown in a celebration
of night. Call and call and call again
names that
light the way with lilies
and dream of aliens
in jelly jars.
