learn the language

of sand

while sitting in a

chair by

the radiator

storms boil

the ocean

shredding kelp as

the wind loses

its mind

our spiritual nature                    in many pieces

the hard counting of ice crystals our last meal was it eaten in haste

was it the altered transcendence of calm as skinebirds

wrestled in nightbane how

they worried for the souls of children locked in

closets how their tiny songs                    reverberated and muddled and snapped

at betraying symbols of                    the hundredth yewbranch the

malnourished among us without definable

features whose                    belief in god the impartial fisher a patient woman

to glue stones on our eyes why                    we chase

doppelgangers why we wear

flakes of pink corrosion dance                    with matches in the darkness pause

for no discernible reason not in the pursuit of                    the

abstract                    lost to wrenching thoughts but simultaneously

understood that the same

can be said of the people who came                    before us they and they

found peace with prisms                    and they

and

why yellow     walls

why do     I know

about yellow     seeing it

through

a closed door     seeing

sunlight leaving its     mark

like paint

yellow     seeping from the walls     through

the wooden door     wood worn

dark by a thousand hands     dark

as the shadows     left

behind by an indifferent

god

who guides my hand

knock knock     echo in the

hallway     sound that

stumbles down

the stairs

when we lean back against the

overpass railing. collect raindrops

on our fingers instead of naming children

who will never be born. engage in

arguments with green lightning storm.

your obsession with electricity, afraid to be

touched, but the atmospheric molecules

that connect us. under our feet a convoy of

diesels blows by in a rush of petroleum

wind. we load our pockets with

static flames. fall weightless into

forty years from now. a remembrance

of thunder’s haunted soliloquy.

take off our bodies

fall into a foreign dream of

a fantastic car without wheels

that speeds along with heavenly grace

nobody at the wheel

just you you and me

three of us in the back seat

warm under an old red blanket

good good sweet lord

cruise down a jet-black

highway…

                                         that ebon city up ahead

                                         wash itself with smoke

                                         or maybe not a city

                                         maybe not smoke

                                         only what we imagine as such

                                         the silent shadows in silent streets

                                         what we imagine as mournful soldiers

                                         waving to three vanishing ghosts

Thinks exactly what is to

be thought; renounce,

the decimation

of light. By way of

programming – tilted in

hostility, having spent the

wrong money.

Was another reason to be

thrown, was a willingness

no matter the possible

difference. Since the day,

since every day when the cold-lunch

world failed by untimely

incident. In exchange for

a liberation where the sanity

of complex is all wrong.

Back to back, the thrill of

consequence.

lean me hard on the fence rail

stare through steam

this day and not any other

the pasture unraveled     tornadoes on the verge

my hair tugged back

my dress too tight

my baby name lost in the dirt

a wind calls down the dead dog dawn

draws the hours of this and this and this

what is second by second faltered to the last tick

miracle birds take wing     fill with smoke

their vision of flight

it grants my wish for clear skies

out-away

yet in a rage, you

need you. tomorrow a floating

destination.

friend, a friend.

but suspicious of

every nothing. but done to

yourself, crushed by

authority, a reply to loose skulls,

enter and retreat. or catch

a wrong sight,

too narrow.

no, however; no, because

draw in circles.

when reach seventy-one iterations.

when seventy-two.

when single out the solemn

sorry of snow.

if cold logic

manufactures sense.

then in earnest.

again.

As wear the rags of ancestors

in love with lunging knives.

Our children given to the earth,

unbathed. A surrender to submission

brokered by tranquil smoke.

What it has to offer,

instead.

Instead, the usual hyperventilation, are

we consumed by fractures,

time and time, time to serve dinner under the

stars?

If, then. Said to wear porous knots and wrestle with the

sea. How to find. How to wish.

How dead souls fly

from stories of unbuckled life. In the abbot’s hall, mark

off days with a red quill. And where are the holy riders who

carry saddlebags

filled with wind? The sound of their

tinny voices, the shrugged off aphorisms.

Look beyond, or aside. Tomorrow is made lawless

and left in a ditch. Picked clean by

wingless birds, in spite.