emptied sails

the calm after
   the storm
makes you want to jump
   over-
 bored.


  

brine

red light ticking
needle over
the e
passed the last
you
station a
long time ago
& honey
it's dark
i can't see
the hand in front
of my face where
did this fog come
from
confidence! like
vitamins! right?
if i swallowed five
handfuls what would
it matter it might
send me into the
arms of x girl(don't
like her never did)
but that's not you
you know? what i'm saying
has more to do with
a metabolism that hungered
for you that was fueled by
you & had a firewood-like
quality that burned
in my poems i shoveled
you into a furnace &
out popped another verse
but something about
that night in your room
i saw you lying in your
bed with a stuffed(how
strange)rabbit and i sat
at your feet feeling
enormous feeling
like any move i
made would have
broken something
in your small room
i was out of
place and wanting very much
not to be
in that moment of terrible
size i wrote something
down
you never looked at me!
the way i knew you looked
at him(insidious pronoun,
selfish me?)you named
a stuffed dog after me
& i cringed when you
held it because i do
not generally like
being jealous of
toys.
21-in-
love finds
conspiracies
in every
word your
turning-around-
to-me look
was my favorite
structure was thrown
out the window weeks
ago i'm just the last
one at the bar closing
time
breaking change
breaking bottles
breaking lines
where
ver i
dam
n wel
l plea
se
relentless is a word i liked
but i never really was relent
less was i if i was would
things be different no
i know
that this
is really
my life
and i
have
erred
i hated your sunglasses they
took up half your face &(tin
ted & sinister)robbed me of
my favorite view
how snarky
how trite
say what you mean &
get off the page
is a law i try to follow
but so help me
everything i've
said i've meant
i don't think
i've lied
to you
before
have i?
letting go hurts(can
dor!)pushing away
the one thing(you)
you want and well
aware that a poem
will be written
twenty-nine years
from now by
a washed
up old
hack
wishing
his orchestra had been in tune
for you
is a legitimate fear
but i have to get moving
kid
this town is too small
for this giant
fool i know
there is
some classy
dame
out there
that needs some poems
written to her
your plate is over-
full
didn't suit your
palette
or otherwise
you had already eaten
it is
time
to go
how
many
times
do i have to say good-
bye before i up &
leave
just look at you
that glow
of light
in dark
clouds all that
water &
not a drop
to drink.

 

icarus

fell,
not out of pride,
but after being so close
to the sun, its heat,
its beauty,
realized
how far away
he still
was.
he plucked
his own feathers,
clawed at the wax,
and dropped silently
into
the cold,
cold sea.


 

Shear Stress

I want scissors
to cut away this bar,
the world, to trim
these ragged edges
from us, sitting
across from
each other,
talking, two
sharp blades
that, upon meeting,
divide.


 

near-dyslexic mutt's hymnal to the purebred with aching joints

I

the neighborhood dogs
are gossiping to each other
about us
as we pass.
true,
yr not really here,
but
i have chiseled something like you
out of ivory
& it is here,
animated by the alcohol.
'pygmalion had shaky hands'
i hear one whisper-
bark. a shivaree of
paws against chain
link
fences,
a choir.


II

'yr an oak of copious sparrows!
be still!'
is a possible interpretation
of what real-you
said to me
one night.
i ask statue-you
what she thinks
& she isn't sure.
i don't trust her
i built her
all wrong.
(she sounds too much
like me &
not enough like you)
i am
idolist. blasphemer. parrot.
i hold on to
everything you've ever said
& now
that is all
i want to hear
so i repeat it to myself
give me a cracker
dear
i will shut
up.


III

the plebs might
wonder
why i am walking
around with statue-you
& not real-you.
you’ll laugh! because you know
(let us not be rude) it is
because i tip-
toed where i should have
stomped i whimpered when
i should have roared
i wrappd long fingrs
around an intense smell
and let go
when i should have kissed,
but, well,
they get the picture.


IV

o what they should be asking
is where i am headed!
if it is away from you,
then the coward is irredeemable
& deserves
his sad idol & the dogs
have every right to pass
judgment.


V

but if the coward is headed
toward yr house, to present
the statue as a gift, to fight
for the ground
he ceded, then
the audience may even cheer for
him! but i am running
out of time and i may or may
not have decided
if i want to be
selfish &.or if i should
do the 'nawble' thing: walk
off into the night with statue-you
& let the dogs have
their laugh.
o, o, dogs are knowing;
they can talk to clouds
& will tell you
if a storm is
coming i asked
one once. the bitch
said 'woof'
all warm tongue'd
& i winked
in comprehension.


VI

the solipsist is tired,
converted.
you exist!
his old philosophies
must die.
the denier
becomes the denied. he
listens to
the real
mystagogues, the dogs,
wet, black
noses &
swinging tails, censers
chanting
panting
rolling on their backs
in love,
for love
chests raised to the sky
clouds and
clouds of
smiles, tongues out.


VII

doubt, stultifying doubt,
fall out of
my shoes!
i have some amount of
running to do.
ivory statues can't walk
what am i doing here?
i have some amount of
running to do.


VIII

about
face,
yr
face,
don't
let me
leave
tail-
tucked.
raise yr
hackels
at the
statue
in yr
yard.
i've
been
playing
dead
all
my
life.


IX

intruder!
   intruder!
the temples are burning.
craft a new pantheon
with me
or sacrifice this dog
to yr old god.
may my blood
bring rain,
may my blood
be rivers
collecting storm
water. i am flood,
i am guile.
the temples are burning.
sacrifice this dog
for yr old god.
i am no heirophant,
but i hear that yours
is a distant lord,
stopped answering
prayers. our gods
will. sacrifice this
dog for yr old god
or let me run
with you. hurry,
the temples are burning.
cut my throat,
sacrifice
this dog.
run with me
out through
the smoke,
the ash of tipped
censers on yr paws.
sacrifice this dog
for yr old god.
may my blood be rivers.


X

hallelujah, rain
rain, hallelujah


 

red light

at the party
i was drinking on the porch roof
heard you coming
ducked stumbled back inside
through the window into
a room illuminated by
a single red bulb you said
i'm leaving

but i didn't
want to see you go
i was thinking of jupiter
of red lights of stopping
there was too much symbolism
in my life and
the only natural thing to do
was to hold you
you who'd brought the storm
with you

again i was hanging on
to a force of nature with
both arms but i am weak
and something your friend
had told me about you
having found your other half
years ago
made me sure of what
i had to do i had to let
the rain find its way back
to the river

by this time i had already
shut down every part
of my brain except what
i needed to move my arms
with you in them nothing
i said was what i wanted
to hear myself say but
that is the sad mechanics
of a goodbye

it was all
of five hours i mean five
minutes of us drenched in
red with people milling
around oblivious to
the thunder in the room
of my face buried in your
hair smelling and forcing
the memory to soak and last
i will know that smell anywhere

i looked down into your eyes
and they were large white
stones floating in red water
this is the end this is the end
one strong gust rips you away
and this is the end

i go back out onto the roof
to watch you walk
down the street
the last drops of the flood
waters drying
flying up into the night air.