little steel is left in this blade
no more cuts through sinew
and no marks will its dulled edge leave
no shadows to be interpreted
and if by chance
it manages to wound
the blood it spills now
dribbles out
pale as water
too weak to leave a stain
flame enough in the candle
to cast a feeble glow
abundant illumination to see
the nothings hidden in corners
cobwebs filled with spider corpses
the flies too tired to fly
too dead to buzz
or reflect the light
in dazzling greens and blues
sheath the sword
in its rotting scabbard
and work up enough spit
for your fingers
to snuff the candle
so that the wick doesn’t have
the audacity to curl smoke
like a promise
like a memory
Tag: art
number 11
rice in the unagi hand roll
snowy mountains across the passage
crows watching from overhead lines
number 10
as a kid i had a billy blastoff toy astronaut
that ran on batteries
and the cool thing about billy
besides that fact that he looked ten
and owned a spaceship and a car
and walked like a robot
was you could sit him down
in a moon rover
and the car would drive
as if he were piloting it across
a lunar landscape
–but not in low-g slo-mo–
what really drove the car
was a gear shaft that
protruded from his plastic butt
providing proof of concept
for the arthur c. clarke quote
any sufficiently advanced technology
is indistinguishable from your ass
number 9
apparently
a tortoise has nerve endings
in its shell
which itself is a modified breastbone
a skeleton on the outside
looking smooth and rough
it feels everything
in its actual bones
whereas i have only my skin
and where there is numbness
there exists dull pressure
like a weight through cotton
or a talk show host’s monologue
you can work on these exercises
to increase mobility
extend range of motion
reduce joint pain
hold
shear
twist
repeat
in the desert i traded my skin
for bones
and learned to eat bugs
when flipped on my back
i watched you cook me in the sun
the desert sky your big easy bake oven
number 8
a poet who dwelt in wash’ton
thought “writing some poems sounds fun”
a line scribbled here
a phrase plucked from the air
and before he knew it, was done
number 7
the tide laps
at the concrete steps
washing over
opportunistic barnacles
and pebbles fixed
in cement in defiance of time
do the pebbles envy the freedom
of the sand
does the sand remember
its youth as a mountain
number 6
today the rain
tonight the rain
somewhere behind clouds
a full moon shines
making men
wet wolves
weather as incantation
weather as transformation
weather as incarnation
you’re not made of sugar
you won’t melt
number 5
the wind blows over the lake
invisible muscles move the bones
rotate and lift the wings of the crane
launching and crying
seeking a mate or a child
the second and the fifth
evolve
the mountain bellows thunder
snow covered and silent at this distance
what you feed yourself
what you feed others
reveals your heart
without a scalpel
eat what you want, but
words enter through the eye
and exit through the mouth
number 4
the moon man
rows his silver boat
in circles he circles
in his circular skiff
the rounds of the sky
from horizon to horizon
his arc increasing nightly
as the waves above
so the waves below
clouds the wake of his lonely ark
number 3
when the doctor told me
they had to amputate my foot
i asked only
–aside from a strong dose of pain killers–
that i be given the foot
after the procedure
i want the three cuneiform bones
because i always wanted to learn
phoenician
Words and Feathers 