my heart beats
and i feel it in every inch
of my skin
i feel like
i’m inflating
one throbbing pulse
at a time
how will my
collection of hats
fit when i become
as large
as the room?
Tag: artist
hogtied (20170914)
tie me at the wrists
and then make sure
to secure my thumbs
primates are handicapped
without the use
of their hands
it’s for your own good
after all, and this time
don’t give me a safety word
or better yet
gag me–i don’t mind
as long as i can breathe
it’s all fun and games
until someone collapses
a lung or has a stroke
of course this is just
a metaphor
we don’t even have rope
upon discovering an old polaroid that should have burned (20170913)
i stare out
of the instant photo grinning
in a dove gray tux
a formal high school event
one of two that i can recall
it is hard to look at myself
the me inside recoils
at all of that youth
at that smile
as with many old photos
this one has faded
in a dramatic fashion
along with most of my memory
of that night
my chest
alreadybleached white
is now a blistering snowstorm
a blizzard over my heart
that makes me doubt
that foolish cockeyed grin
plastered on another me’s face
was being happy that easy?
or was that the beginning
that moment when the damage began
the frostbite in the bones?
dove feathers drift down
and i am moving softly, slowly
practicing a display of teeth
s’alright (20170912)
somehow i sliced
a small arc into
the skin below
the first knuckle
and now it is a red
waxing crescent
much like the imprint
of an invisible
sharp fingernail
digging in
either in anger or fear
moon in the west
after sunset
cyclopian señor wences
done here (20170911)
don’t ring the bell
unless you know what time it is
i’ll tell you
for whom it tolls, my scrawny
little bit of circumstance
a brief flash (20170910)
something black flashes
in the grass
exactly the way
light doesn’t expand
overhead the sun blazes
behind a white cloud
and casts a long black shadow
across the sky
an oil slick on blue
underground
moving toward me
the bones in my feet
phalange proximal metatarsal
vibrate with its approach
something insensate and unilluminated
flashes underground
knowing me without knowing
breaking point (20170909)
i am a stained glass saint
and you are a high-pitched
tuning fork pressed against
my flattened multiple colors
you ring
i respond
with crack and shatter
fake gems from a pirate
souvenir shop scattered on
the floor
the red ones are my hearts
the blue ones whatever resolve
i kept in check
more hot lead
and patience
will be required
looking inward (20170908)
the only thing
i have ever seen
from looking inside
is
the insides of my eyelids
the hollowness of paper (20170907)
the crow pecks at the ground
slim pickings in this heat
he can remember when it wasn’t
too hot for picnickers
and little kids covered in pale sunscreen
half their faces hidden by too-big sunglass
he remembers pulling trash
from the cans at the park
especially after birthday parties
when there was the chance to find
a partial hot dog still in a bun
old dried cake with the frosting licked off
crepe streamers to spread on the grass
maybe some broken doritos
his brothers don’t know
how good they had it
and now drink water from the gutter
and peck among the slivers of
squirrel gnawed pinecones
he remembers a piñata
the sound of wood on hollow papier mâché
the glittering explosion of candy
for a moment he forgets to peck
framing (20170906)
this is a window
but you think
you are outside
i pull you back
until you see
the frame
the sill
the sudden reflection
of light on glass
your own ghost
like pigment transferred to acetate
marbled, colorful, but hardly there
a film’s second exposure
and through that the world
you think you see
with your eyes
Words and Feathers 