taking up pen, preparing a page
sober, serious–really quite sage–
i wrestled a wriggle
a jiggly smudge–no more than a giggle
struggling to make it behave
ultimately, i was the slave
discovering, to my chagrin
taming a word is a terrible sin
——
Tag: dverse
untitled (20170223)
little new in the news
(little love lost between late lovers)
i thought i was a cynic
defined once as a failed, frustrated romantic
but
that’s a digression
that’s a depression
that’s a diversion
everyone wants to be
a snowflake these days
perfect
unique
fragile
as ephemeral as a cherry blossom
and so so cold
so cold you can’t expect
any warmth
just a glint of light
reflected and refracted
an impermanent diamond
no one is a snowflake
you’re all just raindrops
and you’re not even making
me wet
do i contradict your worldview?
very well then, i contradict it
what we have here is a (failure)
to communicate
but it’s only because my mirror
has darkened and cracked
on a different xy coordinate
than your own one dimensional glass
——
manicured wastelands without roots (20170221)
from the latin
sub “below, near”
and urbs (genitive urbis) “city”
so then, one might say
something beneath a city
growing
fungus like
virulent and in the dark
but really
what else grows in shadows
and in shit
just so many mushroom capped
spore spreaders without
bearing the weight of skyscrapers
and the dreams that built them
stone on stone
the murder rate is lower
but the suicide rate is higher
in spite of the lack of tall buildings
——
revenant (20170213)
this is how we find us
broken open
like the head of a fine
china doll
this space between
this silence a ghost
of words
this silence a slow fade
of smiles
a spectral liminal shade
we touch
the sound of yellowed paper
rustling
——
esprit accompli (20170202)
standing just beyond my door
and no one saw but me
moon-like face so ghostly pale
and eyes a dead white sea
skin of alabaster stone
her wild hair untamed
shrouded in her burial clothes
she bade me ask her name
jaw unlocked, i spoke her name
she nodded at me twice
turned to ash and then to air
for that was naming’s price
——
the line of breaking light (20170130)
we await the turning of the earth
pretending we turn it
beneath our feet
but that which is shifting
is inside us
a tidal force within
the pit of our stomachs
guiding our sleepy eyes
toward the horizon
and the first light
of dawn
reflection upon an ongoing life and death struggle (20170105)
summer dawn and dusk
comes the coated filthy thief
tip-toed, determined
to steal what he did not tend
and leave rotting evidence
scattered in my field
without fear of my dog’s teeth
mocking my (too-far) raised fist
he leaps from the roof
tossing a bare pit
at me in his spite–but now
the leaves have fallen
winter, no peach, no squirrel
——
our library (20170102)
like ancient
desert worn parchment
where the text has faded
let me curl against you
let us fold up together
let there be no dry whisper
of fingertips smoothing
our edges
no
flattening us
let us spiral together
our stories winding about
one another
——
recipe for a broken sonnet (20161206)
if you really want to fuck someone up
make sure you tell them how much you
care about them and how much
you’re thinking about them
every minute of the day
check their feeds on every social media
platform as often as you can
maybe you could get something for the car
so you can check on them hands-free
send them shit they don’t need
and remind them that you really
really love them and that they’re
the center of your universe
it’s a recipe to scramble their brains
eventually they believe it–or you do
——
old ones in new flesh (20161205)
the scar is where the word got in
digging like the worm that it is
lacking but one letter for such a metamorphosis
single-toothed it found fertile ground and began to feed
to breed, a heart sized parasite
scar, i name thee trust
——
Words and Feathers 