floating and leaving no trace
how easy to alter shape
a little augmentation here
a little amputation there
slick fingers
smoothing rough hills
filling crevices
made uniform
yet
passing
through the fire
it shrinks
it cracks
it weeps
the moisture boils out
like a microwaved potato
if you’re lucky
it’s not trash
you may be left with
a vessel
that can be filled
the pencil sharpened
easily turned, leaves its mark
a gray smudge on white
from that empty space
the one between the skin
of the peach and the pit
the one between your
stacked ribs
the one between your sternum
and your heart
the one that widens daily
between your drooping
whiskering ears
an ache swells in that space
never emerging
never sharp
never burning
never fully formed
but heavy
so heavy your bones groan
and your head droops
on a too thin neck
–so dramatic
just swallow it
like the rest of us
see, it tastes of salt
like taffy
like the ocean
like tears
drunk on chocolate milk
we eat honey
play pink and blue and
pant on the moon
with lust
——
i had some records
that i would put on
the turntable
drop the needle
and spin
them backwards
we’d all heard about
led zeppelin’s secret
messages but the
beatles were more to my
liking
the creepy
paul is dead rumor
–it would be a meme now–
filled me with longing dread
half-hoping it were true
knowing it couldn’t be
vinyl is hip again
in small doses
because you can’t let
nostalgia grow too big
or you won’t make money
my voice is a backwards
message
no needles and vinyl
just digitally flipped
waveforms
like the waves
pulling me out
washing me up
——
Now with audio!
backmasking 1
backmasking 2
for syllables and rhymes i wrack my brain
i took up this challenge–must be insane
were forty-nine poems all just to train
my poet’s fingers? well, if it’s a strain
it’s worth it since it’s for you, my dear jane
oh. moon
——
just a small thing
the way you turn you head
to catch a glimpse
let us leave
all other things
unfinished
figures emerging half-formed
from the stone
clay still marred by bumps
and fingerprints
brushstrokes broad and
uneven
nails sticking out of the wood
shoes untied
only let me tell you
about my love
and how it too is
unfinished
unpolished
unapologetic
willing to consume
anything and everything
that grows like a choking weed
between us
——
to say the heat is a dry heat
is not to say it isn’t hot
or that hell will not cook you
regardless of the humidity
but i guess hot and sticky
is worse than hot
still
even my shadow
sweats
in the shade
——
like harold hill with his baton
in his hand
[get your mind out of the gutter]
waiting on magic he doesn’t believe in
it took someone else to blow the
trombone [seriously, gutter mind]
to open his eyes
it was easy to watch those pastel
musicals and think love was a
recursive function
that called itself without end
but sometimes you have to put up
with the pbs station pledge drive
before you can get back to
robert preston and shirley jones
and the magical costume changes
in the last five minutes
and you can hear the great creatore
and the recursive functions runs
and runs
and blows a trumpet like gabriel
with wings on fire
Words and Feathers 