the words are a different lexicon or maybe a foreign language an alien tongue licking alien lips and rolling over whatever passes for teeth on alpha centauri the words, oh the words, they squirm like flagella in an electric petri dish refusing to stay still refusing boundaries and definition if a dictionary could only speak and read my mind and tell me what i'm thinking
Tag: words
unintentional potentiality (20210424)
i reach for words
or maybe just one word
fish around in unmarked boxes
with unknown distributions of letters
potentially making meaning
out of a collection of probabilities
tiles inscribed with ancient symbols
glyphs flickering to life
on glass
fading on paper
but who can own a word
or a meaning
who can mint that coin
that currency of grey matter
and say
–this is new!–
who the hell even wants newness
today the slugs taught me
when they pull in their heads
you can’t tell if they are arriving
or departing
here endeth the lesson
without mediation, wolf takes matters into his own hands–20191201
only his head
is big enough
to fit inside
–you have a problem, wolf says
he takes a long drag
the cigarette coal glows and dies
like a highway patrol car’s lights
–you think time only moves
in one direction
–you’re hung up on a metaphor
time is a river, you think
once you pass over a spot
it’s gone forever
i push my back against
the dry cave wall
wolf followed me here through the rain
worst storm in fifty years
now his coat is ragged and sopping
while i have a small fire
a bundle of sticks
i beat him to the cave
by all rights
i get dibs on shelter
he gets the storm
–it’s all good
he spits the butt into my tiny flames
–i’ll be back ten minutes ago
signs and portents of the new year, 2019 written on the last day of 2018
a dead man
appears to me in a dream
shuffling from side to side
grinning sheepishly
he apologizes
for dying
and leaving things
undone
a blue bag of dog shit tied
to the leash
swings in and out
of a cone of light
like a censer
during mass
beads of sap
from the latest tree trimming
glisten like globes of glass
on the sidewalk
a broken mirror
shaped like a child’s drawing
of a house
turned such that i
cannot see my reflection
only the silver sheen
of light
two owls in the night
one invisible, screeching
a second, caught in the beam
of my flashlight
frozen like a ghost projected
against the night sky
silent
postcardia (20181221)
take my heart
find it weightless
i have emptied it
day by day
scraping away
the inside lining
with bloody fingernails
pounding flat the walls
with bruised fists
burnishing the
paper-thin membrane
with my palms
until my bones
have shown through
the skin
weigh my heart on your scale
it is empty and without weight
your feather will drag
the balance down
to strike the floor
resounding like a gong
nothing in my heart
your hand may pass through it
as if through mist or
a rainbow’s shadow
o dog-headed god
watch as my heart rises
it will ascend
watch it ascend
let it ascend
forlorn (20181028)
crow
in the yard
digs through trash
among words
i’ve tossed out
it finds one with still
a little life
plucked from the ashes
of other
dead phrases
i feel the crow disturb it
through a pulsing umbilicus
that runs across a cracked driveway
and fragrant rosemary
with impossible blue blossoms
it runs under the door
straight into my gut
the word throbs in his beak
like a thumb-size mass of organs
wrapped in a greasy membrane
he will unseam this word
tear out the stitches
pierce it with his black beak
devour the marrow
it will become his
it will become his word
and on his black tongue
it will be his song
as he rises from the ground
i throw rocks at him
my loud visitor
to scare him away from
the bins
but he eyes me with contempt
and with my hard work
in his glistening maw
he takes to the air
i do not
pursue
his feathers are so black
so very like the night
and this
paper is so
so
white
beauty pageant (20181019)
water rushes in the gutter
an orange streetlight competes with half a moon
for prettiest flower
conformation (20181011)
you rise out of water
majestic
gray
as if breaking not
only the clear surface
but also erupting from
the riverbed
but you have fallen
from some greater height
propelled by the very water
you petulantly divide
cling to the earth
refuse to let go
resist all forward movement
the water will tear you down
the river will carve you up
i race past you
on the surface
like a miniature cloud in a sky
weightless
casting my weightless shadow
water will take me
and i will go
i spin as i pass you
declaring my verdancy
even as i change
even as you refuse to
gripping the mud
with your fingers
curled into claws
but the water will tear you down
the river will carve you up
you will be moved
your fourth dead body (20180521)
your fourth dead body
lies in state on sunday
on pillars before a home
a house on a busy main street
still sleepy on sunday afternoon
not a funeral home
just a house and no crowd of mourners
but three modestly
well-dressed people
gathered behind the coffin
it’s a few blocks
from that taco shop you want to try
post obedience
involuntary body viewing
the second time
you have been surprised
by a corpse
the grass is green
cut short at the house
clouds part by the hand of god
like god is karate chopping the sky
the opening reveals a sky bluer
than the ache that
lives in your bones
creates a vacuum
the clouds refuse to rush back in
instead the heavens suck the air
out of your lungs
you are too far away to see details
of the face
but the sun reflects
off a brown forehead
you can smell pomade
thick massaged into black
permanently styled hair
what you took for beads of sweat
is mortician’s wax
pilling on skin
that will not ever sweat
you have stopped breathing
your breath has fled
like a soul on the lam
a police car pulls up to the curb
maybe to ask
why they have a body on their lawn
why the casket is open
why the corpse is sweating
why can you smell it
why are cops who have gathered
around the corner
laughing with each other
like one just told a joke
traffic lets you move
and you breathe
and the body in the casket
does not
friendly game of cards 20180505
me and wolf
flop down on the ground
because he refuses to sit
at a proper table
i deal cards
some variation
of five card poker
don’t know what the name is
it’s the wolf’s game
after all
i keep my eyes on him
while i reach for the pretzels
–wouldn’t want to lose a hand
he says, wheezing at his own joke
i bet a finger
he spits a bloody tooth
into the pot
i win
but the hell will i to do
with this tooth
he deals
and i realize that his paws
are delicate human hands
porcelain white
china doll small
i find my self staring
he lunges
swallows my finger
–best attend to your cards
he says
Words and Feathers 