the sun had not yet risen

2011-10-23T12:08:00.002-04:00

i cut my hair short
after you left
to reduce the parts of me that grieved

and i continued
until all that remained was
an eye an ear
a little finger

just in case

2011-09-01T22:45:00.000-04:00

she watched the smoke the cigarette her hand
and felt the fissure form
frighten butterflies
already flapping in her gut

the silence turned her head
but not her eyes
as shadows darted in
and out of focus
across that marble mouth
that mouth like waves of sand crumbling
at the corners
filling empty valleys grain
by grain

the fissure widened
tearing her in half the collar bone
snapping with the pressure
until at last
she lay in a dustheap at her feet

**

she turned her gaze
searched a moment

smiled

and the fissure shut
snapping together like a magnet

the effect

2011-03-11T12:16:00.000-05:00

of a stone burrowing its way into my heart is a twisted intestine then nausea then tears which i like to imagine sprinkled all over my face under the skin converge in my eye sockets all tired empty gestures because nothing comes out i try weakly not to cry into your shoulder because that's it i'm finished i'm finished i say not really meaning it

2010-06-24T12:43:00.003-04:00

enough

the grinding halt of
birdsong throttled
and in its wake the scattered
ashes of a setting sun

2010-04-13T23:49:00.002-04:00

tonight let's dream of roses
and drift along their petal-paths
into a rounded maze

let's spin into the serpent's lair

let's run the course and wait
until a scarlet breath
finds succour in our veins

until the dust has settled
and all around are golden apples
ripe with memory

2009-12-09T23:59:00.004-05:00

the sun set
in a quandary
taking with it
a sharp breeze
a beaten cloud
a cup of salt water

knee-deep in sand
i coaxed the leaves
to hang still
as branches
mute
and shrivelled

**

last season
the trees were bare

last season
the snow fell slowly
and covered all my life

2009-11-25T09:42:00.003-05:00

i've learned again to speak
she thought
and fell to writing songs

Magnum Opus

2009-11-19T22:49:00.004-05:00

It was midday.

She rose from the bath and went to the bed, splitting lacquered hardwood with the nimble, beaded rain that spun from her fingertips.

Flowered wallpaper tore and grew itself anew as he folded her neatly into his arms and watched the puddles form on his clothing.

Cautiously, she put her tongue to his mouth and met the pulse of resistance.

2009-11-03T23:43:00.004-05:00

poppies
sowed themselves
among the dahlias

each grim petal
pinned to the shrunken
air with collected precision

a salience of limbs gropes
for an oblique mouth
to unearth the sour
breath of ages

a damning stroke shatters teeth
jerks the lips
into a vast corrosive howl

***
italicized is from Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse

2009-10-05T23:37:00.003-04:00

two candles
burned alone
upon two desks

and carefully they spent
each other's breath

and silently
they circled round
the earth a haze
to fool
the fools
to blind
the blind

to shield them
from the falling night

2009-10-04T23:13:00.002-04:00

you drown alone
but i dive in

to sing a spell to march
through waves
to call and call

until you stand before me
with an oar

2009-10-02T19:18:00.002-04:00

two candles
burned alone
upon two desks
and carefully
they spent
each other's breath

and one was tall
and one was small

and neither knew
which way to stretch
its arms

2009-10-02T18:22:00.003-04:00

talking to you is like
   making love
in a deep well
   scooping fistfulls of oxygen with every word

   spinning into the soft earth
   to carve a path of fire

2009-09-01T19:10:00.005-04:00

i want to be
punished
in your
smooth rock voice

chastised
for coming too soon

2009-07-03T12:48:00.003-04:00

it was like a dart
in the eye

swift excruciating
unexpected
lightning
through your teeth

calmed me to tears

Water

2009-01-30T00:00:00.002-05:00

She heard only the beating of her heart resonating through the water. It was as if each sound began and ended in her eardrums but its echoes were small persistent streams spilling steadily out.

She listened. She felt a slight indifference that gave way to reluctant warmth.

The small oval of exposed skin left in her face began to shiver, to ebb, and to vanish.

The Moment

2008-11-09T13:59:00.004-05:00

"I love you," she thinks, crashing through the overpass in an intensity of fear that at its core is a deep, resolute peace. As every detail tears through her consciousness she falls freely, weightlessly, towards an impenetrable golden calm.

A world away he gasps in his sleep - alert and contained in a thick, resplendent silence.

Closing his eyes again, he knows that she is gone.