Heme

White a fallthrough
black sucking knots

swallowing bilirubin
heaving a hurrying into
eye-eaves

arms wide open to
digits a dial a
tingling
a petal lowers its
drawbridge down to the
belly and locked

grazed pattern along the backside
of slick pink clutching
organ
press raw fish along the edge
the root
and down to dwell
through throat canal

prairie sky so wide
like falling through the fence
and the smell the hole
makes

Night Along the Deck

Velvet black and
loomed
with
blue pine.
Pressed flat board
flat against the
concavity of my
child’s
back.
A plastic black
handheld wireless
pressed hotly
against
my sweaty ear.
Just to hear a
cadenced breath.
The void of all
force.

Window paned wrinkling
lights nearly
a few feet above.
The counting I’ve
done,
numbering the billowing and
hollowing in such expansive
huffs,
heaves.
On the line?

Just a glow, a line of
tears
depressed, beveling
along the back of my throat from gutter to
jaw-basin.

A fervor I can hardly
wait to
remember.  I
swore it off and
now I’m
back.  Afloat.
Plastered
against–
pressed through–
woven ‘twixt
Mars, two inches of
2×4 and
liquid on the
sterling side.

I ain’t about to die like this

Tonight I looked up in the sky which seemed
to have taken the same scale as
everytown PA. I’m in rather familiar weather.  
And doing much better in
Leaving you behind.
I’m sorry baby but I can only
Compose alone.  I promise it was all
True like the stuff you intuit.
Come on, daddy.  State. 

(From Late November)

Every other day the tempests rise
And fall–sometimes. I remember exactly where I was the
Last time
We met in my thoughts,

And how I stood. The shapes behind my
Eyes fell to the right,
They followed the line of traffic.

In the same direction you went.

Every three days I wish I was someone else,
Someone with a better sense of
Direction.
But for now I can only look at the
Spaces between each step,

And at the holes that gape in my teeth
When I sleep.

So Far Away and Closer Still

I counted all my lovers like railroad cars-
I counted them on my side.

I counted them all up and spilled them
Alongside the drive-
I’ll bury them all in the
Old house from the
Old town
Where I’ll still tell stories about him.

My tools are the big rusty nails cast from
The tracks.
Can it be that I’ve found the one in
One so late-young?
All call it odd, go on-
I’ll stop when my legs tire from the
Over-reaching leaps.

The Message You Will Find in Every of Your Books

Heaving breaths between beating
Books–
Shelves where I am
Lain, where I
See myself wrapped between sheeves,
Hinted through smears of ink
And translucent
Whites–
Our dry, our wet–
Old
Pages
Ancient
Words.
I am–
I speak–
With you.

Man with fire–
I am,
Silver eyes,
What could I possibly
Tell you that you don’t already
Know?
But the clarity of this
Mourning, every
Possibility of death in me
I hold closely–
Writhing watchful eye.

If I see you
Tonight, will we
Blast the space again
Between eyes?

Do you
Extend past this
Time
As I do?
Are you as
Ancient, are you as
Spoken?

You are as reversed
As I. And I am
Temporarily anyway
Out of
Allusions
Or
Illusions to wall
Apart.

For now my forms
For you are
Every promised
Amalgam of your sure
Line.

Je t’aime.

A Tea of Summer Breeze

Baldessari stones.
Pots with cones. Thick palatable cut of growth
Breathing in umber groan.
Flashing cadmium velum skins articulate
Created candle current.
Three of you, a trio to
Count on.
(Oh, how many loves?) How
Much history to quantify an emotion before a
Necessary departure?
Honey build, sweet
Heat, amber
Thick.
The wood and him–
Home.
Brick and primary lights.
(Huff through the grass, weeds–
Ankles
Know and scent the roots and earth
Below)

Where did I lie and what should I have been?

I am such liar. I do know how.
I know how.

Refusal of the Secret

Hand me the next one, no,
The next. I’ll hold it while I–
There.

But oh, so–sure
His
Line.

Quiet with your French. Enough–
Why, why can’t it wait for
Paunchy cheeks and
The suggestion of another
Afternoon in
Linen?

I thought I had already given you a place in which to
Believe. Because
My heart is old and you
Can be a redemption. I see you–
Sneaky fingers. Silver
Eyes you are too
Obvious. Will you
Love
My name on the dotted
Line?
Hide her in the next
Room but she is my
Double.

How could you but have taught her–
Daughter–
But vigor?

Oh, rigor,
Oh, call me again–
Between the wood and your frame–
Naples! I saw you again, I
claimed you and he and
Curled on the
Wooden floor.

But my tears fell
After your
Afternoon.

Slippery Architecture

Naples and I–
You call again to-
He curls again to-

Silver pavement will I
Walk you again before I can
Bear
The thought of him?

And silver
Eyes–to which to
Implore-
The Global? The
Sickly Sensuous?

If only I meet myself again in your studio.
Vigor.