I’m fading, lover
day old bread thrown to wild birds
their wink gleaning
our false rise
lover … I’m fading
in and out
washed by time and exposure
old camera, old film
new development
the blink of an eye and we’re
gathering hats for our funeral
see, there’s a swatch within
me
wild and unfettered
the brush of red in the hedgerow
uncatchable
redolent with longing
to be more than yours
greater than this
dusty shelf
empty bed
absence bound in absentia
You’re not leaving yet are you?
Girl with mango skin, every direction she turns
a kalidoscope of hopefulness in her smile
I notice how she wears her rings on her fingers like mine
that is because she is me
lost to time, a pull in a favorite knit top
the burgundy losing its focus as
it gathers holes
this is because she is me
bound to gravity and her weighty entreaty
toward inexorable end
a time away, yes, yes,
and nearer now than ever before
the steal of youth cloying on her dry hands
people slip her sweets and say: You are a doll
and she knows if she were a doll she’d be
able to affix the grimace all day and probably say
mama if you tipped her upside down
which is what she cannot say now
anymore than: I hurt, I cry, I feel
for she is passed that invisible line in the sand
where confession is pretty
she’s on the side of adulting
among the oaks and bulbs promising
fertility in Spring
but maybe they will be too tired
to show much of their lustrous potential
isn’t potential for under 25’s? She
read that somewhere in one of those
damaging women’s magazines before
they were transplanted to a screen
where weary eyed, prematurely hunched
poor postured youth eat their life’s golden ticket
like it is a salty snack at bedtime.
For sleep, for retreat, into the veiling woods
the silence unfolding like a veil, mist disgusing
her disappointment, even love doesn’t always
fill in where that ends, fickle in ways
you only learn when it’s exhausting
to find alternate routes, still she finds herself
thinking of the mango girl, the weight of the future
bowing her head like a shy dancer in the wings
of some hot lit theater
how then it was overwhelming in an entirely different way
the touch of a stranger, electricity firing her magic
quills into ether and those nights of no sleep
spent creating, describing, entire worlds
the future, a glittering prize, a lover, a friend
perhaps
perhaps
perhaps
it is time for her to leave
her skin shed in parts like impatient lizard of the desert
indigo handprints leading into arroyo
the scars of her like points of light
shining through
perpetual dark
as we mistake a falling star
when it is ignis fatuus
mere oxidation of phosphine
causing us to believe
remarkably and with some relief
in fairies again
If you are not a beautiful creature
Is there love for you?
When the world appears bewitched by youth and eternal moment’s boiled to infuse
Who shall love?
Who shall love?
The imperfect and technically “past it”
When beautiful felt like;
The sound of heals clicking on marble
Then slippers
Then bare feet
Then silence
No attention for a certain shape, age, gaze
Consolation crows, grow your mind
Crack jokes
Have a sense of humor
Laugh at yourself.
Long before, boys fell in love with me first;
Because of an hourglass
A firmness
A tightness
A willingness
The measure of hips
And then later, aserbic wit
I say ignore the rules
Climb trees at sixty, chomping on cigar
Wear polkadots, rolling dice on roof tops
Make love in bramble hedges and countertops
We talk of politics and deep sea diving, the need for conscience, passion and chocolate biscuits
You didn’t need a perfect pair of legs or a tiny waist
Eventually you wanted a woman of four seasons
Who couldn’t hold her alcohol anymore and streaked across the lawn
A girl of seventy and four, mayflies buzzing in our ears
Who still beat you at arm wrestling and sang like an angel with grey hair
Opening her robe to your eager devour
For once upon, you were a youthful coward, chasing empty smiles
And now you lay in a woman’s arms marveling at her lines
The black and blue, and those she fought hard for, birthing children
Crossing her face like stars
More beautiful for their dance
On skin long past its prime and so fine
For a constellation is music over time
Then and only then, love breathes eternal
Most habits
Are learned lazily
Incorporated into being, before aware
Of what it means to be.
A habit is a slothful fellow
Whispering in our ears;
You’ve done it before
Come sit by the fire
And watch others rush at life
Put your aching bones close to the warmth
Feel the security of what you’ve gone and done
So many times
And if you were asked
To break out of your stupor
Throw water on the fireplace, dousing heat
And with no preparation
Launch into a violent rain storm
Obscuring your direction
Lashing your sides with chill
Would you follow?
Thrill seekers maybe
The very young, the chronically overlooked
That girl with braces who wanted to be the busty blonde
Maybe they’d fall like extinguished stars
Into the storm
And from their yearning to matter, to win
They’d keep going long after the memory of fire was lost
Fighting without knowing why, on the off chance
Suffering brought you nearer
To really living and grabbing by the throat
Its beaten heart
Or you may forgive yourself
The hesitancy of those
Born fatigued by knowledge
This world’s loose knots and fallen heroes
As a splayed chess board can be used
For kindling
I used to imagine outside my window, the clamoring future
Now
I sit staring at flames
As they consume and turn to coal
Painted stages
And it is the soft stir of moonlight
Lifts my gaze
Watching the edge of time, rub herself dry
All things will come and go
Whether we chase or remain rooted
It is the repetitive homage of a circle
To revisit ourselves
Standing beyond shelter
Contemplating beneath infinity
Our place in the universe
what was lost, is not
you were meant to die
you were not meant to die
we were both so alive
even though, without modern means
your poor head, my aching conscience
may have felt the drop of earth
far earlier
the stars so alight, over our premature sleep
we did not think we could lose
and still
life shows us in picture cards
‘having a wonderful time, wish you were here!’
how tender the road without direction
how still the clock in hospital room
counting down, looking up
explanations for frailty
pistacho shells growing in number
blood coursing through our stride
the winding path and sudden start of deer
their black eyes, wells of ink
reproaching
if I had to do the same again I wouldn’t change anything
but maybe, plant better roots
for sickness can shake the most stalwart
where everything is thrown around and
stooping to bend fallen moments
can seem like it will never
rebuild what was lost
life can
be a small flame, hardly visible
it may appear to flicker
out
and still you endure
the absurdity of surviving
we laugh at photos of catheters
because it is the only way to clamber over
the horror still lying beneath everything
after all
who expects to reach out and find
the dissolve of certainty?
after all
who believes the boogie man under the bed
will actually show himself?
in the gowns of harried doctors
who poke and prod and pronounce
without
mercy
after all
our world is in short supply of tenderness
and when we implore God
or the toilet bowl
for strength and a little succor
how do we imagine the rescue?
after all
it may be a stranger who
reaches out
a loved one who
turns away
such is the carnival
and round lights grow hot
on your restlessness
after all
it is not easy to be
cast in uncertainty
adrift we only know
the tug of another’s flounder
we are strong in
searching each other
for direction
embracing imperfection
as if it were
the most beautiful moment
from horror comes
straight-backed on her tired horse
the unspooling of
hope
for as sure as you are still
racing by my side
what was lost
is not
Nine told me
love was chasing and pinching
love was not, little boys grabbing fleshy parts
love was sharing the last Xmas chocolate
and wiping the stains with the corner of your cardigan
Sixteen told me
love was chasing and pinching
love was not, young men grabbing fleshy parts
love was found beneath eider down
finding out the workings of bodies yet grown
and the tender string of hearts unaware of how
deep their timber could sound
Twenty five told me
love was chasing and pinching
love was not, shorn-haired women in bars, grabbing fleshy parts
love was discovered in the shape of a woman’s mouth
how it resembled the moon covered over with darkness
culminating in a smile that stole
the very backbone of words
Forty told me
love was chasing and pinching
love was not, middle-aged men in Starbucks, grabbing fleshy parts
love was molded from piano keys played in harmony
as day slowed and sky swept with wonder
overhead us while walking hand in hand
ruby leaves crunching underfoot
Sixty told me
love is remembering being chased and pinched
love is not, the disregard of all the years before
but a remembrance of each step taken
love is the emptiness of a house without you, watching for return
love is the gentle dent of your body as it lies
ever long against me
always a little empty without
our full heart
Oh mama
There are days
I am bent double
The stuffing of me kicked quite free
One side is fear that feels like unyielding felt, thick in my dry, slack mouth
Making me the puppet I never was, when good and whole
So is sickness for the soul
A sour well with brackish water and no yield
I long to be your child and retrace in time to your arms
Fantasies that never were, become, our lullaby
A palpable longing for comfort
Nourishment
To be saved against invisible foe
No
I did not invite you, fever dream
No
I did not beckon you visit me and stay, pinning my anxiety as colinder
Cast as we are, sluggish on fortunes wheel
Like chance, we ebb and flow
Moths without hardy wings
I desired wellness
and while the summer river ran
I believed it would never turn
Against me in undertow
Disease is a glutted wretch
A terrible betrayal
A war
You stand in rags fighting until your last
We all do
But when the bees come and honey is glitter in the trees
We forget our fear of unseen things
Believe ourselves immortal or at least
The sleek otter who can hold his breath
Longer than sense and her confine
For such a time I rested
Against this calm
Taking for granted what I did not own
And as winter will
Reveal herself bare and merciless
Soon those hours of peace lay behind me
Damp with regret and burned yet
To leave plumes of green smoke
Evoking Gods
Who may be senseless to our call
For the comfort of our childhood
Curled inside a place
As yet unborn
Do not
Let me stay in this cold fear
Or stand alone
With its frozen clasp about my heart
Squeezing hope til nothing pumps
But the ice of terror
I am
Just born
To this strange chill
The waking before dawn of prescient worry
Will I be well? Will I ever be without pain?
Oh mercy and her ink, clouding fortelling
The whine of our need to know, what Fates only jest
My gut is silent and
Nothing but the fast snare of my pulse
Can be heard over lamment
I am
A statue of fear
Thinking back
To the Happy Prince
He felt pain
Of others
Taking the jewels that were his eyes
Sacrifice I do not have
A lesson
To think and care as we suffer
Of others and their
Equal walk
In nightshade
Ageing backward
once a child
stuffed with potential
you could be burned and
engage future with the severed fearlessness of the young
who do not believe the bell will toll for them
and come a day
marked by tree rings of frigid growth
looking up at sky emptied of cloud
how cruel the season burns
secrets from the branches
that day
an altered girl sinks beneath bath water
marred by her loathing self
what emerges trembled in fear
keep the lights on mama
she is returning to unknowing
It is the dementia of the soul
clamoring for relief
her bones are no longer soft and green
they grow lean and she curls
away from herself
those days of succor and wiggle
when was the last time you touched her like a flower?
and opening she cried into you
tumbling into a shared well of blossom
we both wear silver in our hair now
released from knowledge, return to unknown
lying like a split pomegranate
seeds spilling out
mouths stained radiant
how did you live so long to trap yourself?
back in the box of musk and gunpowder
the lock sounds like a scythe
it is cold and unworn
opposing sides climb to the rumor
you are undone
If you said
I am cold
stitch me something to wear
out of moments
choose the pieces with inside pockets
we can lean closest to
before we let go
bidding adieu
those memories
treasured pieces
lain flat and held
by tremulous hand
one swathe for our life
cut down like barley lying golden
he made his absolution
arching windows cast the tiles mirage of eastern colors against stucco
fabric whispers a song
furnishing breath
as two red throttled birds
will roost
their ease
filling silence
with comfort
everyone sees him through your eyes now
astonishing
a kind of mosaic peace
two minutes
stretching like feeble light
can reach further than possibility
they say you marry your father
my father thinks of himself and fits what he can next to him
in a boat for one purpose
alone
and I see
how many times that was echoed
where I wondered at the empty feeling in my hands
after you made no effect
and expectation became a sore word
lost in tumble-dryer
set to spin on
no iron
I have always been ash
ash was in my mouth when I first cleared my lungs
coming from the inside out
unwrinkling doubt
I have always been ash
ash was in my hair tinging it with streaks of despair
shouting from roof tops
some of us are better off unborn
I have always been ash
ash was my bed fellow when light was dimmed
we lay side by side, reluctant sardines
licking the brine from our dessication
I have always been ash
ash was my first lover who turned the oiled key
a world of hurt in carnival ride
the painted horses, so noble, so fine
I have always been ash
ash is my name, fingerprint, DNA
ash is my best friend, last sex, the one who will
nail Beachwood coffin shut, throw the earth
on top, along with ash it mixes and turns
white like skeletons
dance
between
the
plots
TheFeatheredSleep 