Headlines

Darkness

I am lost
rain, tear printed infant

Hands crawl on the wall
swept away in the black rush

Fluorescent fabrication
the passing of things
glittering on the glass
it all falls down to nothing

And the window
looking out the screen
tireless and pitiless roar
water falls

Breathless anticipation
drowning

I speak
though I wish it wasn’t ending
this rain
this stormy night

Rising surge of shadow
wall pointing outward
the swirl, the catch
the breeze moans

My lips dry

Mother stands at last alone
clean up and somehow she is missing
too late to go back to find
the cry
the wail
the turned line smile that is vanishing
within the shadow

Tear printed infant
the damp brush of the rain

Wheels are torn
roots are spread
the silt stinking water
at the breaking

I am swept away
soundless, voiceless

the rising flood

How cold the deep?

I watch the muddy river rise
and suck down the willows
the branches, the leaves a mile downstream
before they wondered

Savior rises slowly

But in the morning
the flashes break on this face
too young to make a frown or smile
looking upward

Headlines

A boy drowned last night
victim of the rain

Peaches

We are riders out of joint
going nowhere on the highway
passing postcards
stamps --cents

As we lick our lips and think of love
we somehow are tasting
the faint sweet nectar
peaches

Though I was lost inside the San Luis Valley
dreaming of Hotchkiss, Palisades
dreaming of gun-barrels and silver smoke
and straight down the old highway

Past the truck on fire
the doors melting
the glass in the street
a crowd of people, watching
tasting sticky fingers
peaches

We are richer than them
but we have never been this far away
We are somehow thinking of going home

Too many turns and you’re back where you started from
Too many long-wheeled homes

The wide load oversized
the lights flash criticize
the narrow construction plans written out in stone

Swinging wide
we rumble on the concrete-cement-jumbled-
gravel-pitted interstate
KEEP AWAKE

So slow, so long coming home
we riders
out of joint
speaking rhyme
soliloquizing our distemper
spite

Curse of morning
Curse of breath
The curse of dawn has left its mark
and I am tattooed with red and white across my shoulders
thinking spider web and hand print misery

We are

the blank on the page
between lines

My heart beats
like handprints on the wall
never reaching anywhere
only a vague shadow of childhood


I’ve turned the pages
too blank to write, to draw, to pen upon
I think the ink is just a little too dry

When the morning sunlight’s through the blinds
and in my eyes
sitting at the desk
looking past the portraits of forgotten artists
so to speak

I think of James Joyce and I say

I’m turning through the pages
they’re too blank to write
but I’ve never felt they had any value in being blank

Until mid-morning
ten o’clock and I’m wide awake
ready to sip the tea I brewed an hour ago

Painting on the walls said it all
he said

Tongue-tied

But if you don’t say a word
fall into madness
press your face to earth
smell the silky, salty emptiness
the vessel
the cup is dry
don’t put it down
don’t try to taste the dust
the porcelain is about to rust
and to turn into the grail

For Nicholas Biddle with all the flourishes

Listen now

I think I burnt out on E-470
going 105 and 110 and never catching
the taillights in front of me

The door opens
the inhale-exhale of wind
through the window and the shades
I can smell the lilacs from outside
that aren’t swaying anymore
never blooming
anymore

Listen now

I got a sunglass tan from studying history
looking up at the sun, bright
and the white through my be-speckled be-polarized shades
thinking
Nicholas Biddle, where are you?

Scrolling through the page of scrawled out
numbers and dates and parentheses
each one noted a little bit differently
a little bit less informal

Listen now

for in the darkness
tireless and sped-up night
Nicholas Biddle and I are wandering
to the empty halls and empty doors and empty mirrors
and thinking bricks and roses, bricks and roses
and he said a line, but I forgot it now
consciousness but not spelled the same

Revision

Listen now

I think the silence isn’t ending.

Spades

A man outside on a bicycle
stoops and stinks unseemly of roasting bratwurst
while inside the small girls play
five cards on and on
—draw one
until the light fades
and the man wakes
drives off
into twilight reverie
the girls grow old and think
“What shall I dream today?"

Apple Blossoms

(Note: I am unable to preserve the intended indentations)


The long fall of apple leaves
blossoms
white
torn to shreds

The wind heavy
the fruitless leaves
falling

Will I wake up?

Will I wake up to the tilled earth, the dull brown colored frieze?
summer, spring, or autumn
the winter’s cold
an empty metallic waking

But I am not wandering that dry ravine
of dust and dirt and dog-print footsteps
morels in the shadows
moist lipped mushrooms
she held them in her hand
chewing thoughtfully
I’ve made a mistake

And the ceiling of the world that falls and shatters
I am pointed upside-down and I fall up
up into the sky
that is no longer beneath me
up along the curve, the aperture, the firmament
the surreptitiously turning
lolling in some endless grace

Let there be light!
Let there be stars!
Let the moon rise tomorrow
slicing! through the sun

The wind of a spring storm can spread a sonnet of trees
whispers murmurs
spring
the lashing rain
torrent lightening
sleeping in the sun
feeling warm and awkward
listen to the nest
stir hungry
listen to the frail cries

Will the stars come down tomorrow?