Saturday 28 January 2012

TODAY SHE IS TWENTY-ONE

you drew in from the wrong side
huffing & puffing to collapse
my ribcage & the hollow tones
of the dulcimer ache reward

the elder was no help at all
bent on saddest resignation
that made fun of my efforts
like silence on a battlefield

your tantrums began
where she did trip
two decades earlier

cleaning the stain of tie-dye
from the clever books
she held insecurely

and now we're here
now we're there
handcuffed to the idea
that if I wanted you
I'd simply kidnap you
a story for beer & chips

no steps forward
no steps back
stuck inside a room
with underworked dream-catchers
with nothing to grasp at
but soft pants in the only union
we could command

underworked limbs
underworked tongues
brains that couldn't feed themselves

crucified pride introduced us to
the degrees of pity in love
but left us begging for alms
from strange tenants & twins

your single bed
your single notion
your single act
not planned
as eyes roll, reverse
in no distinction of life

fingerprints on a babe's backside
they all shudder to talk sense
but I rise in anger to accuse
and cry, 'murder!'
at the death & extension
of a child's soul
twenty-one years ago 
today

Thursday 19 January 2012

DWELL LESS

Dwell not so onward into the night
Dwell not so on cracked hearts and women’s thighs
Dwell not so on the undressing of cocktail rump
Dwell not so on the several states of the elect
On that combination so rare
Potent because it’s not really palpable within an hour

Dwell on the airy
Smoky conversation
Smokier love affairs with women you have not met
Inspect insects on their pilgrimage across this page
Before the egotist’s eruption
Dwell not or your wounds will never be licked
By Lamb or Time


(First appeared in S/WORD, Issue 1, Fall 2011).

Sunday 8 January 2012

VIGNETTE IN BLONDE

O for the impassioned gaze
Of your discourse without
The ‘me, mine, I, this, they’

O for your cheekbones
In silence, your body
Alive sans bouncing
Not electrified by desire
The family, the protest
Not by an invidious jealousy
Of all who communicate
Clearly and with purpose

O for your unripe dreams
Of style, your awareness
Of beauty, that nasty verbal lust
For what is on screen, what is hot

To prepare this all to nothing
Thighs tied together in self-respect
And your new explicated life
Which will give me five minutes
More to teach you chess and lose

Monday 2 January 2012

SPLASH

 

splashed
with the truth’s
glistening
I want you back
like a straight line






(First appeared in Cottonmouth, Issue 29, August 2011).