Four Friends

Long gone from the boil, an old pot gathered in the corner and shouted to everyone: "I am old, a dead vessel, full of ruses and knuckles and the way you look at me is broken." It tumbled forward and extended its arms out into the dust, awkwardly rolling from side to side, with nowhere to go and no one to help it. Everyone was gone from the house years ago, and only the beams of sunlight were there to witness the scene. The old pot, rolling from side to side, the cold blackened fireplace, the sunbeams, and the dust. They made a family and agreed to stay together until that grande dame, night, came calling. Then they would forget themselves again and roll about in wasted solitude. It was an altogether fine reality. The walls leaked cold air all around them and no one had a care in the world.

Quick Silver

To be in touch with sides, and to walk along a shifting sandline, these are approaches to civilization. Then the rocket. And the fault lies with earthquakes. And children discover the mystery of solids. No souls, only spheres that vibrate when we approach. Chives and potatoes. And mercury. That silver quickening of black blood waiting in the trees. A proper face and a warming hand that adjust the collision. The comfort of dolls, the slats between the moments in time. The boy with his hand in his mouth. The boy with his speech sliding to the horizon. 

My Poem-Comix in Drunken Boat Magazine

I have some poem-comix published in a recent issue of the fine online magazine Drunken Boat:

Click here to check them out.

The Thief

A thief sits in a landscape he stole even though it was already his. He is throwing away everything of value. The sunset. Birds. Wind on the water. This has to be done to make room for the beginning. He throws out ownership and the myth of things. He throws away language and the calliope of symbols. He throws away plastic. Cantaloupes and cardboard and air. He lets his own mouth do the breathing for once.

Restive Nocturne One

Wondering a oneness, a silent conclave. Nothing goes hurtling across the sky. Everything and everyone, all shouting down from disappearing clouds. Hands shift in hands and nerves leave them behind, to grieve in their own cradle. Goners get gone. 

Distinct in the shadows: these old feelings. The dark awake, when the bright cold buildings meet me at my window.  Then a heavy breath is routed and I am without. Just a shift of thought, a glistening scarf on a velvet chair.

Meek tones in the margins, a paraphrase to busted longing, a mute descent, these coarse cuts. Hear this, and bend in thought. Hear this, and go below. Attunement. 

Home is where the cieling is. All blue and far away.