for the singer with the cyanide eyes
Maybe this
winter
will be easier;
maybe there is hope beyond frost;
maybe our breath will jut
in steamy tomorrows
across a river that never
freezes; maybe your dreams will dream yet
tachycardic, wild and blue,
like the pulse of the ocean,
muffling the deaths that lie spread-
eagled across decades,
hissing obscenities
under the bedspread, the deaths
that smell ever-so-softly
of overripe promises,
understated like
magnolia blossoms
at the end of summer…
like secrets for a December
no man has seen.
re: the first falling star
this poem
is written under a gray sky,
looking out, poem-level,
at the power lines & december-naked
branches.
it has never smelled heather
in winter; it prickles
with gooseflesh but won’t
let you turn on the heat.
this poem
says: you must make
your own fire. it owes me
nothing. like you, it dreams
in cats.
this poem has no hands.
it sleeps naked. it likes
summer nights and
long walks under the stars.
this poem
is winter on paper,
a message in a bottle
washed upon a cold
Atlantic beach.
its breath steams,
champs, hisses &
waits for us, all, melting,
in the dark.
the things we burn
you say we are descended
from giants,
but i
am more impressed
by the tenacity
of acorns,
how they worm
their way into the wet
fall ground. inside
their porcupined-cap heads
they are oaks already, & we
mere children
playing in the dirt, watching
sparks curl round the thread-
bare dark. their every breath
threatens to catch the night on fire,
and my eyelashes are singed
with soot-stained doubting.
these are the things we burn;
with smoke in my hair,
will you love me still?
meditations on language
del amor tampoco o menos;
pero me pones pensar tu
si es posible mancar
lo que aún no haya tenido.
*
*
this morning the light comes
through glass as if it were
autumn, but there is no poem
in it. in english,
one can say only i miss you,
but that doesn’t cover
by half the september sun
he says i need.
in italian, mi manchi,
you are lacking to me;
a lesson in grapeskins
and empty palms.
in spanish the thing,
like autumn morning light,
gets nearer: me haces falta,
te echo de menos,
te extraño: you make me lack;
you make me less;
i miss you. like a third hand
to turn the door knob
when my arms are wrapped
around your waist.
(between parentheses)
after R.S.
dear poet,
there is nothing
accidental
about this metaphor:
that we are children
reaching hands
in the hard calloused
eyes of the ferryman who
steers between the winks
of channel-markers
into gloamed twilight;
that we step
quietly on the creaking
planks of secrets and
drink in coastlines
like sweetwater;
and that we finally
follow stars hot
& hard as July earth
until each
reaches home again.
two and a half thoughts on love
(part 3 of 3)
Weary and milk-mild i stand
ankle-deep in wet sand, each
footprint a burden more than the last
as i head away from the solace
of heavy waters and
back toward solid ground.
And yeah, this road has a heartbeat,
hums with the rhythm of some gypsy dance
lost to the world centuries ago…
But i’ve
run up somehow on the sidewalk,
lost control of fortune’s wheel and now
the stones you’ve thrown into the gears
make it hard
to start any fire at all;
glass shards like stars
sparkle
across cheeks who’ve
seen too many streams of blackest mascara
raining in through a late
autumn night;
meanwhile steam rises
out from under the hood
like the ghost of a lover
i thought i’d forgotten,
wish i
could forget.
I tell myself i’m happy,
unfold myself from the driver’s seat
and start walking; maybe,
Maybe this winter
will be easier than the last,
holding hope beyond the frost;
maybe my breath with steamy
tomorrows will dream yet
in tachycardia, untame and
headstrong like the pulse
of the ocean…
Maybe.
But let’s
keep this between us as
these are secrets
for a December
that no man yet has seen.
