Attrition

another commute
another delay
misery reaps
a fine bouquet

emotions crack
in brittle cold
fatigue exhumes
what once was bold

Comfort

blankets
over bare skin
warmth
in crooks and cranies
neck nuzzles and shoulder hollows
tangled limbs which softly kiss
spoken word sends adrift

horror comes
swift and low
panic and premonition
gasp awake
lingering intuition
reality sounds paper thin
until sleep comes once again

Clouds and Shadows

I never saw things in the clouds.
I never laid on my back in the grass and pointed out the dragon or the truck or the butterfly.
I only saw clouds. White and thin and distant.
I saw things in the dark.
I saw things in the corners of unfinished basements.
In closets and under beds.
In the woods at night at the edges of the fire light.
Fractured faces, moist mouths.
Grasping hands and twitching tongues.
I saw hungry things when I could not see.
In the blackness of my inside eye.

Imagination is seldom kind and often cruel.

Keys

Unease builds
brick by brick
walls in worry
and stigma stink

clairvoyant visions
of dancing doom
stolen secrets
a ransacked room

Anticipation
and apprehension
(then) anticlimax
authentication.

My Lost Youth

After our last project Beanpole asked me to send him a couple quotes and lines of poetry that spoke to me which he would then use for inspiration. This is the first in the series.

Got introduced to this stanza in this scene from In The Bedroom.

There are things of which I may not speak;
 There are dreams that cannot die;
There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak,
And bring a pallor into the cheek,
 And a mist before the eye.
  And the words of that fatal song
  Come over me like a chill:
  'A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Stark Blast

Frozen nose hairs inside nostrils
kissed by ice cap runoff sludge

Skin exposed and thus in danger
mindless- sheep bleet and buzz.

Arctic air invades a city,
masses cowed by frostbite threats

If I live to be a-hundred
the cold will be my one regret.

Silent Season

closed mouths

tight lips

nothing said

nothing missed

cold above

cold below

hunker down

for winters lull

around the fire

yarns are spun

ambitions forged

songs begun

a quiet night

a frozen day

perseverance

come what may

Posion

"How may I help you?"
day after day after day
erodes empathy
and leaves a calculating cold.

Unwarranted and Unplanned
Maliciousness
targets those who answer phones
or make change
or conduct trains
or tear tickets
or serve spirits.
Conduits for discontent.

Temper is infectious
and can be leeched.

But serenity is better
and kindness best.

A Sleeping Wood

In winter a forest does not die, it sleeps.

Roots drink, but drink slow.

The creeks freeze but fish still swim and water flows.

The body breathes when sleeping, the mind dreams.
The breath of the forest is quiet, all green gone.
But the dreams are vivid and long.
You can almost here them.

Fight Or Flight

Last week Beanpole asked me to write a poem for him. He sent me a couple images and gave me the concept "flight or flight" for inspiration. I posted the poem last week and this piece is his further inspiration. I've always loved collaborating with him, trying to meld our particular creative inclinations. Beanpole is currently getting his masters so hopefully this is the first in a series of similar projects.

Instinct

coded cells
animate the shell
and pull the strings
of whim and will

millennia of learnd routines
dictate schemes
hatched from choice-
genetic obligation

Confronted with an unknown threat,
time is short to think and vet,
past experiences decay,
and the animal comes to prey.

Tear the flesh or run away.

A Texas Forest In Winter

Lady of dusk-wood fastnesses,
Thou art my Lady.
I have known the crisp, splintering leaf-tread with thee on before,
White, slender through green saplings;
I have lain by thee on the brown forest floor
Beside thee, my Lady.

Lady of rivers strewn with stones,
Only thou art my Lady.
Where thousand the freshets are crowded like peasants to a fair;
Clear-skinned, wild from seclusion
They jostle white-armed down the tent-bordered thoroughfare
Praising my Lady.

-William Carlos Williams

It Is Seldom Enough

Friendship and family and romance.
It is not enough.
Books and bikes and smiles.
It is not enough.
Cool rains and sun through clouds and changing leaves.
It is not enough.
Past loves and present love and future heartbreak.
It is not enough.
New cloths and newer phones and ten course meals.
It is not enough.
More is not more.
It is never enough.

Concealment

Be hole, be dust, be dream, be wind

Be night, be dark, be wish, be mind,

Now slip, now slide, now move unseen,

Above, beneath, betwixt, between.

-Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

Temporal Demands

A coffeepot bubbles
and well laid plans percolate.
The comfort of a bed beckons
for a moment only.
Fatigue closes in
to a single point.
Then the jaws of sleep.

Lights on, coffee cold,
a night slipped away.
The mind runs
but the body stays.

(pause)

Much is said in silence,

in the space between.





Large, unwieldy affections-

find a voiceless sound.

Trapped

This morning
I found myself trapped.
In my own apartment.
Inadvertent house arrest.
Thumb lock broken.
An unturnable knob.
The only exit
out a window
through the air
to the packed
earth
below.

Or
the systematic
dismantling
of a door with
unskilled hands,
stripped screws,
and the sweat of consternation.

Allure

soft eyes
in a dark room
tension
on damp skin

shadows
and hungry grins
crawl over
foregone fusion

giddiness
and gnashing teeth
and dancing glances
tantalize

Outside/Inside

inside is always
outside of something
but if you go in too far
there is no out
only smaller and smaller ins,
there is always something futher out
bigger, broader, and more spacious
but go out too far
and you might not be anywhere.
Nowhere at all.

Uninspired

everything is flat
and gray
and square.
all taste is
bran or pulp
or gum.
even the sun
seems bored:
withholding majesty.

emptiness-
never felt so full.