March 2013

Palm on cheek, the sweetest morning
moments wrapped in cells,
each crease of lip and finger
noted. Sweep off unfolding
trances and tap the visceral globe-
draw off the dross of fruitless
dreams and sink into the new
familiar. Arms and lashes
cover lesions. Whispers
goodbye cover stones.
Now, seven hundred miles
slip between the seven layers,
between chalked walls
and bone.

March 2013

I’ve seen the gaping mouth
at the end of all things,
the curve of Earth,
her slip shoulder haze
and the taunted dark of reaching
spaces above.
I’ve been alone in the wide division
of dust and water. I’ve swept
up the rolling years of age and youth –
I carried them in the soles of my shoes.
I’ve sipped the hunger from a pair
of sharp eyes and clouded thoughts.
I ran with a braid eleven years long
and walked home with her wrapped
around my neck.
I swam in the grey spaces
and learned where I came from –
I slept in the cracked arms
of Sierra Madre, her ancient purple face
forever smiling, broken teeth
badges of battles
fought for her children.
I ran towards your heart with empty
hands
until the sucking blue dragged
me northward.

March 2013

There was a ghost there this time –
the waif shell waved through busted walls
and stole something of home.
Without permission, a man
I didn’t know held me in his massive
palms and whispered things I longed
to hear for longer times than
dreams or memories would
previously allow. I’d once
tried to live in his apartment
but was too scared I’d become the little
blonde pseudo-semblance
haunting his familiar homes,
uninvited to his dreams of friendly places.
The waltzing words of different
worlds wilt the walls of sleep –
I awake to voices I won’t remember
tomorrow.

November 2012

She sleeps with the sound,
and the clock hands’ chant whispers
that the crumpled dress,
black water against the snow,
won’t always slip so easily between
the days. She wakes with the news.
The delicate nights tear in two.
Crepe paper ashes fall against her hair.
Tonight she smelled of fire.

Delicate fingers twist in dread –
the teeth grind like footsteps in the dark,
the body in this dress aches for sleep,
the brain in these bones sounds an alarm –
rooting for the black water of salvation,
the infant’s relief at Columbia’s breast.
And there – the clock – the devil brings news.
He hides in the early moments.
He catches her by surprise.

She remembers the sound of dead skin
on dead skin when she can’t sleep.
She wishes words in his mouth –
the newsprint is gone, carried away
in the black water falls, the cascade
of days from ivory cliffs. Finally
the wrist clock plummets.
The delicate dance of glass on the floor.
Danger in a dress, she wishes words
in her own mouth. She remembers
the song of ghosts when she
can’t stay awake.

November 2012

The words your proud men never said aloud-
And “Her er din gud” a battle cry with feet
pounding near behind – the pebbles tossed
from saintly boots, the timbers felled
by saintly hands built houses in they eye of Odin,
and usurped Freya for their precious jomfru mor.

Misjonærene prøve å drepe vikingkonger
men kongene har våpen også.

The dark throne rings, the sting of ice and steel.
Now new flames rise – og nye flammer stige.
The crosses fall – the stones and beams, they break.
The Dead, they die, while all the living flee –
or close their eyes and wait for Hel to take them.

Misjonærene kom for å frelse dårlige menn
men noen kommer til å sette elsket menneskene fri.

October 2012

Charcoal makes what fire turned to charcoal –
a slender hand poised on soft paper,
the black rips into grey, rips life anew.
And knowing fingers grow out towards the sun
so learning fingers can let charcoal make life too.

September 2012

A man walks the Trail of Tears,
his feet echo the drums in the mountain.
At the top he sees a tranquil ocean
of green. The trees have forgotten –
the hawks swing high with the updraft,
they stalk mice and feed their young,
they don’t remember.
And the man only remembers
the stories he heard once or twice,
maybe they were true.
He pulls a branch from a skeleton tree
to help him down the craggy path –
white maple from the iron soil,
starting to turn black.
In 30 years he’ll remember
the Trail, he’ll tell about the hawk,
about the forest. He’ll tell
about how he broke his back
feeding his young, forgetting.
He’ll tell about the years he whittled
and needed the maple branch.
In 30 years he’ll start to heal.
He’ll forget where he left his walking stick.

September 2012
A villanelle inspired by Theodore Roethke

What falls away is always. And is near.
But all the verses sung fell heavy down
like stones – those words you fought to never hear.

With leaves stuck in the wet, like faces smeared –
tipped off the edge, the solace I had found.
What falls away is always. And is near.

I loved the gloss that Autumn’s fading paled
and have no passion now, for days curled brown
like stones – those words you fought to never hear.

Stand at the bow – you don’t know where to steer,
though my direction would run us aground;
what falls away is always. And is near.

Those fleshy hands that maybe never sailed,
they still hold mine – you wrap them tight around,
like stones – those words you fought to never hear.

These feet are planted firmly on the pier
but grew too late to know the crashing pound
that falls away. It’s always. And is near,
like stones – those words you fought to never hear.

September 2012

By some unseen grace,
I came under the instruction
of one of the noble order of troubadours –
I became an apprentice to a wanderer –
a collector of tree stumps,
a friend to water-dwelling reptiles,
the tall wizard of Towers Hall.

His instruction is to write
from the bones out,
with an ear to the ground, and an eye
to the rolling mists above –
to be a scribe for the rain’s
dictation – to listen for songs
from falling leaves – to read
the crooked handwriting
of a moth.

He delights
in the serious business
of adventuring, of seeing.

He teaches that to unravel
the heart (which is most necessary
for poets) one must learn to look –
sometimes for an hour,
sometimes for a year –
but at the end, you have a ball of yarn
to knit the real story from.

He knows that youth just
needs a little wisdom, and fresh air.
He knows that birds are not an accident.
He knows now, that poets
don’t have good night vision,
but that’s why God gave us ears
and friends.
He knows the craft of metaphor
can change everything.

He has hope that beauty
might save the world
after all.

based on a glasswork by John Sharvin

It is and it isn’t –
scorched by sun, stretched by fire,
solid and bendable –
born from the earth to reach the sky
but sold to the sea instead.
always drifting
but never on the surface. and when
it washes up
you won’t be ready for it –
your feet press the sand
and the sand presses back –
your fingers run smooth
with the grain
and it cuts you –
you listen for the gulls
and they are deafening
but never close enough
to see.