Turn in the Night to Hold Your Hand

I will this thought into reality:
The ecstasy of your smile close upon my own.
A dream, first folded by a blush, raises me off the floor.
In the night, a brow is illuminated from the shadow,
And like a wild huntress, there is strength enough for the unknown.
You appear far and near.
I can almost feel you press my shoulder
And turn your hand into mine.

In this reverie, your touch is seraphic.
There is fulfillment in it, and yet, we are awake and apart.
What substance can negotiate as mellifluously with the heart as your eyes do mine?
You are the first thought to nudge me in the morning 
And the last face to shine upon me as I fall asleep.

Autumn Is Silver and Shy

Down comes a lady
With auburn hair
Falling to her side

Brown eyes alike
The embers of quartz
Burning around her neck

From grave lips
Silence speaks
The story on her mind

Dirty boots come
One at a time
Upon the steps

To meet everyone
Who cares to look
And be still

Those who breathe
To reflect and recall
Her name and place

Those who care to see
The flowers hiding
In her tangled lace

Those may call out
For a fresh glass
From her shelf

Those may reach out
For the rich wine
From her hand

Those guests know
How to love her
And when to leave

Our Singleness

There are not many of you

Just one in fact

If you look hard enough

It will tip your world

To think that one can only be

Without you or exuberantly with you

I saw and went

Now knowing no other one

The you in your absoluteness

How awful is that without

Gone and spent spinning

Raw and of want for you

For something of you

In a space too large and separated

To be left in that without

Too far across for words

To be apart with the thought

Of only you exclusively

Too weathered is the world

To grow in separateness

Knowing there is only you

Where I Go to Die

Where I go you may not be able to follow
Beneath what makes a man only hollow
I will take in a breath and break within my thoughts
Only here does a path of chaos end
Then laid by light layers of beauty draw no crowd
As sky pours upon us through tangled cloud

The Silencing of Grim Demands (The One Where You Cut a Dead Man’s Face Off)

He lies still and his breathing dries,

Up into the air, cries and despair.

You forget what you are doing,

Where you are, what you did.

Your heart thumping, stops.

He parts, it drops.

His head in your hands,

You cover his ears,

Hide the truth

And fears of lost youth,

Silence grim demands.

Your breathing is frantic.

You’re struggling to stand,

So you kneel over where he lay,

Back and forth, you sway,

Holding your head as if the weight

Could turn the earth the other way.

Cold tears in the night air,

You take the weight home and into a chair

Of dizziness and blindness,

You sleep and you stare.

Like an animal hit by a car,

Helpless, amazed, wide eyes dazed,

Bleeding, as thoughts race into the distance,

Hiding as death is ushered in.

Waking up to the sun bringing noise

And noise taking peace,

Your mind contorted by the careless crease.

He lies still on the kitchen table.

You closer stand, inspecting a hand.

The fainting of the eyelids and tips of finger

Could not in the least bit, love, deter.

Turning from, spurning what fashes

Of such a beauty, foreign as ashes.

Wave-spirits ride through your shirtless side,

As cold as the night Skadi's[1] father died.

You open and close the cupboard doors,

Searching in darkness for yeast's loyal bride.

A jar of white flour and dampened cloth,

Fully to oust phantom Goths creeping in,

Upon his skin seeps discoloration.

Flour shrooms into the air

And helpless, stands,

As you cover with care

The eyelids and hands,

Silencing grim demands.

The little life that rose with flour

Fades and sours the reason that grows,

And now in prim rows, like tears ‘cross the nose,

You wash off the face.

Get a knife with reluctance.

He lies so peaceably,

Filled with expectancy.

Wiping your eyes, feeling your face

Cold as the knife and spirits which hover.

Writhing with strife and dryness all over,

You almost prefer bladeing yourself to relieve

A thought you conceived,

Then darkly weaved.

As logic leaves,

Fascination grieves.

Atop the table, then carefully straddle

As if he were the Serpent himself

And waking what lie, bound you to Hell.

Darkness befell face against face.

Now those lovely eyes

Are behind a disguise.

You look and look the wane’ed face,

Then place the blade on the temple,

Press, and simple, drag it ‘round

Under the chin to the other side again –

And then a softer shade.

The blood follows the blade.

The trail leaves you weak.

Death was sheik and hid behind jail –

A bloodless, pale lore.

Now a few times more

Around before

You've unhinged the door,

Pealing back the skin,

Looking from within.

The eyes are red and restless, bare.

You turn off the light, staring in fright

As the bestial creature glares past present sight

And future existence, leaving reason and oblation

To instance oblivion's indignation.

In a gasp, horror falls through you,

Beyond the darkest cells of dementia.

The body rises with screams from inside.

Voices clash and deepen, hide.

Laughter sent higher, into the head,

Moans as a wench is monstrously wed.

The eyes, the eyes ever-open, alive

With fiery scorn for the steady knife.

You watch as he coils, withholding aggression,

Thrashes loose in anguish of possession.

You hesitate, are caught by the sleeve,

Wrenching away in a horrifying heave.

The eyes frying, holding you in,

You lunge back, violently tearing at the skin.

He catches fire and darkness thins.

You fall to your knees and helpless, freeze.

Lines drawn across your chest with ease,

A cold-blooded claw reaches into your guts

And up toward the heart, under ribs it cuts.

You shiver like it all has stopped

Or soul has dropped into darkness.

---

[1] Skadi is the anglicized version of Skaði, a Norse goddess who is believed to have brought the wrath of winter as a result of her father’s death.

The Droilage like Mintruit Flay

Let the frost lay upon the droilage like mintruit flay.

Go trick finthen candle with notley fair play.

Then mine out bintenderline over then say,

Sixteen red huggintry sick as a mintruit tree

Light as tendenrable malice lice flay.

I haven’t yet colorent gloriouslessly droil

Mixed up all tellers wisk bouldering oil,

So lay mine to tricker tree, minding the soil.

I’ll crusholtry topper call with my epply and all,

Tossing gin backwards then thraking the droil.

Crops squeaking hazel threads clouds to cloud joy.

The men grow the women and by poultry toy.

Vegal loss holomoss bandoning boy,

My summering teening thing, go hit a slum ball.

I’ll stall the nature all trigger tree joy.

People tell me to try flaying the suitable earth,

Place sixteen burrow peth straight to the firth,

And make no mistake over thinking your birth.

Her, over ladle twist, mixing what made me a boy.

I, just the mind enough, thift paying earth.

Prost poster shadow most higgendy pride.

Alive but not haunted from thought to thick stride,

Cricketted arm-phone-sent starberry side.

Can’t handle candle late, can’t flay the mantellerth.

Musterplug droil dry Daddy’s old pride?

I sink between audience flow-tinder nest soul.

It’s face after face of light clomb cootle coal

With protacted total as tall as the toll.

Done went crimbenzen sky, bolden strut mute.

Carry mine hinder thread, hazel-black soul. 

Old-man Hands

My life is in my hands. They are thin and clean. 

They are hairy and worn. I have old-man hands.

They are veiny and they shake uncontrollably. 

They like to draw people and write letters. 

They like delicate things and putting things in order. 

They have to hide from the cold, in pockets or between my legs.

They don't have what it takes to hit someone.

They have each other to hold. 

Sometimes they get confused and don't know

What to do when they should.

Letter to a Nun

Sister,

I realize that you spoke for the devil last night. I could not sleep for some reason, so I thought about the things you had said to me in the end. Maybe I could not sleep because I thought of those awful things. You say that people change, that their faces slide right before your eyes and the room begins to change and transport you into those nightmares where they touch you. I have gone from your life, but my face never turned from you.

I looked into your life, and you cursed me, spitting as you poisoned me with those vicious words. You may have once praised the darkness of this life with those lips...those chapped, trembling, and frowning lips. Those same lips that begged me to compromise my goodness for pleasure, spoke death into the life of an unborn child...your child. You spoke for the devil. Now you say you hate Jesus. You have no problem saying that you 'fucking hate Jesus' and that I made you hate him. The devil would say anything to survive. You only want to flourish. You don't want to rebuild or recognize your life as a rotten mess. I could not sleep, thinking how obviously involved the devil had been.

He grabbed my legs one night in a dream. I was sleeping next to you. I dreamed that a dark shadow rose from the side of your bed and took hold of my legs. I was being pulled off, into the darkness. I reached out for you and told you I loved you. You told me I was melting like a snowball in the fire. Why did you say that? Was it the devil in your voice or his voice in my head?

Sincerely,

Redding 

From the Neighbor to Someone

Somehow I would rather put up my mitts and fight you, not to hurt you, but to see how far you would go swinging playfully at my face, than let you see me naked. Somehow I love you most when you look at me with those mischievous eyes and lie to my face, than when you are playing with my hair and humming gently into my ear. I think that if our eyes never met, I would not consider you more than a servant...a long lost friend, maybe.

If you meet me tonight, just as I have asked, expect that I will have already forgotten these words I am writing. You will have to come forward and tell me your name. You should look deeply into my eyes and tell me that I have sent for you again. It is not out of pity or boredom that I call on you like this. I have been waiting. I have been planning my escape. It is in my desperation that I love you this way...our way. I am not sure you understand what it is to look into your eyes.

I lost myself to your looks. How ironic, no?

Losing to you,

Mary

On Beethoven Listening to Cannon Fire

Is it so hard to believe that pain will come when you least expect it?

We often subject ourselves to sadness or inexorable, unrequited passion, even to the darkest of thoughts. It is in this curious way that we prepare ourselves for supreme tragedy, loss, and uncomfortable bliss - all of which need to be felt and then grown out of before we should consider our words more than child's blather.

The Old Man Is Crying

The old man is crying.
It’s only a little, but still
It makes me wonder if he should.
Why tell him not to?
He’s from a slower time
Where roadkill and sad news lingers.
You could not fast-forward or rewind then.
He sees a sad and wonder-filled world now.
Let him cry.
People have to yell at him.
They have to yell to reach him.
1925, that’s where he’s from.
He remembers when there was always a deeper hurt.
His first love leaves with another.
His virginity, gone with another.
His wife, gone with another.
His children, gone with another.
Eventually, he tells me,
You stop getting so hurt.
You just remember the hurt you felt.
And that’s why he cries.

The Curious Few

A beautiful sky
Dynamically blue
Fills with wonder
The curious few
Glad to ponder
A minute or two
How far they would fly
In so happy a hue

You Are Setting the Table

I am no man to stand up

To my feelings, initially disruptive.

I am a man to write it down and wonder.

Your face, in dealing with labor,

Proves beauty to be so rare

In the face of another.

You work, taking my thoughts

By surprise with the innocence

Of strong things, serious eyes,

Pursuits of which I value

More than the infatuation

That is the love of something new.

You are not new, but rather timeless

As sighs beneath sunset or sunrise,

That familiar perfection in the face

Of good dreams, where hours after

You stay under the tide of romances,

Affections, and well-taken chances.

Maybe my overcoming these feelings

By way of bold action is in contradiction

To my nature to crave

That which is out of reach

Or taste that which will destroy me.

I may need help,

For you are setting the table

And I am making much of you.

Note to my child on his or her first day

            I’m only 25 years old and it’s summer right now, but I imagine that I have learned a few things so far as a person with nearly 20 first-days of school.

            Keep your head up in every situation, whether you are wrong or right or unsure. Smile at people, especially if they look lost or sad. Not everyone is going to like you. People are going to treat you badly, and at some point, you are going to get hurt. That’s kinda the point of life. It’s hard and you are not really going to fit in.

            Some people will like you, though. They will like you for who you chose to be. Those are good people. Some of them will be your friends. Others will just be good people to you.

            Be good to the teachers and faculty you see. They are brave, lost, scared, loving, and hard-working, lazy people. Respect them for trying to take care of every child in this area. It is not easy. Your grandmother poured her heart into the lives of children just like you and me. Treat teachers like they’re trying to do that.

            I’m not sending you here to make friends or get good grades. I’m sending you here so that you can learn. Making friends and grades are parts of learning, but so are bullies and failures. I’m sending you away from our home so that you can learn something outside of where I teach and care for you. I hope that by doing this, you will learn to care for and teach yourself one day. Go learn something about something.

            I love you so much that I will allow this pain and happiness into your life. These days will change you, lift you up, and try to drown you. I pray you will reach out to me when you need a father and ask if you need a friend.

Loving you before love will bring you to me,

Dad

No One to Retrace My Steps with Me and Ask If I Remember

It can't be said that it can't be said,

And I, for that matter, would rather instead

Wake to the basics which fascinated,

Like cherishing burns and returning to bed.

The light in the cave overlapping the mind

As dreams, ever-tapping, come up from behind.

Bedded by a slowness of thought,

I empty my shoes of reminders.

spider in the road wandering between

slivers of woods in velvet dark green

like tentacles gripping hard against stone

warning of danger beneath what is shown

the shadows in flight swollen ignite

the moon the road and charming delight

black cage sways burning above me

bizarre as voices that echoed they love me

sweat on the mouth and mud at my feet

a hug from behind as only you’d greet

whisper my name your breath gives off heat

you flee to black water through fields of dead wheat

Then again, there is no again.
A glance at the face of the state that we're in,
Lost now forever to predilection
And dreams that dissolve just as they begin.

Steel Wool

If I am a cage of steel wool

With heart of rubber, swollen black,

And you are a torch, a light from heaven,

Fleeting across my back,

I'd feel you call through, heart-like shone

Upon my neck as temperance dries.

I'd wonder if you'd closer grown

Or flames just grew in size.

The radiance of your presence being

Enough to melt my immured heart,

And I only to face the flames,

Look down, feel it depart.

With hands across a chest of mesh

Stinging from internal burn,

Through holes between my shaky flesh,

The love from me adjourn.

When the Mad King Relives Fairy Tales

There is no hell like serving a King,
To grace his sickening fantasy.
What a proud beast, this poisoning King.
See how he coils in his stagnancy.
He fills his head with towering halls.
Empty spaces replace his reason,
Believes a ghost, his queen, haunts the halls,
And sanity becomes high treason.

A beast and beauty trapped in their dreams,
One in love and one in confusion,
See not the potency, how such dreams
Caress with each breath an illusion.
No screen or mirror reflects beauty.
Loneliness leads to self-obsession.
The beast gives his life for some beauty,
As if his weakness were perfection.

A fairy tale from golden pages
Now rests upon the King's looping mind.
The same soul which reached for those pages
Is tangled behind foreign eyes, blind.
With pearls and jewels of violet and blue
Reminding him of beauty's embrace,
He droops down to the garden in blue
To reflect in green pools his proud face.

The roses hold themselves together,
Sturdy through tempestuous weather.
The empty fountains will be refilled,
Yet in his poisoned mind he is killed.
Seven days spent alone on a stage.
The King buries himself in dark sighs.
The audience is far from the stage,
So he sings like the swan as it dies.

Stunned in a Stairwell Near a Wheelchair Well-known

He had to sit and so

He dies by suicide

Of broken skull, heart, pride.

The sun stood tall in their minds

As they sat on a step,

Twilit in a stairwell.

Two faces swore he fell,

And wagged back and forth between

Shoulders tightly knotted.

They slowly turned to stone

As it glistened and shone,

The blood drying in twilight. 

Seeing Madness And the Sea

I awoke to myself choking me
the walls as soft as bread
and light from the street

In my step sensitivity sewn
deliberately on my descent
I drew from darkened drawer
to leaves aching at my door

I climbed into a coat
and managed down the street
peering through the window

A foggy trip I know not where
possessed me spill my memory

The ravenous voice of heaven
mumbling into lives before me
mother and child recoil
and fathers with dry hands
soaking in the soil

Crows in trees frozen wings like fruit
chosen to hold on for fear of death
to fall into the air or to suspend where
nothing remains by one's own hand

Two thin men with eyes burning in love
lead me away set sail from bed to bed
and smiled right into the aching at my door

They shook me roared and took me to
a figure tall with lips light blue
crimson nails and smokey hiss

The sky was damp pink
glowing pink long after
the last cast of light did sink
a colorful warning I slept through

One bird flew into suspense
and from below I saw him slide
driven mad straight to the sea
the wind pulled him instantly

Father Pavlovitch Karamazov

No head upon the Father of Lies,

Who, taking offense, plays the part of the martyred,

Sadly shedding dignity before his sons.

With vagrancy behind grotesque eyes

He teaches them how to pull a trigger,

End a lie, start a fire.

Nothing withheld from him but his own head,

Our Father is, by self-arrangement,

Passionately disturbed.

A kiss, then, is so unharmonious as to seal his fate,

Placed upon each boy’s neck,

Causing brothers to turn upon their own flesh,

Like ascetic bliss.