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